Demonstrators protest for transgender rights with a rally, march through the Loop and a candlelight vigil to remember transgender friends lost to murder and suicide on March 3, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. | Getty Images/Scott Olson
More than a dozen state attorneys general have come to the defense of an Arkansas law banning the use of puberty blockers on children with gender dysphoria amid a legal challenge, arguing that states have an obligation to “protect kids.”
Led by Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, the Republican attorneys general of Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas filed an amicus brief in federal court last Tuesday. They asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas to reject the ACLU’s motion to block Arkansas’ Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act. The law, the first of its kind to be passed in the nation, prohibits physicians from providing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and elective cosmetic gender surgeries to children under 18.
Additionally, the measure prohibits state tax dollars from funding such practices and allows insurance companies to deny coverage for sex reassignment surgeries. The legislation was passed by the Republican-led state legislature in March. But Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson vetoed the measure when it reached his desk. The legislature overrode the veto, enabling the SAFE Act to become law.
Shortly after, the progressive legal nonprofit ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of four Arkansas families seeking to invalidate the law. The complaint argues that the law “denies adolescents medically necessary treatment and prevents parents from obtaining medically necessary care for their children.” Although the ALCU claims that the law prohibits “doctors from treating their patients in accordance with the well-established standards of care,” the attorney’s general’s friend-of-the-court brief argues that the lawsuit is “misleading” and ignores “risks such experimental treatments pose.”
“They ignore the fact that children cannot fully understand the long-term risks associated with the procedures,” the brief argues.
“They threaten that Arkansas’s law will result in increased suicides even though the research does not support such a claim. And they assert that the State’s protection of its children is ‘animus’ against transgender youth, even though, among other problems with the statement, most of these children will not identify as transgender as adults since their dysphoria will have resolved naturally so long as they can be protected from Plaintiffs’ preferred experiments.”
The brief was filed over a month after the ACLU first asked the court to rule in favor of Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge and the other defendants seeking to uphold the SAFE Act. The attorneys general argue that states have been forced to step in to protect children because children with gender dysphoria are being given “puberty blockers, then cross-sex hormones, then surgical interventions such as ‘chest reconstruction surgery’ … to ‘masculinize’ … a girl’s chest …”
The plaintiffs argue that not taking such measures “can result in debilitating anxiety and depression, self-harm, and suicide,” the brief explains.
“States have been forced to step in to protect kids from experimental treatments,” the brief argues. “Because “the medical establishment has abandoned the field to the political zeitgeist, which labels dissenting opinions as ‘animus’ (or worse) and closes its ears to the tragic and growing chorus of detransitioners who feel betrayed by the adults who should have been caring for them.”
The “peculiar vulnerability of children,” specifically their “inability to make critical decisions in an informed, mature manner,” is listed as a justification for state action.
The attorneys general warned that cross-sex hormones and other medical interventions to address gender dysphoria could lead to “irreversible, lifelong consequences.” They include “complications such as infertility, loss of sexual function, increased risk of heart attacks and strokes, bone-density problems, risk of altered brain development, social risks from delayed puberty, and mental health concerns.”
The document cited the decision by the Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital at Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden “to change course and prohibit the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in minors except in clinical trial settings.”
A statement from the hospital contends that “these treatments are potentially fraught with extensive and irreversible adverse consequences such as cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, infertility, increased cancer risk, and thrombosis.”
The attorneys general maintained that “the evidence that does exist shows that most cases of gender dysphoria resolve naturally by adulthood.”
“At the end of the day, it was the responsibility of the Arkansas legislature to determine the best way to protect children suffering from gender dysphoria and other forms of gender-related psychological distress. The medical uncertainty in the field does not relieve that responsibility, but only heightens it,” the brief reads.
“Based on the evidence, the legislature determined that the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical interventions are still experimental in nature and that the risks of such procedures outweigh their benefits. That determination does not discriminate against children suffering from gender dysphoria, but seeks to protect them.”
The Biden administration believes that Arkansas law is unconstitutional.
In a court filing in support of the ACLU’s lawsuit, the U.S. Department of Justice asserted that “federal law bars the State of Arkansas from singling out transgender minors for specifically and discriminatorily denying their access to medically necessary care based solely on their sex assigned at birth.”
Such action, the Justice Department argues, would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The consequences of allowing minors to undergo medicalized gender transitioning have received heightened attention in recent weeks. The CBS news magazine program “60 Minutes” profiled detransitioners who underwent some form of gender transitioning as minors only to regret their decision later in life. A mainstream media outlet giving a platform to detransitioners outraged transgender activists, who accused the program of doing “harm” to the transgender community by reporting on the transgender debate from that particular angle.
Journalist Lesley Stahl defended the production.
“Their point is that they were not getting proper healthcare,” Stahl said in a follow-up segment. “That was their point and that’s the point we wanted to emphasize: that these were young people that were not getting proper healthcare advice.”
LGBT activists also slammed the American Bookseller Association for promoting the book Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier, which highlights the rapid acceleration in the number of girls seeking to undergo gender transition surgery in addition to the long-term consequences associated with such procedures.
In response to the outcry, the ABA apologized for promoting a book that “goes against ABA’s ends policies, values and everything we believe and support,” describing their previous action as “inexcusable.”
An “America First” rally that had been scheduled for Saturday in Anaheim, California, was canceled, and city officials were jubilant over the news.
A Twitter post from the city announced the cancellation, noting that the city was a prime mover in ensuring that the event featuring Republican Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia would not take place.
“The city of Anaheim shared public safety concerns with the operator, and those concerns were shared by the operator,” the statement said.
Then came a hint at the real reason.
“As a city we respect free speech but also have a duty to call out speech that does not reflect the city or our values,” the statement said.Advertisement – story continues below
When the city was called out for picking and choosing which brands of free speech were permitted, the city insisted safety concerns it did not elaborate upon were the real reason.
“Please help us share accurate information. We uphold free speech every day in Anaheim. As a city, we enjoy the same right of free speech and can note when something doesn’t align with our values. To be clear: public safety concerns are why this is not still on,” the city said in a statement.
Many on Twitter noted that this decision smacked of censorship.
Saturday’s canceled rally was to be held at the Anaheim Event Center, a privately owned facility, according to KNBC-TV.Advertisement – story continues below
The event had been scheduled at venues in two other southern California cities — Laguna Hills and Riverside — but each backed out, KNBC reported.
“I recognize this was a divisive issue in our community, and I am glad it has been resolved,” Riverside Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson said, adding that she commended a venue that canceled the event.
The Laguna Hills venue, the Pacific Hills Banquet & Event Center, is also privately owned.
However, the Riverside Convention Center, which also canceled the rally, is owned by the city. That means the cancellation could face a serious legal challenge, KNBC reported.
Greene and Gaetz did hold a protest event outside Riverside City Hall on Saturday.
“They may try to shut down our venues, but we will take this fight to them in the courts, in the halls of Congress and, if necessary, in the streets,” Gaetz said, according to KCAL-TV.
Donald Trump won the last election and he’s gonna win the next one!
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
Nikole Hannah-Jones argued in 2019 that Cuba’s socialist government affords residents a utopian form of racial equality unmatched anywhere in the Western Hemisphere
Nikole Hannah-Jones /Marcus Ingram/Getty Images
Last week, spontaneous uprisings erupted across Cuba as residents of the island nation bravely stood up to protest the pains inflicted upon them by the country’s oppressive communist regime. That news likely came as a shock to journalist and “1619 Project” creator Nikole Hannah-Jones, who argued in 2019 that the country’s socialist government affords residents a utopian form of racial equality unmatched anywhere in the Western Hemisphere.
During an interview with progressive journalist Ezra Klein for Klein’s podcast “Vox Conversations,” Hannah-Jones touted Cuba as the “most equal“ country in the Western Hemisphere, “largely due to socialism.”
“Are there candidates right now or even just places that you think have a viable and sufficiently ambitious integration agenda, and if so, what is it?” Klein asked, prompting the discussion.
“If you want to see the most equal, multiracial democ … it’s not a democracy — the most equal, multiracial country in our hemisphere, it would be Cuba,” Hannah-Jones responded, despite admitting she’s not an “expert” on race relations internationally.
“Cuba has the least inequality between black and white people of any place really in the hemisphere,” she continued. “I mean the Caribbean — most of the Caribbean it’s hard to count because the white population in a lot of those countries is very, very small. They’re countries run by black folks. But in places that are truly at least biracial countries, Cuba actually has the least inequality, and that’s largely due to socialism, which I’m sure no one wants to hear.”
Hannah-Jones’ controversial comments can be heard at the 1:12:20 mark of the podcast.
The National Pulse, which first unearthed the remarks, noted that the journalist also penned an op-ed in 2008 praising Cuba as a gold standard example for other countries to follow. In the op-ed, Hannah-Jones commended the communist country for its high literacy rate, low HIV infection rate, and for bringing about the “end of codified racism.“
“It manifests in what Cuba has accomplished, through socialism and despite poverty, that the United States hasn’t,” she stated.
After news broke about Hannah-Jones’ past comments, conservative critics pounced.
“Please go to Cuba and stay in Cuba — Nicole [sic] Hannah-Jones,”tweeted American Conservative Union senior fellow Mercedes Schlapp. “The anti-American factions in our own country fail to understand the horrors of Communism.”
Another commenter quipped, “Yes, all the Cuban people are suppressed ‘equally’!!!” adding, “Send Nikole to Cuba!”
“Note to Nikole: Cuba has ‘equality’ because everyone is equally desperately poor,” another said.
Wendolynn Perez, 23, second from left, a DACA recipient who is now a permanent resident and is originally from Peru, chants with other supporters of immigration reform, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017, at the White House in Washington. The protesters want to preserve the Obama administration program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. The Trump administration has said it still has not decided the program’s fate.(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
A federal judge on Friday ruled the Deferred Actions for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program is illegal and blocked new enrollments.
Recall, Barack Obama granted illegal aliens protection in 2012 when he established the DACA program. According to reports, more than 800,000 illegal aliens are currently protected under Obama’s illegal DACA program.
Judge Hanen ordered the DHS to stop approving new DACA applications. A coalition of states, with Texas leading the way, filed a lawsuit arguing DACA is unconstitutional.
Students listen to a teacher in a classroom. | Unsplash/NeONBRAND
As the debate about critical race theory continues to engulf the political discourse in the United States, grassroots organizations and activists rely on a variety of methods to combat “woke” ideology’s influence on American education and counter what they characterize as a “destructive message.”
Over the past year, parents have become increasingly aware of content that their children have been exposed to in public, private and religious schools, as the coronavirus pandemic led to the widespread adoption of online learning. The implementation of critical theory and elements of what they call “woke” ideology in the curriculum of American schools has caused some parents and conservative activists particular concern. It’s also led to several conservative politicians voicing their outrage with the promotion of the academic framework, and some states to pass policies banning its teaching in schools.
American schools’ embrace of critical theory, controversial sex education, gender ideology, sexually explicit teaching material and other “woke” curriculums has led many parents and concerned citizens to launch advocacy groups committed to raising awareness about the situation in American education and providing parents with the tools to combat it. It has also led to the launch of political action committees seeking to elect school board candidates who oppose critical race theory.
One group is Parents Defending Education, which describes itself as a “national grassroots organization working to reclaim our schools from activists promoting harmful agendas.”
“By the time students are 18 years old and they get to college … they have never received a proper civics education, they hate America, they don’t understand the First Amendment,” Nicole Neily, the mother of two who founded Parents Defending Education this past March, told The Christian Post.
“So, if the first time you hear … free speech or First Amendment is this is why [white nationalist] Richard Spencer can come to campus, then yeah, you’re going to hate it.”
Previously having run an organization called Speech First that “defends students’ rights on campus primarily through litigation,” Neily said that she was inspired to launch Parents Defending Education after seeing news articles about how some schools were providing benefits to minority groups and discriminating against white students in the name of diversity.
Parents Defending Education has compiled an “IndoctriNation” map of schools teaching students controversial curriculum based on tips from parents that also includes a directory of parent groups set up to combat “woke” ideology within public schools. She clarified that the map does not include “hearsay.”
“Everything is backed up with a screenshot, a URL … a Freedom of Information Act request,” Neily stated. “We asked the schools for comment. We asked the schools to verify that the information is correct. … We are only putting up information that we stand behind.”
“We have on our map about 100 parent groups across the country that have been created mostly within the past year, specifically to address political indoctrination in schools — not math, not reopening, not school choice, specifically political indoctrination,” Neily explained.
Among the concerns that Neily has with “woke” curriculums is the promotion of critical race theory.
“I honestly don’t think [critical race theory] should be banned,” Neily told CP. “When I did my master’s degree, I had to read Karl Marx.”
“Where I have a problem is when … [critical race theory] is taught to students … as the only way,” she said. “How some of these things are implemented, I think … it encourages discrimination.”
What is critical race theory?
Encyclopedia Britannica defines critical race theory as “an intellectual movement and loosely organized framework of legal analysis based on the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings but a socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of colour.”
According to the reference source, “critical race theorists hold that the law and legal institutions in the United States are inherently racist insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans.”
Proponents of critical race theory, such as those at the New York-based Leadership Academy, argue that the steadfast opposition to the ideology arises from “fear and misunderstanding.” The organization trains educators on how to dismantle “systemic inequities in schools.”
“Critical race theory, at its core, is about acknowledging the existence and impact of race and racism in our communities and society,” wrote the Leadership Academy’s Mary Rice-Boothe and Jill Grossman. “It is about valuing multiple points of view and life experiences, which are essential for helping students learn to think critically about and participate in our global and diverse world.”
The scholars alleged that critical race theory is “central to culturally responsive leadership, which research and our experience supporting thousands of leaders across the country has shown is critical for disrupting inequities in our schools.”
Additionally, they stated that “equity and culturally responsive policies and teaching practices are about making sure students of every race, ethnicity, language, and other characteristics of their identity, feel valued and respected and have what they need to achieve academic, social, and emotional success.” Rice-Boothe and Grossman summarized critical race theory as “simply about humanity.”
The most prominent example of curriculum embracing critical race theory is The 1619 Project, a partnership between The New York Times and the Pulitzer Center that portrays the arrival of enslaved Africans on American soil in 1619 as “the beginning of the system of slavery on which the country was built.”
Launched in 2019, the curriculum framework places the institution of slavery at the center of the national narrative around the country’s founding instead of 1776 and the American Revolution.
Christopher Rufo, a writer, filmmaker and researcher who has studied the issue extensively, defines critical race theory as “an academic discipline that holds that the United States is a nation founded on white supremacy and oppression and that these forces are still at the root of our society.”
Rufo, an outspoken opponent of critical race theory, added that “critical race theorists believe that American institutions, such as the Constitution and legal system, preach freedom and equality, but are mere ‘camouflages’ for racial discrimination.”
According to Rufo, adherents to critical race theory believe that “racism is a constant, universal condition” that “simply becomes more subtle, sophisticated, and insidious over the course of history.” He characterized the discipline as a reformulation of “the old Marxist dichotomy of oppressor and oppressed, replacing the class categories of bourgeoisie and proletariat with the identity categories of white and black.”
“…….the old Marxist dichotomy of oppressor and oppressed, replacing the class categories of bourgeoisie and proletariat with the identity categories of white and black.”
James Lindsay, who hosts the “New Discourses” podcast, elaborated on critical race theory in a video for the nonprofit media organization Prager University. An opponent of critical race theory, he quoted from two of its proponents, Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, in an attempt to portray the philosophy as un-American: “Critical Race Theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, enlightenment rationalism, and the neutral principles of constitutional law.”
NEA embraces CRT as the public remains lukewarm
Earlier this month, Rufo reported that “the nation’s largest teachers’ union has approved a plan to promote critical race theory in all 50 states and 14,000 local school districts.” He shared screenshots showing that the National Education Association approved New Business Item 39 at its annual meeting and representative assembly two weeks ago.
New Business Item 39 calls on the NEA to make it clear that “we oppose attempts to ban critical race theory and/or The 1619 Project.” The measure advocates for the publication of an “already-created, in-depth, study that critiques empire, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, racism, patriarchy, racism, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society.”
The item also indicated an intention for the union to double down on its support for an “accurate and honest teaching of social studies topics … including critical race theory.” It also signaled an intent to “join with Black Lives Matter at School” to create a “national day of action to teach lessons about structural racism and oppression” and “conduct a virtual listening tour that will educate members on the tools and resources needed to defend honesty in education including but not limited to tools like CRT.”
While critical race theory has achieved a lot of support in academia, it remains very unpopular with the American public as a whole. A poll released last month found that 38% of Americans had a very or somewhat favorable opinion of the ideology. In comparison, 58% had a very or somewhat unfavorable view of critical race theory. Majorities of Democrats, liberals, African Americans and Americans between the ages of 30 and 44 viewed critical race theory favorably, while majorities of all other groups hold the opposite views.
The teaching of critical race theory at American schools is part of a broader trend of educational institutions embracing what critics refer to as “toxic new curriculums.” Parents across the country have spoken out in opposition to these curriculums, with parent opposition in Loudoun County, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C., receiving much media attention.
At a school board meeting earlier this year, concerned parents read aloud texts that the county’s children were exposed to in freshman honors English classes that included portrayals of domestic violence and graphic descriptions of sex acts. A video of the parents reading excerpts from the books, published by the grassroots organization Fight for Schools, has received more than 150,000 views [Warning: video contains graphic and sexually explicit language].
‘It is in everyone’s backyard’
Neily told CP that in addition to spotlighting groups of concerned parents and schools exposing children to material widely seen as problematic, she sees the mission of Parents Defending Education as seeking to “empower, expose and engage.”
The activist hopes to “empower” American parents by “[telling] people what their rights are” if their children attend a public school, specifically mentioning the First Amendment, Title VII and Title IX. She illustrated that while students have rights at public schools, “they generally do not have the same rights at private schools.”
Neily hopes to get parents engaged in their children’s education and equip them with the tools needed to share their concerns, such as “How do you write a letter to the editor?”“What are questions to ask your school board?” “How do you get involved in a school board race?” “How do you … file a Freedom of Information Act request?” “How do you file a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Education?”
Expanding on her organization’s goal to “expose,” Neily stressed that she’s “very much a believer in the saying that ‘sunshine is the best disinfectant.’”
She illustrated the need to make American parents aware of what their children are learning at school.
“A lot of this has been happening. People have no idea it’s in their backyard,” she explained. “Many people believe that this problem is like primarily a California and a New York problem. It is not. It is in red states. It is in blue states. It is in private schools. It is in parochial schools. It is in everyone’s backyard.”
Neily said that during the pandemic, American parents “saw what their children were learning on a regular basis because classrooms were then in their living rooms.” She called that the “silver lining” of the coronavirus pandemic.
She recalled how finding out what their children were learning motivated parents to reach out to her and ask, “How do we get the schools to listen to us?” and “What can we do?”
The activist said an action taken by the public school system in Wellesley, Massachusetts, earlier this year is the worst example of “woke” ideology.
Following the shooting at Atlanta-area spas that left several Asian masseuses dead, the school district held a “healing space for Asians and people of color”during school hours, with the invitation for the event specifically highlighting that “white students [were] not allowed.”
Characterizing the event as “modern-day segregation,” Neily’s organization filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights with the U.S. Department of Education, citing the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled school segregation unconstitutional.
People hold up signs during a rally against “critical race theory” (CRT) being taught in schools at the Loudoun County Government center in Leesburg, Virginia on June 12, 2021. | AFP via Getty Images/Andrew Caballero
‘We’re fighting Marxism’
Parents Defending Education is not the only group dedicated, at least in part, to opposing critical race theory.
Kevin McGary, the co-founder of Every Black Life Matters, is a staunch critic of critical race theory. | Kevin McGary
Kevin McGary, the father of two children, co-founded Every Black Life Matters approximately nine months ago. The group is a response to the “race hatred” and “violence” that resulted from the video of African American George Floyd’s “atrocious” and “heinous” death in police custody.
His organization aims to counter the Black Lives Matter movement, which he referred to as “radical revolutionary Marxists” in an interview with The Christian Post.
“We are founded based on fundamentals that say the nuclear family is important, that protecting black life from conception to the grave is important, that helping encourage black life from early childhood development in education is important,” he asserted. “We believe that having an active father as a part of children’s life is important.”
Acknowledging that “we’re sort of leveraging the momentum of Black Lives Matter,” McGary held up his organization as “the exact opposite of BLM” and the “antithesis” to the left-wing advocacy group.
Every Black Life Matters includes a “template library of … letters that are already pre-written for school boards, city council, other … people that are running for political office or are holding political office.” McGary told CP that all concerned parents have to do is “put their names on it and send it to those people.”
While much of the focus in the effort to push back against critical theory has focused on public schools, the ideology has infiltrated religious schools as well.
As The Christian Post previously reported, Loyola Academy, a Catholic school based in a suburb of Chicago, faced backlash from several parents after employing “diversity consultants” and conducting Zoom meetings where teachers included their gender pronouns.
Noelle Mering, a fellow with the Washington-based think tank Ethics & Public Policy Center, wrote an op-ed arguing that critical theory is incompatible with the teachings of the Catholic Church. She discussed parents’ concerns about Loyola.
“Students were racially segregated for school assignments on privilege,” she wrote. “A working-class student was bewildered to learn that because of his skin color, he is an oppressor to his peers, some of whom live in multi-million dollar homes.”
The Grace Church School, a private Episcopal school in Manhattan, came under fire from both teachers and parents for integrating a “repressive ideology” into its curriculum.
Paul Rossi, a former teacher at the school, wrote an op-ed accusing the Grace Church School of pressuring students to “identify primarily with their race before their individual identities are fully formed” and assigning “the morally compromised status of ‘oppressor’” to one group of students “based on their immutable characteristics” as “dependency, resentment, and moral superiority are cultivated in students considered ‘oppressed.’”
McGary attributed the presence of critical theory and “woke” ideology in religious schools to the fact that “they are using critical race theory within our seminaries.”
“And so, we have woke theologians now that are coming out and spreading a false Gospel,” he said.
Echoing Rufo’s analysis, McGary sees the implementation of critical theory and “woke” ideology in both public and religious schools as part of a larger effort to advance Marxist ideology in the U.S.
“Marxism is really what we’re fighting against on all fronts at the moment,” he said. “It’s not necessarily these individual elements — CRT, liberation theology … social justice. Fundamentally, at their core, they’re all based in … Marxism. And so, we’re fighting Marxism.”
“What we need to help people understand is that Marxism has led to more human atrocities, more human deaths, more economic damage and collapse than any other system in world history,” he continued.
“… part of a larger effort to advance Marxist ideology in the U.S.“
Lambasting Marxism for causing over 100 million deaths and “all economic collapse,” McGary emphasized that “there is no actual great, perfect track record with Marxism.”
While he admitted that “capitalism is not perfect either,” he praised the economic system as “better than Marxism” by “any viable metric.”
McGary maintained that schools “should teach the good and bad of history.”
“If indeed we do have … Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, a lot of other founders and/or presidents who were slave owners … that’s fine,” he said.
“We should know the good and bad of … our patriots and heroes and our founders.”
He criticized the move to “expunge history and say that these guys were strictly bad guys,” pointing to some curriculum, “saying that George Washington was a plantation owner … and a slave owner.” He feels “they focus on that and really exclude the fact that he was an American Revolutionary War hero, that he was the first president.”
McGary opined that rather than teaching “accurate history,” critical race theory proponents instead seek to present a “revisionist history.”
‘A more patriotic curriculum’
In May, Ryan Girdusky, a conservative writer and political commentator, founded the 1776 Project PAC, a political action committee supporting school board candidates who explicitly oppose critical race theory.
Speaking to The Christian Post, he emphasized the importance of school boards. He stressed his organization’s mission to “get school board people in there who can actually start reversing it” by changing the superintendents and textbooks as well as pushing “for a more patriotic curriculum.”
He wants school boards to “start negotiating and countering these principals and these teachers who are pushing this policy.”
“There are many institutions working on creating an alternative curriculum in history,” Girdusky said, including Hillsdale College.
“There’s many institutions on the right that are looking to … get involved … with the program of changing curriculum. So hopefully, we can have a meeting of the minds and find the best options that we can put in front of school board members and say, ‘Can you consider this?’”
Girdusky clarified that his organization was not recruiting candidates but rather “supporting candidates who are opposed to critical race theory and the 1619 Project.” He elaborated on the role of school boards, which he characterized as “the only check really for the public school systems that voters have.”
“They can hire superintendents, negotiate with the schools. They can try to hold teachers and principals more accountable within the school system,” he added. “They can pick out which textbooks are … acceptable, and they purchase textbooks in many cases. They can pick out which outside reading material is acceptable.”
Girdusky acknowledged that “conservatives have been trying [for decades] to get children out of the public school into either private school … or charter schools.” However, he maintained that it is still essential to focus on fixing the public schools because “a majority of children will always go to public schools.”
Girdusky, who comes from “a very large family” with “a lot of younger cousins,” was motivated to start the 1776 Project PAC after discovering that as “many of [his cousins] were in school at home … on Google classroom” as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Teachers were incorporating things inside their classrooms that were pretty horrendous and pretty shocking,” the activist claimed. For example, “children as young as 8, 9 years old were being taught things … about racial profiling from police. And one of the teachers basically … said that … police are all racist.”
“What’s happening at the schools and inside classrooms that I find horrendously shocking is … teachers telling … children that there’s implicit bias against them if they’re non-white or that white students have … implicit bias against … non-white people, and that the institutions that really … created this country and … keep our civilization are … inherently created to work against them.”
Consequences for society as a whole
Neily told CP that she worries that “we are encouraging people to hate each other, to doubt each other, to make judgments about each other based on immutable characteristics.”
She slammed critical race theory’s “destructive message.” Girdusky agreed, calling critical theory a “cancer that society is pushing.”
“It’s telling non-white children that they are handicapped in the society that they are raised in on purpose to hurt them. And it says that everyone from our Founding Fathers to entrepreneurs to … the heads of major companies today to their local government and their police force is implicitly working to … keep them down,” he explained. “It’s telling white children, some of which … are extremely young and have no understanding of race or the history of race in our country … that they are racist, that they are born racist … and that’s a terrible lesson to learn.”
Girdusky contends that this ideology will have “detrimental” consequences for the health of American society:
“In a nation that is … multiracial now and increasingly more diverse, it breeds [an] immense amount of social distrust.”
McGary said that the widespread promotion of critical race theory extends far beyond the classroom.
“The net impact is people are viewing … each other with a certain amount of distrust. African Americans have adopted critical race theory to such a degree that a lot of them are viewing white people with complete disdain just because they’re white, and … they’re viewing Asians with disdain,” he stated.
“There’s been a lot of Asian hate, but there hasn’t been a whole lot of coverage as to what is the predominant … ethnicity of the person carrying out those hate crimes and that’s because it’s an inconvenient truth that … blacks are viewing Asians as white-passing and they’ve internalized racist white supremacy. And so, they’re going after Asians with the same vigor that they have towards whites.”
McGary stated that the American public as a whole is “over-sensitized to race.”
“Every conversation, every civic discussion … 10, 12 years ago, we didn’t go around labeling people based on their skin color, whether you’re an oppressed, oppressor, whether you’re privileged or … supremacist … or racist or whatever. Twelve years ago, that didn’t exist.”
He warned that in “every real and every domain,” people are making “snap assessments about people based on the color of their skin and not the content of character.”
McGary connected the adoption of critical theory and “woke” ideology to the rising crime rates across the country. He predicted that “we’re going to see a lot more racial hatred and a lot more crimes based on race as opposed to any other factor.” He believes the “if people don’t get a handle on this stuff, we could actually see a certain amount of mass civil unrest in certain cities between races.”
“we’re going to see a lot more racial hatred and a lot more crimes based on race as opposed to any other factor.” He believes the “if people don’t get a handle on this stuff, we could actually see a certain amount of mass civil unrest in certain cities between races.”
All three agreed that critical theory runs contrary to the teachings of the late civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr. Girdusky is concerned that “too many people confuse critical race theory with Martin Luther King Jr.’s conception of having a colorblind America and equality when, in fact, it is using race as the cornerstone of every inequality and inequity in society.”
“What happened to Martin Luther King? What happened to the … content of our character and not the color of our skin?” Neily asked.
McGary lamented that the country is “moving away from … the encouragement and admonition that Dr. Martin Luther King gave us.”
“We’re sort of moving away from that. We’re moving towards strictly analyzing people based upon the color of their skin,” McGary said.
Victories in the battle against CRT
Neily told CP that in the short time since Parents Defending Education was established, there had been “victories that have happened in different places.” She pointed to the town of Southlake, Texas, outside Dallas, where “they just cleared house with their school board” in an “anti-CRT wave that was swept in.”
She also praised the school district in the Chicago suburb of New Trier, Illinois, for adopting a K-12 version of the “Chicago statement” from the University of Chicago expressing support for “free speech and free expression.”
Another example of success against critical race theory is Palm Beach County, Florida. As The Palm Beach Post reported, following backlash from parents, the school board voted to retract a portion of an “equity statement” highlighting its commitment to “dismantling structures rooted in white advantage.”
It’s not just groups like Parents Defending Education, the 1776 Project PAC and Every Black Life Matters working to combat critical race theory and “woke” ideology in education. Several states have already banned the teaching of critical race theory or “divisive concepts” in their public schools, and others are in the process of doing so.
According to Education Week, 26 states have introduced bills or taken other steps to restrict the teaching of critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism, while 11 states have enacted those bans as of July 15.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s charge that the National Security Agency illegally spied on him and leaked his emails is enraging prominent liberals. Carlson sought “to sow distrust [of the NSA], which is so anti-American,” declared MSNBC analyst Andrew Weissman, formerly the chief prosecutor for Special Counsel Robert Mueller. CNN senior correspondent Oliver Darcy ridiculed Carlson for effectively claiming that “I’m not a crazy person overstating a case!”
When did the NSA become as pure as Snow White? Do pundits presume that there is a 24-hour statute of limitation for recalling any previously-disclosed NSA crimes and abuses?
The Carlson controversy cannot be understood outside the context of perennial NSA abuses. The NSA possesses a “repository capable of taking in 20 billion ‘record events’ daily and making them available to NSA analysts within 60 minutes,” the New York Times reported. The NSA is able to snare and stockpile many orders of magnitude times more information than did East Germany’s Stasi secret police, one of the most odious agencies of the post-war era.
The FBI, for its part, is permitted to rummage through the seized data under strict restrictions. In 2018, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court slammed the FBI for abusing that database with warrantless searches that violated Americans’ rights. After the FBI promised to repent, the FISA court to permitted FBI agents to continue rummaging in NSA troves. In April, the FISA court revealed that the FBI surveillance crime wave continues.
The FBI conducted warrantless searches of the data trove for “domestic terrorism,” “public corruption and bribery,” “health care fraud,” and other targets — including people who notified the FBI of crimes and even repairmen entering FBI offices. If you sought to report a crime to the FBI, an FBI agent may have illegally surveilled your email. Even if you merely volunteered for the FBI “Citizens Academy” program, the FBI may have illegally tracked all your online activity.
In 2019, the FBI unjustifiably searched the database for information on 16,000 people “even though only seven of them had connections to an investigation,” the New York Times reported. FISA court Chief Judge James Boasberg lamented “apparent widespread violations” of the legal restrictions for FBI searches but shrugged them off and permitted the scouring of Americans’ personal data to continue.
On June 30, Americans learned that one of NSA’s most intrusive surveillance engines is still being widely abused. In 2013, Edward Snowden revealed that the XKeyscore program was being used to commandeer the email and Internet data of any American who was caught “searching the web for suspicious stuff.” XKeyscore enables NSA analysts to wiretap anyone simply by entering the target’s email address into the database. Six months after Snowden’s disclosures began, federal judge Richard Leon issued a ruling denouncing the NSA surveillance regime as almost Orwellian: “I cannot imagine a more indiscriminate and arbitrary invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval.”
Travis LeBlanc, a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, released his declassified dissent to that civil liberties watchdog board recent report on XKeyscore. Hundreds of illegal or prohibited searches were apparently committed using XKeyscore in 2019. LeBlanc complained that the oversight board failed to ask “how many U.S. persons have been impacted by XKeyscore, how much data the program collects and analyzes, how widely information analyzed through XKeyscore is shared.”
However, the oversight board did not even “request specific information” about violations of U.S. law by NSA.
Americans have probably not seen even the tip of the iceberg of NSA abuses. NSA apparently never even bothered doing a formal analysis of the legality or constitutionality of XKeyscore until 2016, after the oversight board specifically requested such information. LeBlanc told the Washington Post: “What concerns me most is that we have a very powerful surveillance program that eight years or so after exposure, still has no judicial oversight, and what I consider to be inadequate legal analysis and serious compliance infractions.”
Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, the most dogged congressional watchdog of federal spying, declared that “Americans still know far too little about the government’s surveillance activities… and how it threatens their privacy.” Wyden, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is muzzled from disclosing the NSA’s confidential dirt.
NSA is like an accused murderer who continually proclaims his innocence up until the moment a video surfaces of him pulling the trigger. After Carlson stated that his emails were being intercepted, the NSA issued a statement declaring that “Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the Agency… With limited exceptions (e.g. an emergency), NSA may not target a US citizen without a court order that explicitly authorizes the targeting.”
However, 90% of the people whose emails and other data were dragged into NSA surveillance dragnets were not NSA’s actual targets, according to a 2014 Washington Post analysis based on data that Snowden provided. Shortly before Snowden’s disclosures began, National Intelligence Director James Clapper lied to Congress when he denied that the NSA collects “any type of data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions of Americans.” He was never charged for that crime, thereby encouraging falsehoods by every subsequent top federal intelligence official.
On July 7, Axios reported that “Carlson was talking to U.S.-based Kremlin intermediaries about setting up an interview with Vladimir Putin shortly” before he accused the NSA of spying on him. U.S. government officials became aware of Carlson’s effort to interview Putin. Axios noted the possibility that “one of the people Carlson was talking to as an intermediary to help him get the Putin interview was under [NSA] surveillance as a foreign agent.”
But NSA would still be prohibited from disclosing emails from an American citizen after “unmasking” his identity. As journalist Glenn Greenwald noted, “It is one of the gravest crimes in the U.S. code for the NSA to leak the contents of communications that it intercepts between a foreign official and an American citizen.”
In an interview scheduled for release on Monday (previewed by the Daily Mail), Carlson explained that he went public with his NSA charge “defensively… I don’t have subpoena power. I can’t arrest anybody. I can’t make them answer questions.” An investigative producer for Carlson’s show did file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the NSA, seeking “any call records, texts, or emails the NSA has obtained from journalist Tucker Carlson’s cell phone or email,” among other information.
Unfortunately, FOIA has long since become a sham. The Obama White House drove nails into the FOIA coffin by inventing the doctrine of “White House equities,” permitting political appointees to delay embarrassing disclosures for years (instead of the 20 business days the law requires). Obama’s Justice Department formally proposed to permit federal agencies to falsely claim that FOIA-requested documents did not exist. Such travesties did not deter the media from repeating Obama’s boast of having “the most transparent administration in history.”
NSA’s power and prerogatives have been buttressed by the vast increase in federal secrecy in recent decades. Since the 1990s, the number of documents classified annually by the feds increased more than tenfold. Federal agencies are now creating trillions of pages of new secrets each year, and each page is backed by a federal fist waiting to crush anyone who makes an unauthorized disclosure. Congress and the media have been complicit in tolerating the Iron Curtain that shrouds far too many federal abuses.
But Carlson has nothing to fear because the NSA is constrained by checks and balances elsewhere in the government, right? Fat chance. Any pretense that Deep State surveillance agencies were on a legal leash should have been destroyed by RussiaGate.
In December 2019, the Justice Department Inspector General reported that the FBI made “fundamental errors” and persistently deceived the FISA court to authorize surveilling a 2016 Donald Trump presidential campaign official, Carter Page. Former FBI assistant general counsel Kevin Clinesmith admitted to falsifying key evidence to secure the FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign.
As a Wall Street Journal editorial noted, Clinesmith “changed an email confirming Page had been a CIA source to one that said the exact opposite, explicitly adding the words ‘not a source’ before he forwarded it.” A federal prosecutor declared that the “resulting harm is immeasurable” from Clinesmith’s action. But at the sentencing hearing, Judge Boasberg gushed with sympathy: “Mr. Clinesmith has lost his job in government service—what has given his life much of its meaning.” Scorning the federal prosecutor’s recommendation for jail time, Boasberg gave Clinesmith a wrist slap—400 hours of community service and 12 months of probation.
The FISA court has gone from pretending that federal surveillance violations don’t occur to pretending that such crimes don’t matter. Practically the only remaining task is for the FISA court to cease pretending Americans have any constitutional right to privacy.
Tucker Carlson may or may not be in NSA cross-hairs at the moment, but there are plenty of other Americans who should be sweating. Capitol Police acting Chief Yogananda Pittman told Congress that the Jan. 6 riots were “a terrorist attack by tens of thousands of insurrectionists.” Does federal law enforcement believe that any Trump supporter within a mile radius of the U.S. Capitol that day was a terrorist?
President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives David Chipman favors banning more than ten million AR-15 rifles owned by American citizens. The Biden administration is claiming a right to know whether every American has been vaccinated for Covid and will be sending its agents door-to-door to harangue people who are unjabbed. Considering the Biden administration’s histrionic rhetoric on “domestic terrorism,” guns, and COVID-19, it would take only a few tweaks in NSA searches to pull up vast troves of new offenders who could be targeted.
Glenn Greenwald recently observed that “the Democratic Party and journalism, in general, has aligned with the CIA, the NSA and the FBI, and has aligned and merged with the security state.” But there was a time when Democrats were eloquent defenders against federal intrusions.
Democrat House Majority Leader Hale Boggs of Louisiana explained in 1971 that “Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of action for men in public life can be compromised quite as effectively by the fear of surveillance as by the fact of surveillance.”
Democratic Sen. Sam Ervin of North Carolina observed that same year, “When people fear surveillance, whether it exists or not, when they grow afraid to speak their minds and hearts freely to their Government or to anyone else, then we shall cease to be a free society.” A few decades earlier, Justice Robert Jackson, who had been Attorney General for FDR and the chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crime trials, declared, “Search and seizure rights… belong in the catalog of indispensable freedoms. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart.”
Americans cannot acquiesce to illegal government surveillance without forfeiting their right to the tattered remnants of their privacy. The feds need to come clean on any surveillance and leaks that may have targeted Tucker Carlson or otherwise violated his rights. The Carlson case is a wake-up call to Congress and concerned citizens to stop any new war on dissent.
The chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus celebrated her arrest Thursday after leading an incursion of protesters into the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill. Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio said that breaking the law was an important way to illustrate her belief that voting reforms passed by state legislatures will disenfranchise black voters.
“I stand in solidarity with Black women and allies across the country in defense of our constitutional right to vote. We have come too far and fought too hard to see everything systematically dismantled and restricted by those who wish to silence us,”Beatty said in a statement on her website.
“Be assured that this is just the beginning. This is Our Power, Our Message,”the congresswoman in the statement.
“You can arrest me. You can’t stop me. You can’t silence me,” Beatty said on Twitter.
NBC News reported that the protesters who joined Beatty in the incursion demanded passage of the so-called For the People Act, a Democrat bill that would largely put elections under the thumb of the federal government instead of the states.
Capitol Police said the demonstrators were arrested after refusing to disperse.
“This afternoon, nine people were arrested for demonstrating in a prohibited area on Capitol Grounds,” the department said in a statement on Thursday.
“At approximately 3:30pm, the United States Capitol Police responded to the Atrium in the Hart Senate Office Building for reports of illegal demonstration activity. After officers arrived on the scene, they warned the demonstrators three times to stop. Those who refused were arrested for D.C. Code §22-1307. Two males and seven females were transported to USCP Headquarters for processing,” Capitol Police said.
Unlike the coverage of the Jan. 6 incursion of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump, there was no hue-and-cry in the media about Beatty and the other protesters staging an “insurrection” or “threatening our democracy.”
Police arrested nine people including Democratic Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, in a prohibited area on Capitol Grounds during a pro-voting rights demonstration pic.twitter.com/kWZjpJrwYz
Many Republicans have said the fight over election reform legislation is an attempt by Democrats to use their current congressional majority as a means to cement leftist rule in America.
“Democrats want to rig every election going forward to make it nearly impossible for a conservative to win again,”Fox News host Laura Ingraham said Wednesday.
“They’re now effectively arguing that the very voting rules that delivered two two-term victories for Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are essentially just like Jim Crow 2.0,” she said.
“So this leaves them really with only one option in their mind, which is to promote racial fear-mongering in pretty much everything around them. We already know what they’re doing in our schools, to our workplaces, the military, even to now our system of voting,” Ingraham said.
Fox News host Sean Hannity said the left’s fuss over voting rights is part of a strategy to sway the 2022 elections.
“So what does this really all about? We all know there’s nothing racist about integrity in elections. Democrats are obviously worried. Chances are they now believe they probably will lose in 2022 and maybe even 2024,” he said Thursday on “Hannity.”
“Mark my words, if Democrats suffer huge losses in 2022, they will blame racist right-wing voter suppression. … The truth isn’t important to the Democratic Party or the media mob, for that matter. Power is all that matters,” Hannity said.
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
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Crowds gathered outside the Luther Jackson Middle School in Virginia, where concerned parents were rallying against critical race theory being taught to students in Fairfax County Public Schools. During Thursday’s “Stop CRT Rally,” a PTA and NAACP official spewed rhetoric against the parents, including proclaiming, “Let them die!”
“LET THEM DIE!”
An event flyer for the “Stop CRT Rally” stated: “It’s not about race or equity, it’s about a Communist Radical Takeover of America!” At the rally, there were counter protests, including a diatribe delivered by federal employee Michelle Leete, who is also the vice president of training at the Virginia Parent-Teacher Association, vice president of communications for the Fairfax County PTA, and first vice president of the Fairfax County NAACP.
Leete lambasted anti-critical race theory parents, even going so far as to say, “Let them die!”
So let’s meet and remain steadfast, steadfast, in speaking truth, tearing down double standards, and refuting double talk. Let’s not allow any double downing on lies. Let’s prepare our children for a world they deserve. Let’s deny this off-key band of people that are anti-education, anti-teacher, anti-equity, anti-history, anti-racial reckoning, anti-opportunities, anti-help people, anti-diversity, anti-platform, anti-science, anti-change agent, anti-social justice, anti-health care, anti-worker, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-children, anti-health care, anti-worker, anti-environment, anti-admissions policy change, anti-inclusion, anti-live-and-let-live people. Let them die. Don’t let these uncomfortable people, don’t let these uncomfortable people deter us from our bold march forward.
Asra Nomani, an education activist and vice president for strategy and investigations for the watchdog group Parents Defending Education, shared footage from the rally and counter protest on Twitter.
“I listened, stunned, as Michelle Leete, an executive of the NAACP and the PTA, put a target on the backs of parents just because they have a different point of view,” said Nomani, whose son recently graduated from Fairfax County Public Schools.
“What we heard tonight was hate speech, pure and simple. It was shocking that anyone would cheer and applaud a call to violence,” Nomani told the Daily Wire, “Ironically, her hateful, intolerant words are a perfect illustration of the divisive ideology of critical race theory in action. In the name of tolerance, it preaches intolerance and is a betrayal of all values of humanity and decency.”
Harry Jackson, who has three children in the Fairfax public school system and is president-elect of the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Parent Teacher Student Association, told the Daily Wire, “I was in shock looking at the crowd, watching Ms. Leete pander to white liberals with her hateful rhetoric … Her call to violence against every kind of parent, including parents who oppose changes to admissions policies at schools like TJ, also reveal that she has a serious conflict of interest.”
In May, Nomani delivered a stirring speech where she slammed the Fairfax County Public Schools board for pushing “anti-racism” propaganda.
“And then by the fall, every single one of you voted to remove the merit-based race-blind admissions test to TJ. And we pled with you, as Asians, as an immigrant (I came at the age of 4, I knew no English), and you didn’t listen to us,” Nomani scolded the school board.
Thomas Jefferson School for Science and Technology, ranked the top math school in the country, instituted a “merit lottery,” where race became a factor in admissions and academic qualifications were a lesser determinant.
The Daily Mail reported that admissions data for the class of 2025 at the prestigious school shows that black students rose from 1% in 2021 to 7%, Hispanics grew from 3% to 11%, white students increased from 18% to 22%, but Asian students dropped from 73% to 54% because of the new standards.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen acknowledged “rapid inflation” will persist for several more months after she repeatedly downplayed the risk of consumer price increases. Americans can expect consumer prices to continue their rapid rise until returning to normal in the “medium term,” Yellen said Thursday in an interview with CNBC. But Yellen, along with top Federal Reserve officials, predicted inflation wouldn’t be a concern.
“We will have several more months of rapid inflation,” Yellen told CNBC. “So I’m not saying that this is a one-month phenomenon.”
“But I think over the medium term, we’ll see inflation decline back toward normal levels,” she said. “But, of course, we have to keep a careful eye on it.”
Yet in February, Yellen downplayed the risks of inflation, saying the Treasury Department had the tools to deal with the risk “if it materializes.” She also pushed back on former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers’ warning that President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package would trigger massive, once-in-a-generation inflation.
Yellen added that the Biden administration was more worried about jobs than rising prices.
President Joe Biden speaks as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen listens during a White House meeting on April 9. (Amr Alfiky/Pool/Getty Images)
One month later, the Treasury secretary downplayed inflation again when asked if the $1,400 stimulus checks included in the relief package could boost prices, according to the Associated Press. She again pushed the legislation, saying it was key for a full economic recovery.
“I really don’t think that is going to happen,” she said in the March 8 interview, the AP reported. “We had a 3.5% unemployment rate before the pandemic and there was no sign of inflation increasing.”
Then, one week later, Yellen doubled down, arguing again that there wouldn’t be significant inflation.
“Is there a risk of inflation? I think there’s a small risk and I think it’s manageable,” Yellen told ABC News.
“I don’t think it’s a significant risk,” she continued. “And if it materializes, we’ll certainly monitor for it but we have tools to address it.”
However, consumer prices have surged faster than they have in decades, according to government data. Economists also expect inflation to rise higher and for longer than previously expected.
In addition, several major U.S. corporations have recently announced price increases while the highest number of small businesses have reported price hikes since 1981.
These Leftist can’t even lie convincingly anymore, and it obviously doesn’t bother them. When they lie it’s their native language.
A.F. Branco coffee table book “Keep America Laughing (at the left)” ORDER HERE
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On Thursday, Arizona Republicans issued a major announcement related to the audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 general election results. During the proceedings, Arizona state Senate President Karen Fann, along with state Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Warren Petersen, gave the floor to auditors who announced that as many as 74,000 absentee ballot mail-in records are missing in addition to a great many vote irregularities found by the audit.
“… as many as 74,000 absentee ballot mail-in records are missing in addition to a great many vote irregularities found by the audit.“
Fann began the hearing by introducing three individuals who played key roles in the state audit.
Lead auditor Doug Logan first introduced a video clip that detailed the process and emphasized the security measures that were taken to ensure the audit could proceed safely.
Former Arizona Secretary of State and Arizona Senate liaison Ken Bennett then provided specifics of the audit, including how many ballots were received and examined, how data was collected and examined from voting equipment and which security protocols were enforced while the audit took place.
The liaison noted that the examination of duplicate ballots was a particularly strenuous process. Duplicate ballots are typically produced when a ballot becomes damaged or is improperly marked.
With threats from a top official in Pennsylvania’s Democratic-dominated administration ringing in their ears, officials from one Pennsylvania county have refused to participate in an audit of the state’s 2020 election results. Although Tioga County is led by Republicans, county solicitor Christopher Gabriel said cooperating with the audit proposed by state Sen. Doug Mastriano would in effect be operating with a sword over the heads of county officials, according to KDKA-TV.
Last week, Acting Secretary of State Veronica Degraffenreid, an appointee of Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, issued an order ensuring counties could not cooperate with an election audit even if they wanted to.Advertisement – story continues below
“County Boards of Elections shall not provide physical, electronic, or internal access to third parties seeking to copy and/or conduct an examination of state-certified electronic voting systems, or any components of such systems, including but not limited to: election management software and systems, tabulators, scanners, counters, automatic tabulating equipment, voting devices, servers, ballot marking devices, paper ballot or ballot card printers, portable memory media devices (thumb drives, flash drives and the like), and any other hardware, software or devices being used as part of the election management system,” the order said.
And if any county were to be so bold as to defy the Democratic state administration and provide its voting machines for an election audit, it would pay the price. The order threatened that if a county were to allow an outside agency to audit its machines, “the Department of State will withdraw the certification or use authority for those pieces of the county voting system.”
Then came the hammer.
“The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will not reimburse any cost of replacement voting equipment for which certification or use authority has been withdrawn pursuant to this directive,” the order said.
Gabriel said that left Tioga County with very little wiggle room.
“We can’t be in a position where we don’t have the election machines, because we have to run the next election, these are extremely expensive machines and our position is we need to follow the direction that the secretary has given us,” Gabriel said.
Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald additionally implied that, if asked, his county will also not participate, noting that such a move would “cost the taxpayers of Allegheny County millions of dollars and potentially have the machines that we bought invalidated in which we can’t use them again.”
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said that he was undecided on his retirement in a new interview. Speaking with CNN in an interview published Thursday, the 83-year-old Breyer answered “no” when asked if he knew when he would retire. He gave two reasons that would contribute to an eventual decision: “Primarily, of course, health,” Breyer said. “Second, the court.”
Liberals have urged Breyer to step down at the end of the court’s current term so that President Joe Biden can name a younger, liberal justice to the bench while Democrats hold a Senate majority. But Breyer told CNN that he was happy as the court’s highest-ranking liberal, saying that it had “made a difference” to him.
The nine Supreme Court justices in April, 2021. Breyer sits in the front row, second from the right. (ERIN SCHAFF/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
He has also warned against packing the Supreme Court, warning in April that doing so could further erode Americans’ trust in it. He defended the court’s refusal to hear former President Donald Trump’s challenges to the 2020 election, noting that the “court is guided by legal principle, not politics.”
Breyer has been on the court since 1994, longer than any justice except for Clarence Thomas, who was confirmed in 1991.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com., and WhatDidYouSay.org..
Source: AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File
One of the unintended consequences of teachers using COVID to refuse to do their jobs in 2020 is that their students suddenly had to take classes remotely — within earshot of Dad. A mother at a fancy New York City private school told me that the wokeness curriculum was nothing new, but mothers never made a fuss about it. Then the fathers overheard their kids’ remote classes — and all hell broke loose.
Now that the teachers’ anti-white agenda has been exposed (thank you, fathers of America!), the left is spinning a series of increasingly hilarious defenses of “critical race theory,” which is just a more boring version of the left’s usual hatred of Western civilization.
Their current position is that they simply can’t discuss CRT with you because it’s too complex and can only be understood by high-level graduate students after years of study.
Paul Begala on CNN: “It’s a graduate-level construct.”
CNN’s Anderson Cooper: “It started in the ’70s, as I understand, in sort of academic circles, law schools.”
“Dr.” Ibram Kendi — who is a “doctor” in the same sense that Jill Biden is — explaining his position on CRT:
“I’m not a legal scholar. So I wasn’t trained on critical race theory. I’m a historian. … Critical race theory is taught in law schools. I didn’t attend law school, which is where critical race theory is taught.”
Oh, cut the crap. The “theory” is: Everything is based on racism.
The preposterous conceit that CRT rises above the level of a child yelling “THAT’S RACIST!” has the advantage of allowing liberals to refuse to debate it.
Here’s MSNBC’s Joy Reid dismissing Christopher Rufo, a Manhattan Institute scholar, brought on her show putatively to debate CRT: “Are you like an expert in race or racial history? Are you a lawyer? Are you a legal scholar? Is that part of your background?”
How else could Rufo possibly understand a “theory” that says:
America is racist!
Criminal law is racist!
Policing is racist!
Arrests are racist!
Incarceration is racist!
Standardized tests are racist!
Mortgages are racist!
Oh my gosh, how am I ever going to master this complex theory? I thought the quantum field theory of subatomic particle forces was tough, but THIS? I guess I’ll be hitting the books tonight.
Anne Elk: “My theory, that belongs to me, is as follows … (throat clearing) This is how it goes … (clears throat) The next thing I’m going to say is my theory. (clears throat) Ready?”
Presenter: (whimpers)
Anne Elk: “My Theory, by A. Elk (Miss). This theory goes as follows and begins now …
“All brontosauruses are thin at one end; much, much thicker in the middle and then thin again at the far end. That is my theory, it is mine and belongs to me, and I own it and what it is, too.”
Presenter: “That’s it, is it?”
CRT advocates talk in hushed tones about where the “theory” was “invented,” like they’re describing the apple falling on Newton’s head.
In fact, CRT grew out of black student protests in the 1970s, forcing universities to hire more black professors. That’s literally how the father of critical race theory, Derrick Bell, got his job. Black students protested the lack of black professors, so Bell was given a professorship at Harvard Law School.
How’d you like to be hired by the (then) premier university in the world, not based on the excellence of your scholarship, but because of students threatening to burn the campus down? Instead of being embarrassed and hoping no one ever asked how he got his job, Bell rationalized his hiring by accusing Harvard of … well, I’d tell you, but it’s too complex for you to understand. On the other hand, I don’t know how else to convey the intricacies of this deeply intellectual theorem, except to just state it:
Bell accused Harvard of … RACISM!
And thus a new academic discipline was born. (I guess all the new hires had to teach something.)
The idea that our country is steeped in white supremacy is laughable. Most of what built this country had nothing to do with race — conquering the West, the invention of electricity, the telephone, the automobile, airplanes and steamboats, bringing drinking water to Manhattan, smashing the Nazi war machine and on and on and on.
I’m sorry, Black America, but all this was happening with or without you.
Yes, slavery was an abomination, the worst thing that ever happened within the borders of the United States. But there are whole vast areas of the American economy that didn’t have anything to do with slavery.
In fact and to the contrary, the slave economy had turned the South into a backwater. If the South had won the Civil War, not only would slavery have continued, but half the country would have had a primitive third world economy.
No need to feel bad about it. The main players in America’s explosive growth weren’t women, immigrants, Hispanics or Asians, either. Somehow we got over it. On the plus side, we get to live in the best country in the world.
Jealousy and obsessive self-regard are not the stuff of an intellectual movement. The daily denunciation of white men is more akin to the tantrum of a 4-year-old.
Which, by the way, is exactly how liberals think of black Americans. If there were an international symbol for liberals, it would be one adult patting another on the head. Otherwise, liberals would just come out and say: CRT’s not a theory! It isn’t complex, it isn’t interesting, and it isn’t true. (Also: We think you’re capable of getting a voter ID.) Instead, liberals coo to the CRT devotees, It IS your birthday every day!
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One day in the 1980s I drove along a frenetic Houston freeway listening to talk radio frenzy. Gabbers went over again and again how America Is changing for the worse.
Wallace Henley, former Senior Associate Pastor of 2nd Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. | Photo by Scott Belin
I was coming from a meeting where I had watched an in-your-face media presentation about the way our civilization is collapsing. And I wondered: When will be the climactic moment of this change—or “re-imagining” as some call it now?
More important: What will the new nation look like?
Mark Steyn, in a recent speech at Hillsdale College, pondered the same question. To some extent he answered it in the title of his speech: “Our Increasingly Unrecognizable Civilization”.
Steyn recalled a starry-eyed commencement speech John Kerry gave on the graduation circuit years ago. The former Vietnam veteran, presidential candidate, senator, and secretary of state told the students: “You are going to be the first generation to live in a borderless world.”
And therein lie some of the causative factors of America’s identity crisis.
Borders are definitive, be they sexual and moral boundaries, political or national borders, or the great spiritual wall denoting good from evil. Even the line of our profile distinguishes us from others.
To paraphrase the Apostle Paul in his Second Letter to the Thessalonians, when the “restrainer” who establishes and sustains protective bulwarks is removed, lawlessness bursts in and wreaks havoc at its chaotic worst.
And so, the insanity of Portland, Minneapolis, Chicago, New York and other cities as mobs rampage while police departments are defunded, religion discredited, and voters keep electing the same people who build policy on the myth that the less restraint there is the better people will behave.
Intense change has been pressing in on America and the West for a long time. It starts out by degrees, then intensifies to what I called in one of my books, a “Globequake.”
One of the ways we mark the degrees of alteration in national identity is by contemplating the music of given eras.
Elvis became the image of change in America in the 1950s as the minstrel of the age. Back there in the pre-Elvis past was the big band music of the 1940s. Waiting behind the wall of the future were Peter, Paul, and Mary. And out there ahead of that trio was Bob Dylan, itching to tell us straight-out: “The Times, They Are A-Changin’.”
Bob Dylan was the hard-news guy, but Peter, Paul, and Mary were the romantic idealists… the dreamers who stirred us with the need to “re-imagine”—a word not part of the casual lingo of their time, but a buzzword now.
In the fullness of time came John Lennon, who put the “imagine”-word and concept right under our ears with his song, “Imagine.”
There he beckoned us to imagine a world of no heaven, hell, countries, religion, or possessions, among other things.
However, as we approached the 21st century I wondered if the “times” would continue to be ‘a-changin’, or would our nation and civilization reach the end toward which all those changes were moving us, like the Niagara River inevitably carrying everything to and over the Falls.
What would the “re-imagined” country look like? Everything Lennon wanted to get rid of constitutes a vital boundary. Unless there is some restraint, Lennon’s world would be in a state of perma-chaos—a hellish anti-civilization characterized by antinomianism, a hatred of law.
In fact, Jesus had long ago prophesied that the end-times would be characterized by the “increase” of lawlessness. (Matthew 24:12)
The Bible’s prophetic and historic passages reveal that the fundamental struggle in the fallen world is between chaos and cosmos.
Chaos is the goal of Lucifer. Its aim is de-creation, taking apart what God has put together. Critical Race Theory and similar exercises of the Woke movement show that dividing ethnic races and other categories of humanity constitute a major ploy in the fragmentation of human beings, separating people from God, themselves, and one another. Chaos is rending disorder, the ugly snarl of evil.
Cosmos is God’s order. But it is not the harsh mandate handed down by a cruel despot, or constricting legalism. Rather, as Romans 14:17 describes it, cosmos is the order of righteousness and justice, peace, and Spirit-given joy. It is the order manifested in the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. (Galatians 5:20-23).
Such beauty compels British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to call Christianity “a superb ethical system,” and to lament that he considers himself “as a kind of very very bad Christian.”
So how does the “re-imagined” America look after the rejection of this “superb ethical system” by elite establishments, and decades of manipulation, titillation, experimentation, and alteration?
Chaotic, that’s how.
“It is always hard to see the purpose in wilderness wanderings until after they are over,” wrote John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress.
So, the big question now is this: “Is the ‘end’ near… or has the journey at least reached a point from which we can look back and see the whole of where we have been and a glance at the future towards which we are moving, and what we ought to do?
We will take a closer look at the nature of this chaos and its impact on us, our families, and institutions in Part II. In Part III we project what the future might hold, and, most important, the Bible’s guidance for us “pilgrims” (apologies to John Bunyan).
ABOUT THE COMMENTATOR:
Wallace B. Henley’s fifty-year career has spanned newspaper journalism, government in both White House and Congress, the church, and academia. He is author or co-author of more than 20 books. He is a teaching pastor at Grace Church, the Woodlands, Texas.
President Joe Biden repeated a talking point that called Republicans’ election reform bills the greatest threat to democracy “since the Civil War” and compared Jan. 6 rioters to Confederate soldiers during a Tuesday speech.
Biden spoke at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia Tuesday afternoon. He called GOP election integrity efforts “an assault on democracy, an assault on liberty” and “an assault on who we are.” The president referred to his oath of office, where he swore to protect the country against both foreign and domestic threats.
“Bullies and merchants of fear, peddlers of lies, are threatening the very foundation of our country,” Biden told the crowd. “The assault on free and fair elections is not just a threat. Literally – I’ve said it before – we’re facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War. That’s not hyperbole.”
He also compared Jan. 6 rioters to Confederate soldiers.
“Confederates, back then, never breached the Capitol, as insurrectionists did on January 6,” the president said.
“Has anyone in the White actually read the Voter Law in Texas?“
Biden’s comments echo those of White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who also compared Republican election reform efforts to the Civil War during Monday’s press conference.
After polls revealed that around 75% of Republicans questioned the outcome of the 2020 election, state Republican legislatures and governors introduced legislation attempting to reform voting laws and restore trust in the election process. The process has been politically fraught and, in each state, often garnered national media attention.
Most recently, a group of Democratic lawmakers from Texas — one of the states attempting to pass election reforms — fled the state to prevent Texas Republicans from reaching the two-thirds quorum necessary to pass legislation.
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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
The exterior of a Planned Parenthood Reproductive Health Services Center is seen on May 28, 2019, in St Louis, Missouri. | Getty Images/Michael B. Thomas
A former Planned Parenthood sex education volunteer says a program that Iowa recently banned from receiving taxpayer funding pushed materials that encouraged students to become sexually active, “leading them to abortion.”
“encouraged students to become sexually active, “leading them to abortion.”“
Monica Cline, a former volunteer educator with Planned Parenthood, was recently interviewed by the Catholic news outlet EWTN for a “Pro-Life Weekly” segment. The interview came in response to a recent decision by the Iowa Supreme Court to uphold the right of the state to ban Planned Parenthood from participating in two federally-funded grant programs. Cline expressed support for the decision, saying that Planned Parenthood’s educational materials are aimed at “pushing sexuality and sexualizing children.”
“I went ahead and looked into the programs they were implementing in Iowa,” said Cline. “I was looking at the research findings and all of them were shown that they had very little positive results or no effects or even at times adverse effects, due to these types of interventions on the children.”
According to Cline, the Planned Parenthood educational materials “did not promote abstinence at all,” but rather were meant “to teach children about sexuality in order for them to become sexually active.”
“These programs are about sexualizing children and leading them to abortion,” she warned. “That is what sex education is. Comprehensive sexuality education is all about grooming children … using it as a marketing tool to lead to abortion.”
“”That is what sex education is. Comprehensive sexuality education is all about grooming children … using it as a marketing tool to lead to abortion.”“
Last month, the Iowa Supreme Court issued a ruling of 6-1 to uphold sections 99 and 100 of House File 766, which the Iowa General Assembly passed in 2019. The sections prohibit abortion providers from receiving funds from the Community Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program, which is overseen by the Iowa Department of Human Services and the Personal Responsibility Education Program, which the Iowa Department of Public Health oversees. Justice Dana Oxley wrote the majority opinion, concluding that the state “has considerable leeway in selecting who will deliver a government message, whether the message is a diversity and inclusion program, a drug prevention program, or, in this case, a sexual education and teen pregnancy prevention program.”
Justice Brent Appel wrote the lone dissent, arguing that “the statutes impose unconstitutional conditions on Planned Parenthood of the Heartland (PPH) by attempting to restrict abortion activities done on ‘their own time and dime.’”
“The legislature through unconstitutional conditions in these statutes is trying to accomplish indirectly what it cannot do directly: namely, attack abortion rights,” wrote Appel.
“This cannot be permitted. For the reasons expressed below, I would affirm the lower court’s grant of PPH’s motion for summary judgment on other grounds.”
On its website, Planned Parenthood boasts of being the “largest provider of sex education in the United States, reaching 1.5 million people with education and outreach each year.”
“Planned Parenthood sex educators teach across the lifespan — including elementary, middle, and high school as well as young adults, parents, and older adults,”stated Planned Parenthood.
“They include topics that matter, like communication skills, decision making, birth control, [sexually transmitted infections], healthy relationships, consent, body image, anatomy, and puberty.”
St. Bede’s Episcopal Church in Santa Fe, N.M. | Screenshot/Google Maps
Some 782 families in New Mexico and Arizona are now free from medical debt after a church in Santa Fe cleared their bills totaling nearly $1.4 million.
“I don’t know if this parish has ever funded a program with such a great impact. We were able to do it because every week we set aside 10% of donations to the church for outreach. Prioritizing service to others is our gospel imperative,” the Rev. Catherine Volland told ENS.
The church worked with a New York-based organization called RIP Medical Debt which uses donor funds to eliminate medical debt for some of America’s neediest families by purchasing that debt at a fraction of the actual cost. A gift of $500 to the organization, for example, can relieve $50,000 worth of medical debt.
“Once we’ve pinpointed the portfolios for those in or near the poverty level, we buy up their debt and relieve it. Then we send relief notices to the benefiting families, and subsequently help the recipients repair their credit reports — renewing their access to opportunities and resources that will allow them to rebuild and recover,” the organization explains on their website.
The Survey of Income and Program Participation shows that in 2017, 19% of U.S. households carried medical debt which is defined as medical costs people were unable to pay upfront or when they received care, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Among households with medical debt, the median amount owed was $2,000, meaning half had more and half had less. As of 2020, there were 128.45 million households in the U.S., which means that well over 24 million households in the U.S. are burdened by medical debt.
” As of 2020, there were 128.45 million households in the U.S., which means that well over 24 million households in the U.S. are burdened by medical debt. “
Census Bureau data on debt for households in 2017, further show that medical debt is distributed disproportionately across groups based on socioeconomic status, demographic characteristics as well as health status of household members. Some 27.9% of black households were shown to have medical debt compared to 17.2% of white households and 9.7% of Asian households. Some 21.7% of Hispanic households held medical debt.
Though it was not always the case in the data, the more educated members of the households were less likely to carry medical debt. The 26.2% of households found most likely to carry medical debt were those in which the highest level of education of any of the members was some college but no degree.
Only 15.5% of households where the highest level of education of any member was a bachelor’s degree had medical debt, while only 10.9% of households where the highest level of education of any member was a graduate or professional degree had medical debt.
A.F. Branco coffee table book “Keep America Laughing (at the left)” ORDER HERE
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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
The Biden administration was raked over the coals Sunday after a top State Department official claimed historic protests in Cuba were related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite the overwhelming evidence pointing to freedom as the motive behind the demonstrations, Julie Chung, acting assistant secretary for U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, claimed that — actually — Cubans are angry about COVID and medicine shortages.
“Peaceful protests are growing in #Cuba as the Cuban people exercise their right to peaceful assembly to express concern about rising COVID cases/deaths & medicine shortages. We commend the numerous efforts of the Cuban people mobilizing donations to help neighbors in need,” Chung tweeted.
Watching any video from Sunday’s demonstrations, of course, quickly dispelled the claim. The Cuban people are heavily oppressed by Cuba’s communist regime, which has resulted in generations of impoverished living. In fact, videos showed mass crowds Cuban demonstrators shouting “libertad” and “patria y vida” (homeland and life, opposite of the regime’s “patria o muerte,” which means “homeland or death”) while waving American flags, an international symbol of freedom embraced by oppressed peoples outside America.
Chung’s clearly dubious claims triggered an eruption of backlash from, most importantly, Cuban Americans angry that the Biden administration would callously ignore the obvious motive for the Cuban people’s freedom demonstrations. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), whose parents immigrated from Cuba, rebuked President Joe Biden for not publicly supporting the Cuban people and condemned Chung, whom he praised for her work at the State Department, for her ridiculous assertion.
“COVID is the icing on the cake here because you have a socialist regime that says to people, ‘You have no freedom. You have no independence. You have no ability to speak freely, but you have a really good health care system.’ They don’t!” Rubio began.
“Of course COVID has a role to play, but this began well before COVID. These people are frustrated. They want to live in a normal country,” Rubio continued. “Why can’t the State Department, why can’t the White House just say it clearly: This is not about COVID, this is not about anything else! This is about freedom — say it!”
Alberto Miguel Fernandez, a retired U.S. diplomat who was born in Cuba, said, “What a dull, lifeless, dumb tweet by #Biden @StateDept official. People in Cuba aren’t calling for COVID shots or medicine. They are calling for Freedom.”
Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), who was born in Cuba, said, “The Biden Admin is totally deranged on #Cuba policy. This isn’t some pesky protest over COVID vaccines. This is about opposing a brutal communist regime, freeing political prisoners, and demanding free elections. If you can’t make that distinction, you are very bad at your job.”
While she did not respond to the criticism directly, she later followed up, “We stand by the Cuban people’s right for peaceful assembly. We call for calm and condemn any violence.”
The Cuban people, of course, do not have a right to “peacefully assemble” in their homeland.
Just weeks after Oakland lawmakers voted to slash funding from the Oakland police department, a reporter witnessed what he called a “surreal” moment in Oakland on Saturday — black families rallying to support police while “mostly white” Antifa protesters demonstrated against police.
Led by Oakland police chief LeRonne Armstrong and other community leaders, city residents angry over violent crime gathered Saturday for the “Stand Up for a Safe Oakland” rally.
Journalist Lee Fang of The Intercept reported on the “surreal” scene of the rally.
“Surreal moment in Oakland. About 200 mostly black families rally with police to call for an end to the epidemic of gun violence. Mothers at the stage mourning recently murdered children. In the back, less than a dozen mostly white antifa protesters assembled to jeer them,” Fang reported.
One video from the rally captured older black residents confront the protesters. When the Antifa protesters claimed police are responsible for the deaths in Oakland, the black rally-goers erupted.
“No!!!” one woman screamed.
“That’s a lie, that’s a lie,” a nearby black man said.
(Content Warning:Strong language):
In #Oakland today there was a "Stand up for a Safe Oakland" rally against gun violence
Several #Antifa, who appear to be all white, showed up to "protest" by drowning out mostly black speakers who were naming and remembering homicide victimspic.twitter.com/rYleOwDCWd
“Dramatic confrontation before I got there,” Fang explained of the confrontation. “A lot of the anti-violence activists from East Oakland said they were disappointed in the white anti-police antifa protesters, said they seemed close minded and disconnected from the actual violence in the city.”
Armstrong also addressed the Antifa protesters in his remarks at the rally.
“You can shout from wherever you come from,” he said, KPIX-TV reported. “It don’t matter to me because I’ve lost people as a result of gun violence. So you can’t tell me what this day is about.”
“The fact of the matter is, far too many people are afraid to come outside,” Armstrong said. “Our seniors can’t walk to the store. Young people are dying at an alarming rate. If you can’t stand up for safe Oakland, what do you stand up for?”
Why did city leaders they slash funding?
Oakland — which is run by a Democratic mayor and an all-Democratic city council — voted to “strip $17.4 million in funding from the Oakland Police Department and direct the money toward other programs,”according to KPIX.
Councilmember Dan Kalb said that, despite increased violent crime, the city should “focus on our violence prevention, affordable housing, our homeless populations and that’s what this budget helps us move forward and do.”
Surprisingly, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf opposed the budget cuts.
“I believe that until we have proven alternatives, we cannot destroy Oakland’s current public safety system at a time when we are losing so many to gun violence,” she said.
A.F. Branco coffee table book “Keep America Laughing (at the left)” ORDER HERE
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated– $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
Newly surfaced emails show connections among a U.S. health agency headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, EcoHealth Alliance, and Chinese scientists. The recently exposed documents also show that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were scrambling to find disinfectant and asked a National Institutes of Health official for help.
Judicial Watch obtained 301 pages of emails and other records from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases officials who had connections with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. According to the documents that were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by Judicial Watch, the NIAID gave at least nine grants to EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S. nonprofit organization focused on finding unknown viruses and infectious diseases in nature. EcoHealth Alliance reportedly used those NIAID grants to work with Chinese scientists on research such as probing the emergence of a bat coronavirus — years before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Judicial Watch lists the nine grants to EcoHealth Alliance from the NIAID, where Dr. Fauci has been the director since 1984:
One grant awarded each year between 2010 and 2012 to EcoHealth Alliance, working with Chinese collaborator Jinping Chen of Guangdong Entomological Institute, to study in China “Risk of Viral Emergence from Bats.”
One grant awarded each year from 2014 to 2017 to EcoHealth Alliance, working with Chinese collaborator Changwen Ke of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of Guangdong, in a project titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.”
A grant was issued in 2012 to EcoHealth Alliance, working with Xiangming Xiao of the East China Normal University, in a project titled “Comparative Spillover Dynamics of Avian Influenza in Endemic Countries.”
A grant was issued in 2018 to EcoHealth Alliance, again working with Ke in the project called “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.”
The recently emerged emails also show that scientists at China’s Wuhan lab were scrambling to find disinfectant for equipment, including positive pressure personnel suits.
The physical facilities of the Wuhan Institute of Virology were completed in January 2015, which made it China’s first biosafety level 4 laboratory. BSL-4 laboratories are “used to study infectious agents or toxins that pose a high risk of aerosol-transmitted laboratory infections and life-threatening disease for which no vaccines or therapies are available,” according to the U.S. Health and Human Services.
“Laboratory personnel are required to wear full-body, air-supplied suits, which are the most sophisticated type of PPE,” the HHS states of BSL-4 labs. “All personnel shower before exiting the laboratory and go through a series of procedures designed to fully decontaminate them before leaving.”
The emails from 2016 that were recovered by the FOIA request show a conversation where Wuhan Institute of Virology vice director Yuan Zhiming asked National Institutes of Health virologist Jens Kuhn for help getting disinfectant for the equipment in China’s potentially dangerous BSL-4 lab.
“I am writing to you to ask your help,” Zhiming wrote. “Our laboratory is under operation without pathogens, and we are now looking for the disinfectants for decontamination of airtight suits and surface decontamination indoor decontamination.”
“We have tried several ones do [sic] determine their antiviral efficacy and corrosion to pipeline and wastewater treatment equipment,” he continued. “Unfortunately, we have found a good candidate. I hope you can give us some help, to give us some suggestion for the choice of disinfectants used in P4 laboratory.”
Zhiming allegedly asks what kinds of disinfectants are effective for decontamination of airtight protective clothes, doors, the laboratory, infectious materials, and air decontamination. Zhiming concluded the email, “Best regards and looking forward to seeing you in Wuhan.” In a later email, Kuhn said he “personally” met Zhiming “in Wuhan twice.”
After news of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, Zhiming purportedly wrote to Kuhn on March 20, 2020:
The 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak is a major challenge for global public health security. Infection with SARS-CoV-2 has been associated with serious acute respiratory distress syndrome with large number of patients’ hospitalization and relatively high mortality. We had a very hard time in combating the infection in Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 in China, and now we can see the situation goes in good direction, with no reported confirmed case, no reported suspected case in last two days here.
My colleagues and I, have been working on characterization of pathogens, antiviral screen, vaccine development, animal modeling since the early January this year, and some progresses have been made. I hope our understanding of the virus and the technology could be valuable in the global fighting to the virus.
There is also a February 2018 email from Dr. Ping Chen, the NIAID representative in China, discussing a “type of new flu vaccine using nano-technology from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
Judicial Watch added that “the Chinese had blocked all Internet links to reports on the new technology.” This development allegedly prompted Chen to write a “night note” to U.S. government officials, which said, “The intranasal nano-vaccine can target broad-spectrum flu viruses and induces robust immune responses.”
In a January 2017 report to NIH colleagues, Chen mentioned the “Global Virome Project,” which described its mission as: “Stimulate the development of an innovative network of public, private, philanthropic, and civil organizations to detect the majority of our planet’s unknown viral threats to human health and food security to prepare for and stop future epidemics.”
Chen described the Global Virome Project and showed a link to Peter Daszak, the president of EcoHealth Alliance:
The purpose of the project is to identify viruses present in the wildlife with potential crossing over to humans, causing human infection and disease. Following the identification of the viruses is the development of vaccines to protect human population… One of the partners in this project is EcoHealth Alliance. Peter Daszak from EcoHealth Alliance is one of the leaders for the GVP project and he has NIAID grant from RDB looking at the coronaviruses in Bat populations in China in collaboration with Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Students seen in a high school classroom. | Reuters/Stephane Mahe
More than three-quarters of likely U.S. voters believe it’s important for schools to teach “traditional values” associated with Western civilization, according to a new Rasmussen Reports survey. Rasmussen noted that 78% of likely U.S. voters believe that it’s, at the least, “somewhat important” for schools to “teach the traditional values of Western civilization,” including 52% that list it as “very important,” the polling organization said Thursday.
By contrast, 14% of respondents said they didn’t believe it was important to teach traditional Western civilization values, while 4% said it was “not at all important.”
There was some political party difference as well, as Republicans were more likely than Democrats to say that it was important (86% versus 73%) and more likely to say it was “very important” (66% versus 42%).
According to Rasmussen, the percentage of support for traditional values in schools “is virtually unchanged from four years ago, and in line with surveys dating back to 2013.”
“Only 29% of voters think most public schools do a good job of teaching the traditional values of Western civilization, though that’s up two points from 2017 and the highest finding in surveying since 2013,” Rasmussen added.
For the report, Rasmussen drew from a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults who were likely voters, conducted on Tuesday and with a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points. The findings of the poll come amid renewed debate over whether public schools should teach controversial ideas like critical race theory, which argues in part that racism is a fundamental aspect of American history and institutions. Proponents of CRT have argued that it is necessary to better understand how racism continues to be a problem in the United States, while critics claim that the movement teaches bad history, exacerbates racial tensions and is founded on Marxist ideology.
Many states have considered pursuing bans on CRT in public schools, with the Florida State Board of Education unanimously voting to do so in June. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis expressed support for the ban, stating that the “woke class wants to teach kids to hate each other, rather than teaching them how to read, but we will not let them bring nonsense ideology into Florida’s schools.”
“As the Governor of Florida, I love this state, and I love my country. I find it unthinkable that there are other people in positions of leadership in the federal government who believe that we should teach kids to hate our country,”DeSantis said last month.
“We will not stand for it here in Florida. I’m proud that we are taking action today to ensure our state continues to have the greatest educational system in the nation.”
The National Education Association, a 3 million-member labor union, recently expressed their opposition to such bans, pledging to set aside over $120,000 to promote CRT in schools.
“We must continuously do the work to challenge ourselves and others to dismantle the racist interconnected systems, and the economic injustices that have perpetuated systemic inequities,” stated NEA President Becky Pringle at the union’s annual meeting last week.
Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. | Wikimedia Commons/Farragutful
The District of Columbia and Mayor Muriel Bowser have agreed to pay $220,000 as part of a legal settlement with a local Baptist church that sued the city over in-person worship restrictions during the pandemic.
Last September, Capitol Hill Baptist Church sued the district over the government’s ban on outdoor worship services that had more than 100 people in attendance. In a settlement agreement and release approved on Thursday, the city agreed to pay $220,000 to the counsels representing the church, which broke down to $210,000 for the law firm WilmerHale and $10,000 for the national legal nonprofit First Liberty Institute.
As explained in the settlement, the district has lifted earlier meeting restrictions so that Capitol Hill Baptist can gather indoors for worship services.
“The District agrees that it will not enforce any current or future COVID-19 restrictions to prohibit CHBC from gathering as one congregation in the District of Columbia,” explained the settlement.
“The District further agrees that, should it decide that new restrictions on religious gatherings are necessary during the current, or any future, COVID-19 (or variant thereof) public health emergency, it will not impose restrictions on CHBC that are more restrictive than the restrictions on comparable secular activities, as defined by the Supreme Court.”
Hiram Sasser, executive general counsel for the First Liberty Institute, said in a statement that Capitol Hill Baptist “is relieved and grateful that this ordeal is behind them.”
“All Capitol Hill Baptist Church ever asked is for equal treatment under the law so they could meet together safely as a church,” stated Sasser. “Government officials need to know that illegal restrictions on First Amendment rights are intolerable and costly.”
In March 2020, as part of the effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus, Mayor Bowser issued an executive order restricting the capacity for religious services of 10 or more people. The restriction was eventually expanded to no more than 100 people or 50% of the building capacity.
The 850-member Capitol Hill Baptist filed its lawsuit last September, arguing that the restrictions unfairly burdened houses of worship compared to comparable secular entities. U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, granted an injunction in favor of the church last October, arguing that the “current restrictions substantially burden the Church’s exercise of religion.”
“… the District has failed to offer evidence at this stage showing that it has a compelling interest in preventing the Church from meeting outdoors with appropriate precautions, or that this prohibition is the least-restrictive means to achieve its interest,” wrote McFadden.
Soon after, the church held its first outdoor service since the litigation began, meeting at Anacostia Park in Southeast D.C. on a Sunday morning. The attendees wore face masks and maintained social distancing in keeping with the official public health recommendations at that time.
“It is absolutely appropriate to take stock, to give thanks, to give honor to whom honor is due, to recognize the many blessings that our government continually secures and provides for us,” Associate Pastor Bobby Jamieson preached at the October 2020 service.
“The only conditions that justify disobedience to legitimate government authority, legitimate earthly authority are when they either command something God forbids or forbid something God commands.” Follow Michael Gryboski on Twitter or Facebook
Schools in the U.S. should fully reopen to in-person learning in the fall and allow vaccinated teachers and students to not wear masks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Friday. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky stated in February that schools could safely reopen for in-person learning even if teachers and students haven’t been vaccinated, but President Joe Biden’s White House quickly walked back the statement. The CDC is now urging schools to reopen in the fall “regardless of whether all of the prevention strategies can be implemented at the school.”
The CDC does recommend physical distancing and masking for students and teachers who are not vaccinated, however.
A teacher welcomes students entering a classroom in a high-school of an Athens suburb on April 12, 2021, as students and teachers in Greece are required to use kits for self-administered Covid-19 test twice a week as the country reopens high-schools for students in the three final grades. (Photo by Louisa GOULIAMAKI / AFP) (Photo by LOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP via Getty Images)
When Walensky said much the same in February, White House press secretary Jen Psaki distanced the administration from her comments.
“The president — let me be crystal clear — wants schools to open,” Psaki said during a Feb. 4 press briefing. “He wants them to stay open. And he wants to do that safely. And he wants health and medical experts to be the guides for how we should do exactly that.”
“Dr. Walensky spoke to this in her personal capacity,” Psaki continued. “Obviously, she’s the head of the CDC, but we’re going to wait for the final guidance to come out so we can use that as a guide for schools around the country.”
Biden’s goal was to reopen “most” schools to in-person learning within his first 100 days in office, which the administration did not reach. Biden and the rest of his administration appeared to repeatedly contradict one another on which schools they wanted to open and what constituted reopening.
Psaki said Feb. 10 that the administration would consider a school “open” if it held in-person classes “at least” one day per week. Biden later called that statement “a mistake in communication” and said his administration is working to reopen schools in-person five days a week.
ARE WE GOING TO TRUST OUR CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN AND GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN TO THIS INCOMPOTANT MAN?
A.F. Branco coffee table book “Keep America Laughing (at the left)” ORDER HERE
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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
Imagine if someone had said these words in October:
“In the midst of everything COVID, people were sort of putting down that cause of death as COVID … It is important to go back and do this accounting to see if COVID was actually the cause of death.”
It would have taken five minutes for Snopes and PolitiFact to cancel this person entirely. They would have been branded a conspiracy theorist, a blackguard, a scoundrel. If they had any platform, it would be taken away posthaste. You could even make a case there would be Facebook and Twitter censorship involved — this being COVID-19 misinformation, after all.
But those words were spoken Friday by University of California San Francisco professor of medicine Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert. She was speaking to San Francisco’s KPIX-TV regarding the announcement that Santa Clara County, California, had revised its official COVID-19 death toll downward by 22 percent.
According to KPIX, the announcement was made after the county “refined its approach in reporting the data.”
Santa Clara County — home to San Jose in the heart of Silicon Valley — is the sixth-largest among California’s 58 counties in terms of population, with 1,927,470 residents, according to U.S. Census Bureau data compiled by Cubit.
This isn’t minor, in other words.
Before refining its approach, the county had recorded 2,201 COVID deaths. Now, that’s been reduced to 1,696.
“It is important to go back and do this accounting to see if COVID was actually the cause of death,” Gandhi said, according to KPIX.
“I think that transparent communication is an upside, I mean, in the sense that it’s true that if we did this across the nation, it would bring our death rate lower. A downside of that, could be that people will say, ‘Well, it wasn’t as serious as you said.’”
Gandhi added she thought this was going to encourage coronavirus vaccine holdouts to get vaccinated.
“Because a lot of people have kind of said, ‘I’ve heard people are dying anyway of COVID, what’s the point?’ And it is very important to say, ‘No, did they die of COVID or were they in the hospital for something else and they died of that?’” Gandhi said. “That helps people say, ‘Oh, the risk of breakthrough infection is so low I want to go ahead and get vaccinated.’ So I think it’s very good for vaccine hesitancy.”
Santa Clara County wasn’t the only county in California to reassess its data, either. According to KGO-TV, Alameda County revised its numbers downward in early June, saying it had an over-count of COVID deaths greater than 400 individuals. On June 4, the number of deaths in the Bay Area county attributed to COVID-19 dropped from 1,634 to 1,223. Alameda County, home to Oakland and Berkeley, is the seventh-largest in the state in terms of population with 1,656,754 residents.
“According to the Health Department, the 25% decrease was made to comply with the state’s definition of a COVID-19 death, which requires COVID-19 to be a direct or contributing factor or a situation in which it can’t be ruled out,” KGO reported.
“Alameda County previously included any person who died while infected with the virus in the total COVID-19 deaths for the County,” wrote Neetu Balram with the Alameda County Health Department in a news release dated June 4.
By way of example, Balram wrote:
“Using the older definition of COVID-19 deaths, a resident who had COVID-19 but died due to another cause, like a car accident, this person would be included in the total number of reported COVID-19 deaths for Alameda County. Under the updated definition of COVID-19 deaths, this person would not be included in the total because COVID-19 was not a contributing factor in the death.”
At the time, another doctor at the University of California San Francisco, epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford, told KGO he was “betting it’s very specific to Alameda County, which had a lot of cases early on and had to do a lot of on-the-fly definitions and systems and now they are being brought into alignment.”
Gandhi apparently didn’t think that was the case after Santa Clara reported its revised total. KPIX reported that “Gandhi believes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may soon ask all counties to do the same as Alameda and Santa Clara Counties and that the nation could also see a drop in its COVID-19 death toll.”
This is what voices — mostly conservative voices — have been saying for over a year. Even raising the issue, however, got one branded as a conspiracy theorist.
Take the state of Washington. In May 2020, during a media briefing, Dr. Katie Hutchinson of the Washington State Department of Health announced that some people who obviously hadn’t died of COVID were being included in the state’s death totals.
“We currently do have some deaths that are being reported that are clearly from other causes,” Hutchinson said. “We have about five deaths — less than five deaths — that we know of that are related to obvious other causes. In this case, they are from gunshot wounds.”
If there were five deaths that they could identify as just being from gunshot wounds — out of 1,078 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the state at the time — that still doesn’t speak well of the state’s reporting mechanisms. That means, as the conservative think tank Freedom Foundation pointed out at the time, there were likely individuals who died of other causes more anodyne than a gunshot wound who were being counted among COVID deaths.
Yet, Washington Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee blasted anyone who questioned whether there was over-counting going on.
“The problem is you got some people out there who are fanning these conspiracy claims from the planet Pluto,” Inslee said, according to KOMO-TV. “And it’s just disgusting what they’re trying to say of all these crazy deep-state malarkey. Who are kinda suggests that this not a problem in our state. I find that hard to accept with the number of dead in our state. So, that’s a problem. And I hope it gets resolved.”
This is such “deep-state malarkey” that jurisdictions now revising their COVID death toll downward include [checks notes] two famously liberal Bay Area counties in California, one home to Berkeley and the other the center of Silicon Valley. These stories were out there if you looked — individuals who died of gunshot wounds or motorcycle accidents that were counted as COVID victims. If you raised questions, however, you were branded a conspiracy theorist.
Even now, Gandhi seems to lament the fact Santa Clara County’s deaths have been revised downward: “A downside of that, could be that people will say, ‘Well, it wasn’t as serious as you said,’” she told KPIX.
Why would that be your reaction? And, perhaps more importantly, why would nobody with a brain be surprised to hear the same reaction from editors, politicians and members of the medical and scientific communities?
After a year of lockdowns based on an unholy alliance among untruthful media, scientists with zero sense and a power-hungry left, we’re left with the conclusion that big numbers drove public policy in a direction all of these entities wanted — in an election year when the left was tarring the sitting president with blame for all things COVID.
While the numbers weren’t ginned up to create a crisis that didn’t exist, it’s not as if politicians and scientists acted with alacrity to fix obvious deficiencies in reporting COVID deaths, either. Santa Clara and Alameda Counties are emblematic of how wrong some jurisdictions got it.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he’s written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
A black father in Michigan blasted Critical Race Theory during a recent school board meeting in Caledonia, Michigan.
Ian Rice, whose wife and mother of his children is white, demanded that the anti-white racist curriculum will teach his daughter that “her mother is evil,” and cause children of different races “to hate each other.”
— James Lindsay, anti-Communist (@ConceptualJames) July 5, 2021
“This theory was never meant to be brought into grade schools, high schools—at all. It’s actually taught in the collegiate atmosphere—and more importantly, the legal portion of the collegiate atmosphere—to see different laws through the lens of race…from an ethical standpoint, not for grade schoolers and high schoolers,” Rice began.
A big problem with teaching this crap to younger children, he explained, is that the teachers are not qualified to do so.
“Instead, they’re using it as their own agenda to indoctrinate the kids to hate each other,” he said.
Rice also addressed the racism against white people.
“Critical race theory is teaching that white people are bad. That’s not true. That would teach my daughter that her mother is evil.”
“What is your criteria to educate the educators?” Rice asked. “And who are you to educate my children—or any of our children—in life issues? That’s our job. Your job is to teach them math and science. Our job is to teach them about life.”
Cassandra Fairbanks is a former leftist who came out in support of Donald Trump in 2016. She has been published in the International Business Times, RT, Sputnik, The Independent and countless other publications.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com, and WhatDidYouSay.org.
Source: AP Photo/Richard Drew
Today we’ll talk about how to write the classic New York Times column, using Thomas Edsall’s recent “Trumpism Without Borders” as our example. It must have taken him about 40 minutes to write it.
Edsall blames the populist movements sweeping the globe on the same ills that “led to a right-wing takeover of the federal government by Donald Trump.” To wit: “anti-immigrant fervor, political tribalism, racism, ethnic tension, authoritarianism and inequality.” Fascism awaits us unless we keep importing low-skilled immigrants and shipping jobs abroad!
For someone worried about the erosion of “democratic norms,” maybe Edsall shouldn’t be referring to the outcome of a free and fair U.S. presidential election as a “right-wing takeover of the federal government.” We had an election, pal.
But ever since the 2016 election, there’s been a frisson of viciousness to the elites’ usual contempt for ordinary Americans. Never mind that Trump ended up betraying his voters. The establishment is appalled that the issues he ran on were popular. Five years later, they still sputter in rage, unable to comprehend why Jeb or Hillary didn’t end up in the White House.
To explain this calamity, Edsall rolls out all the Timesian cliches about losers being upset about losing. He calls this the “ubiquity of loss,” as if we’re talking about a natural phenomenon, like beach erosion.
Trump voters, he says, are people who are angry about:
— their inability to achieve “a standard of living as high as that of their parents,”
— “the decline of the gender pay gap … and other types of loss relative to women,” and
— losing “employment and earnings to China and other countries.”
Edsall acts as if these things are immutable laws of physics. Actually, they result from the deliberate policy choices of our ruling class to benefit some Americans to the detriment of others.
Specific policy decisions were made to import an endless stream of low-skilled workers. Employers got boatloads of cheap labor, while ordinary Americans saw their wages plummet.
Oh, and if we’re pretending to care about “democratic norms,” Americans have voted for less immigration over and over and over again. If anyone in the establishment gives a crap about “democratic norms,” then why do they keep foisting more immigration on us?
Specific policy decisions were made to explicitly discriminate against white men in order to give jobs to women, simply because they were women.
I give you Kamala Harris (Biden’s one job requirement for his VP: must be a woman of color); every police chief in the nation (save a couple of black men); and Kara Hultgreen (who died when she crashed a $38 million F-14 after being continuously promoted despite repeated training failures, because the Navy wanted a female fighter pilot).
What crybabies! These guys resent losing jobs because of abject discrimination against them. Koo-koo! Koo-koo!
The destruction of American manufacturing wasn’t, as Edsall claims, a consequence of “trade.” (Who’s buying our stuff?) International agreements forcing Americans to compete with dollar-an-hour third worlders were a gift to Big Business and Wall Street. They get a larger share of a much smaller pie. Sure, our country overall will make $30, instead of $100. But the 1 percent will get $29 instead of $20!
We don’t need Thomas Edsall to psychoanalyze Trump voters in order to understand what happened in 2016. We were at DEFCON 1 as a nation. (And thanks to Trump’s betrayal, we still are.)
After 20 years, people began to notice: The elites really do hate us. They really are going to ship our jobs abroad. They really are going to replace us with cheap foreign labor. They really are going to let in hordes of illegals. They really are going to bail out Wall Street and preserve their sleazy tax loopholes.
Faced with a choice between the toxic left and country club Republicans, when a complete psychotic came down the escalator, people thought, He might just mean it! (That was a miscalculation.)
The elites screw over ordinary Americans, then to salve their consciences, they call the poor saps “racists.” They get to maintain a system that benefits only them — and at the same time feel morally superior to the people whose lives they’ve ruined. It’s win-win all around!
Americans don’t care about “the gender pay gap,” climate change or international institutions. They deserve what’s coming to them!
Trump initiates a class-action lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter, and Google for censorship against conservatives.
Political cartoon by A.F. Branco
A.F. Branco coffee table book “Keep America Laughing (at the left)” ORDER HERE
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated– $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
Christian-owned arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby has been accused of “dominionism” after running a full-page ad in newspapers nationwide on the Fourth of July promoting the idea of “One Nation Under God.” The ad highlighted quotes from prominent Americans promoting God and the Bible.
The ad featured a child running with an American flag with the words, “One Nation Under God.” Lower in the advertisement are the words of Psalm 33:12, which reads, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD.”
The page also features a series of quotes from American founders and other leaders essential to the shaping of the nation, touching on the importance of God or the Bible. Among those highlighted are former presidents, Supreme Court justices and Founding Fathers. The bottom of the page offered contact information for those interested in having a relationship with Jesus.
The ad ran in newspapers across the U.S. and was published on Hobby Lobby’s social media pages.
Social media users slammed the ad as “unconstitutional” and “propaganda.” And the secular legal organization Freedom from Religion Foundation posted a rebuttal.
“In Hobby Lobby We DON’T Trust,” the title of FFRF’s rebuttal webpage reads. The webpage includes a breakdown of each of the quotes Hobby Lobby included in the ad. “Do these quotes prove we are a Christian nation? Click them to find out,” FFRF, which advocates for strict separation of church and state, posted with an exposition of each quote.
Critics accused Hobby Lobby of advocating for dominionism, a subset of American Christianity seeking a Christian-run nation governed by their understanding of biblical law.
David Weissman, a former Republican Trump supporter-turned-liberal Democrat, tweeted:“As an American Jew who served in the United States Army and took an oath to defend the Constitution; I find your statement of America should be lead by Christians to be asinine and unconstitutional. Shame on you @HobbyLobby.”
A headline on the LGBT blog Joe My God reads, “Hobby Lobby Goes Full Dominionist In July 4th Ad.”
Prominent evangelical leader Franklin Graham, the son of the late evangelist Billy Graham and leader of the evangelical humanitarian organization Samaritan’s Purse, commended Hobby Lobby’s ad and thanked God for Hobby Lobby’s owners.
“Hobby Lobby is being attacked for running some beautiful full-page newspaper ads on July 4. …,” Graham shared on Facebook.
“I hope this exposure for their ads, even though it was intended for harm, will actually allow even more people to read the message and appreciate what Hobby Lobby’s owners, the Green family stand for,” Graham continued. “I thank God for the Green family, their Christian-run business, and their strong public stand for the Word of God and biblical values.”
Messianic Jewish radio host and author Michael Brown published an op-ed defending the ad’s message.
“What we do believe is that God’s ways are always best, and that’s why we advocate for biblical principles and seek to live by them personally,” Brown wrote. “In the same way, others (such as atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Muslims, or secular activists) advocate for their own particular spiritual or secular worldviews and seek to live accordingly. This is all part of the fabric of our nation.”
“In short, I do believe that the more truly Christian we are, the more blessed we will be as a nation,” he continued. “But we are not forcing this on anyone (God forbid), and we live by the rules of a Democratic Republic. Since the Hobby Lobby ad will get a lot of negative attention, let’s be prepared to affirm what we do believe and deny what we don’t.”
Hobby Lobby, a company known for its conservative, Christian values, ran a similar ad in past years on Independence Day. The company includes biblical messages in most of its holiday ads and provides a list of its prominent holiday ads since Easter 1997 on its website. Each of the ads provides a spiritual component. Holiday Messages became part of Hobby Lobby’s mission when founder David Green felt commissioned to do something more with advertisements in 1995 after noticing that newspapers failed to provide the true meaning of the advertised holidays.
Hobby Lobby ran its first newspaper ad that explained the true meaning behind Christmas in 1996. The company began “placing beautiful full-page ads celebrating the real meaning of Christmas, Easter and Independence Day in newspapers across the country” from then on, the Hobby Lobby website explains.
For months, coronavirus vaccine skeptics have been mocked, shunned, turned away from events and labeled as tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorists for their refusal to be injected with a novel breed of vaccines. But there are reasons to be cautious.
Michigan resident Jacob Clynick had just completed the eighth grade and looked forward to starting his freshman year at Saginaw’s Carrollton High School this fall when the 13-year-old got his second dose of the Pfizer vaccine on June 13 at a local Walgreens pharmacy, the Detroit Free Press reported.
When we’re 13, life seems so vast and rife with possibilities. We either look forward to — or dread — turning the page to write our lives’ next chapter, but, in our own peculiar ways, we each anticipate the journey.
Jacob never got the chance to move on.
s the days separating his vaccination from his death came and went, Jacob reported having typical side effects — fever, upset stomach and fatigue — his aunt, Tammy Burages told the Free Press. In most cases, such mild symptoms are little cause for concern — especially from a healthy 13-year-old with no underlying medical conditions.
When Jacob went to bed June 15, he had a stomach ache, Burges told the newspaper. He died overnight.
Now, authorities are investigating whether Jacob’s death was related to the vaccination, the Free Press reported.
“The family was told that preliminary autopsy findings suggest Jacob’s heart was enlarged when he died and there was fluid around his heart, Burges said,” according to the Free Press.
The Michigan Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine would not confirm this information, the Free Press reported.
“We can verify that we are managing the investigation, and that’s the extent of what I can share,” Randy Pfau, director of operations for the institute, told the newspaper.
“It’s still an ongoing investigation,” he added, “I know the doctors are working on this case as a priority.”
As the Free Press noted, a Centers for Disease Control advisory committee has acknowledged previous instances of post-vaccine heart inflammation (aka myocarditis), saying that a “likely association” exists between the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and heart issues in younger recipients.
However, the CDC still comes down in favor of vaccination.
“The known and potential benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the known and potential risks, including the possible risk of myocarditis or pericarditis,” its website states. “Also, most patients with myocarditis and pericarditis who received care responded well to treatment and rest and quickly felt better.”
Still, the side effects are clearly real. How many more children have to share the same experience before liberals stop promoting vaccines for those in age groups at low risk for COVID-19?
Aside from the kid controversy, the adverse reactions, the horror stories and the borderline creepy governmental push surrounding these novel vaccines are exactly why mandates are a bad idea for everyone. These vaccines — aside from being the first of the mRNA breed — have only been on the market for a few short months, unlike traditional vaccines we’ve had for decades (e.g. those for rubella, measles or chickenpox). We know very little about the long-term side effects. We know very little about how our bodies will respond to this new “technology” as time goes on.
It’s only natural to be reluctant.
No definite link between Jacob’s death and his vaccination has been established. However, there’s no shortage of cases where young, healthy recipients experienced heart trouble after their immunizations. Even a CDC advisory committee has acknowledged it.
Am I saying everyone is going to die or experience adverse reactions from COVID vaccines? Of course not. But I am encouraging all readers to do what you feel is best for yourselves and your families. Get vaccinated on your own terms, not the government’s, not some official’s. If you don’t want to get vaccinated, that’s your prerogative too. Above all, have the courage to think for yourself. That’s the bravest thing you can do.
Taylor Penley is a political commentator residing in Northwest Georgia. She holds a BA in English with minors in rhetoric/writing and global studies from Dalton State College. As a student, she worked in government relations and interned for Georgia’s 14th congressional district. She previously published an article with Future Female Leaders and published a rhetorical analysis of President Reagan’s Brandenburg Gate Address in a collegiate journal. She aspires to earn an MA and a PhD in journalism in the near future.
A.F. Branco coffee table book “Keep America Laughing (at the left)” ORDER HERE
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated– $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
(Photo by DARIO LOPEZ-MILLS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
A major surge in coronavirus infections is being recorded at crowded U.S. immigration detention centers, according to The New York Times.
As apprehensions at the border spiked in recent months, the number of migrants being held in detention centers has almost doubled, with more than 26,000 migrants being detained in facilities last week, compared to about 14,000 in April, according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE). As a result, more than 7,500 new cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the centers between April and last week, and account for more than 40% of all reported cases in ICE facilities since the beginning of the pandemic, according to The New York Times.
Reporting from an undisclosed location near the border in McAllen, TX we encountered around 190 migrants. I saw lots of small children and a few babies with this group who came from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Full story and interviews posted soon.@dailycallerpic.twitter.com/VJEOdV0Yym
Public health officials have warned of the threats that increasingly crowded facilities pose during the pandemic, noting how few of the detained migrants received the vaccines, according to CNN. Only around 20% of the detainees coming into the migration centers have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, The New York Times reported.
Dr. Sharon Dolovich, director of the Covid Behind Bars Data Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, expressed her concerns about the low rates of vaccination among migrant detainees, in a statement to The New York Times.
“You have people coming in and out of the facility, into communities where incomplete vaccination allows these variants to flourish, and then you bring them inside the facilities, and that variant will spread,” she said. “What you’re describing is the combination of insufficient vaccination plus the evolution of the virus, and that is really scary.”
ICE has been the subject of criticism over the last year due to its handling of the coronavirus in its detention facilities.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit in November 2020 against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE in an effort to force federal agencies to release information about the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic in immigration detention centers.
“For the better part of this year, public health experts have been sounding the alarm that immigrant detention centers would be hotspots for the spread of COVID-19. Fiscal Year 2020, which ended September 30, was the deadliest year for ICE detention in 15 years,” the ACLU claimed in a statement at the time. “This year has also seen numerous reports about the lack of even basic COVID precautions taken by ICE, as well as evidence that ICE has attempted to silence detainees who tried to speak out for better care.”
Former President Donald Trump has also been a harsh critic of the Biden administration’s handling of the border crisis. Last week, the former president accepted Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s invitation to visit the southern border. “We have a sick country in many ways,” Trump said at an event with Texas officials and law enforcement, according to The Hill. “It’s sick in elections, and it’s sick in the border. And if you don’t have good elections, and if you don’t have a strong border, you don’t have a country.”
Ashli Babbitt‘s husband Aaron Babbitt and Attorney Terrell Robertsjoined Tucker Carlson in mid-June to discuss the continued challenges they have had getting any information on her death or the identity of her government-employed killer. During the discussion, Tucker Carlson asked Attorney Roberts about the report that Ashli’s shooter also left his loaded gun in a US Capitol restroom
Tucker Carlson: Mr. Roberts, let me ask you, there are reports online, that’s incredible I don’t know if they’re true, that the Capitol Hill police officer who shot Ashli Babbitt, I’m not going to mention the name, was the same officer that left his loaded handgun in a public men’s room on the Capitol. Do you believe that is the officer, it seems like a very reckless person, who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt on January 6th?
Attorney Terrell Roberts: That’s my belief. That’s my belief.
Here is the exchange from Tucker Carlson Tonight:
On Monday a TGP reader named “Michael” sent us this final piece to identify Ashli Babbit’s killer. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd is the name of the officer who left his gun inside a Capitol Hill restroom in 2019.Roll Call reported on Byrd back in February 2019. A U.S. Capitol Police lieutenant left his service weapon in a bathroom Monday night and the unattended gun was discovered later by another Capitol Police officer.
After the House adjourned on Monday, Lt. Mike Byrd left his Glock 22 in a bathroom in the Capitol Visitor Center complex, according to sources familiar with the incident. Byrd is the commander of the House Chambers section of the Capitol Police and was on the job Tuesday and Wednesday.
It’s not clear why Lt. Byrd was still on the police force in January 2021 after his previous actions.
Tayler Hansen reported at The Gateway Pundit on the identity of the shooter back on February 25th. We reposted the report below.
From our previous report on February 25th–
The Police Lieutenant’s name is being withheld from Ashli Babbit’s attorneys.
This is the Officer responsible for using excessive force and executing Ashli Babbitt.
Before killing Ashli, the Officer is seen aiming his firearm at fellow colleagues.
You can see the Officer disregards nearly every basic firearm safety rule in the book. His finger is wrapped around the trigger, while his firearm is aimed in the direction of his colleagues.
Original photo: Notice how the other Officers are properly handling their firearms and don’t have a finger wrapped around the trigger?
The Officer can be seen wearing what seems to be the identical handkerchief, tie, and insignia.
Here is the same picture but zoomed in, Antifa organizer John Sullivan is also pictured.
SIDE BY SIDE COMPARISION
NOTICE: Identical bracelets
The Capitol Police Officers statement regarding the killing of Ashli Babbitt
The Officer could not see three uniformed Officers against the wall nearest to Ashli, was not able to see how far down the crowd extended, saw a hallway full of “oncoming people“, and claims Ashli Babbitt wearing a backpack compounded his fears leading to the shooting.
He contradicted himself multiple times in one statement. If he is telling the truth about not seeing the Officers, he is lying about Ashli Babbitt’s backpack compounding to his fears.
Unless he has X-Ray Vision.
Mark Schamel, the defense attorney representing the shooter issued a statement regarding his client and the shooting of Ashli Babbitt.
“If he’s not cleared, we don’t have a country we want to live in anymore.” – Mark Schamel
Mark Schamel’s statement has also cleared the name of Special Agent, David Bailey.
Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016.
As Big Tech, the Biden Administration, Hollywood, politicians, employers and health care providers around the nation galvanize the public to undergo Covid vaccination, the number of casualties who have died or suffer life-threatening effects from the experimental mRNA injections continues to climb. Those who don’t want to be herded into the mass drug trial are told to just “get on with it” so we can “safely” move on with our lives.
Despite the unrelenting effort to censor “vaccine hesitancy,” thousands who are experiencing the vaccines’ ill effects are resorting to a private Facebook group to sound the alarm on the medical malpractice.
In post after post, over 25,900 members of the private Facebook group “The COVID 19 Vaccine Victims & Families Group” detail the horrific health abnormalities they have suffered, including strokes, blood clots, excessive bleeding, needle-like pain in their limbs and paralysis, after receiving Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines.
Irrespective of the heartbreaking testimonies, Facebook inserts a disclaimer on each of the group members’ posts to assure users the vaccines are “safe” and “effective.”
“COVID-19 vaccines go through many tests for safety and effectiveness and are then monitored closely,” the notification states, citing the World Health Organization.
The notification directs users to Facebook’s COVID-19 information Center, which promotes the vaccine and provides locations offering vaccines in each state.
Americans experiencing bizarre Covid vaccine injury have no legal recourse in a U.S. court of law. Drug companies have total immunity from liability if you die from their vaccines.
In February, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar of the outgoing Trump administration invoked the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act declaring COVID-19 to be “a public health emergency warranting liability protections for covered countermeasures.” The 2005 law assures companies “cannot be sued for money damages in court” over injuries related to the administration or use of products to treat or protect against Covid until 2024, unless there’s “willful misconduct” by the company.
The Food and Drug Administration, which provides and approves the pharmaceutical companies’ products for mass distribution, has sovereign immunity for authorizing the vaccine for emergency use.
“You also can’t sue the Food and Drug Administration for authorizing a vaccine for emergency use, nor can you hold your employer accountable if they mandate inoculation as a condition of employment,” CNBC reports.
Alicia is a multimedia reporter. Alicia has written for numerous outlets, including the Gateway Pundit, InfoWars, World Net Daily, Townhall.com and Media Research Center, where she exposed public corruption, fraud and abuse in government, media and Big Tech. She has a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She served as a War Room analyst for the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee. She also served in the Correspondence Department of the George W. Bush administration. Alicia is originally from New York City and currently resides in Washington D.C.Tags: covid 19
Students as young as the fifth grade will have access to condoms in Chicago elementary schools when they reopen in late August, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. The Chicago Public Schools policy states that schools teaching fifth grade and up must maintain a condom availability program as part of an expanded vision of sexual health education, the Sun-Times said, adding that more than 600 CPS schools will end up having them, save for a dozen that enroll only younger grades.
“Young people have the right to accurate and clear information to make healthy decisions,” Kenneth Fox — CPS’ chief health officer and a pediatrician of 30 years — told the paper. “And they need access to resources to protect their health and the health of others as they act on those decisions.”
Fox added to the Sun-Times that school officials want to “make condoms available to students for if and when they think they need them … When you don’t have those protections and don’t make those resources available then bad stuff happens to young people. You have elevated risks of sexually transmitted infections, of unintended pregnancies, and that’s very preventable stuff.”
More from the paper:
To start, elementary schools will get 250 condoms and high schools — many of which already make them available — will get 1,000. The Chicago Department of Public Health will provide the condoms at no cost to the district as part of the city’s effort to prevent teen pregnancies, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. When a school runs out, principals will be told to request more from CPS and CDPH.
Schools will get a letter from Fox explaining the policy to parents, and principals will receive guidance for where to store the condoms and how to operate the program. The condoms should be in easily accessible locations in the school while also not too out in the open so there’s still privacy for students, Fox said.
“I would expect that not everybody is going to be completely on board right from the start, but I do think society has changed,” Fox added to the Sun-Times.
Why so young?
The paper said it asked Fox why fifth grade is a threshold, and he replied that it’s “informed by a developmental understanding of children.” CPS’ sex-ed curriculum says the district “stresses that choosing to not have sex is the norm for 5th graders. Parents/guardians should be notified by their school if a condom demonstration will be provided,” the Sun-Times said.
Scout Bratt, an outreach and education director at the Chicago Women’s Health Center, added to the paper that many parents won’t agree with the program, and that CPS will be responsible for listening to their concerns.
“I want to be really clear that the existence of condoms does not mean that all students are going to be using those condoms or encouraged to use them,” Bratt told the Sun-Times. “The idea is to say we are educational centers, we are community health centers essentially, and we know to invest in young folks’ health and well-being by providing comprehensive sex ed, it means we also need to provide the resources. We want students to come to us and to have access to those condoms for free as opposed to potentially having to find them elsewhere or choose not to use condoms. … It is about recognizing that school is investing in young people’s health.”
Bratt also told the paper there’s no proof that access to condoms will lead to more kids having sex — and that those already doing so will have an easier way to protect themselves through the program.
“It’s a harm reduction approach,” Bratt told the Sun-Times.
‘They are 10 years old, 11, 12. They are kids.’
Maria Serrano — a parent working with Healing to Action, which advocates for improved sex ed — told the paper said education and communication must come before condom availability.
“My question is, ‘Oh my God, how is it that CPS wants to give condoms to kids?'” she asked the Sun-Times in Spanish. “They are 10 years old, 11, 12. They are kids. So why is CPS thinking about providing condoms? Why not provide them information, and at the end give them the resource of a condom when they are prepared to use those resources they want to provide. For me, this isn’t the best option. They are doing things backwards.”
Serrano added to the paper the she only knew about the new program because of her advocacy work and has heard nothing as a parent from CPS.
A.F. Branco coffee table book “Keep America Laughing (at the left)” ORDER HERE
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated– $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
Mainstream media reporters confronted White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday after she deflected questions about the alleged “abusive environment” of Vice President Kamala Harris’ office. Harris has become the focus of scrutiny in recent weeks after several reports alleged a toxic environment in her West Wing office.
“Harris’ team is experiencing low morale, porous lines of communication and diminished trust among aides and senior officials,” Politico recently reported. “In interviews, 22 current and former vice presidential aides, administration officials and associates of Harris and Biden described a tense and at times dour office atmosphere.”
The focus comes after Harris took heat for abdicating her responsibility to take charge of the border crisis. Despite President Joe Biden tasking Harris with leading the administration’s response to the crisis, it took Harris three months before she visited the U.S.-Mexico border. And even then, Harris only visited El Paso, a city hundreds of miles removed from the epicenter of the crisis.
During Friday’s press briefing, Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked Psaki whether the White House is concerned about the allegations of an “abusive environment” in Harris’ office.
In response, Psaki said, “I try not to speak to or engage on anonymous reports or anonymous sources.”
But that’s not actually true, according to Bloomberg News reporter Jennifer Jacobs. In fact, Jacobs, who covers the White House, said Psaki routinely engages in “anonymous briefings” herself.
“‘I try not to speak to or engage on anonymous reports or anonymous sources,’ says @PressSec Jen Psaki, whose team regularly organizes anonymous briefings on topics in the news,” Jacobs said.
Psaki quickly responded by claiming a distinction between her anonymous briefings and White House staffers giving anonymous accounts of the alleged “abusive environment” in Harris’ office.
“I think everyone knows the difference between attacking someone as an anonymous source and providing details on a policy announcement to reporters in an effort to provide information and answer media questions,” Psaki said.
Press Secretary Psaki deflects on question regarding alleged "abusive environment" of Vice Presidential staffers: "I try not to speak to or engage on anonymous reports or anonymous sources." pic.twitter.com/RELZS48D5V
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) July 2, 2021
But not so fast, said reporters from the New York Times, Bloomberg, the Los Angeles Times, and Politico.
New York Times’ Peter Baker: “Point taken. And this is true with every White House. But with all respect, why should ‘providing details on a policy announcement’ be done anonymously in a transparent and open democratic society?”
Bloomberg’s Gregory Korte: “Arguably granting anonymity to people who could lose their jobs for talking to the press is more defensible than anonymity for people whose *job* it is to speak to the press. Speaking ‘on background’ about administration policy is a weird D.C. practice I’ve never understood.”
Politico’s Nahal Toosi: “Actually, shouldn’t you have even less of a reason to be anonymous if you’re simply ‘providing details on a policy announcement…’?”
Los Angeles Times’ Molly O’Toole: “Everyone doesn’t know difference between these ex of anonymity, because there isn’t one: Both are abuses of anonymity, which should be rare & reserved for serious risk of physical or prof harm (for whistleblowers, not politics). Attacks & answering media questions(?!) not valid.”
A.F. Branco coffee table book “Keep America Laughing (at the left)” ORDER HERE
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated– $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
A.F. Branco coffee table book “Keep America Laughing (at the left)” ORDER
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated– $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
As the battle rages on in our society about gender identity and the treatment of same-sex relationships under the law, the church is not immune from addressing these issues head-on – even at the dinner table. If you are like me, these questions are a constant source of debate with teenage children who are bombarded with social media and classroom discussions on the topic that challenge our Biblical views on sexuality, marriage, and gender.
Alarming statistics from a recent Gallup poll show that the onslaught of LGBTQ messaging directed at our youth is working. The report states, “younger generations are far more likely to consider themselves to be something other than heterosexual. This includes about one in six adult members of Generation Z (those aged 18 to 23 in 2020)…and more than half of those claim they are bisexual.” The fact that the rise is most pronounced in young people and the majority is not experiencing same-sex attraction, indicates that the deliberate indoctrination of our children not to accept traditional gender roles is increasingly successful.
When it comes to gender identity, the drastic rise in young people that identify as “gender fluid” has generated fierce debate. Prominent academics and health professionals advocate for a gender affirmative model, claiming that gender is determined by an “interweaving of biology, development and socialization; and, culture and context, with all three bearing on an individual’s gender self.” Therefore, parents should accept the “gender” as stated by the child, regardless of their anatomy. Juxtapose that to the stance of child advocates, researchers, and Christians who firmly believe the rapid onset of gender confusion in our youth results from underlying emotional disorders and manipulation from schools and other institutions that are engaged in some form of conversion therapy on our children. If you are not familiar with this debate, I encourage you to read these resources and understand the extent of the battle for our youth’s identity and emotional well-being.
Surprisingly, the church as a whole is not of one opinion on the issue of sexual preference and God’s condemnation of same-sex relations. The acceptance of openly gay members and clergy are on the rise. Some denominations that ordain homosexual pastors and worship leaders defend their stance by claiming Jesus loves everyone, and research shows that a significant number of Christians find no conflict between their religious beliefs and homosexuality. Thankfully, many evangelical Pastors do not legitimize same-sex couples and instead encourage the individual to rebuke the sin and lean on the power of the Holy Spirit to fight the urges of same-sex attraction just as one would other sins like fornication or adultery.In His Image, the movie does a beautiful job describing just how a Bible-honoring Christian can convey the message of the love of Christ to someone struggling with same-sex attraction. Organizations like Changed Movement help people find community with others struggling with similar issues but who left the LGBTQ lifestyle for freedom in Christ.
Even as a new believer, I knew the Lord did not intend to condone same-sex relationships based on Scripture (1 Corinthians 6:9, 1 Timothy 1:10) , but I struggled with how I could convey these principles to my daughter in a spirit of love and compassion. Last month, I was fortunate to attend an event for Living Stone Ministries at my church to hear from other parents of children struggling with gender identity and same-sex attraction. It was a wonderful time of support and worship with other parents, but the most amazing part of the evening was listening to former gay believers talk about their journey and the impact their parents had on their road to freedom in Christ.
Two of these young men and women empathically said their parent’s unwavering commitment to the Gospel stuck with them the most when deciding to leave the homosexual lifestyle. As one young man put it, “no matter how I tried to manipulate my mom or convince her that she was wrong and just didn’t want to support me, she never wavered on the truth that Jesus wanted a better life for me and I would never find true happiness in a same-sex relationship.” It was the truth of his mother’s words that rung in his ears when he survived an attempted suicide and finally gave his life to Christ for healing and restoration. Another young woman said her Christian mother took the opposite approach and went to gay bars with her to make her feel accepted. It ultimately backfired and made her resent her mother for not helping her leave the lifestyle. Hearing these stories brought me so much peace because it was a truth I knew in my heart but hearing it from someone with lived it affirmed my conviction.
So despite the arguments and accusations that my stance is homophobic, outdated, or just “my truth,” I continue to tell my young daughter that Jesus loves all sinners but despises the sin. It is no different than if she came to me wanting to do drugs or engage in premarital sex. I would warn her that a life of sin will never bring happiness or the freedom that comes from a life in obedience to God.
In light of all that is coming against our children to draw them into a life of death and depression, it is unfortunate that any church would condone same-sex couples and even allow openly gay pastors to lead a congregation. How can we teach our young people to follow any of the Bible’s commandments if we compromise the one that destroys the sanctity of creation and monogamy between a man and a woman in marriage? It is just one more example of how liberalism is unraveling the fundamental principles of the Gospel. Ultimately, it is a massive disservice to people who want to break the strongholds of addiction and be restored through the love and redemption of Christ.
ABOUT THE COMMENTATOR:
Hedieh Mirahmadi was a devout Muslim for two decades working in the field of national security before she experienced the redemptive power of Jesus Christ and has a new passion for sharing the Gospel. She dedicates herself full-time to Resurrect Ministry, an online resource that harnesses the power of the Internet to make salvation through Christ available to people of all nations, and her daily podcast LivingFearlessDevotional.com
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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on July 15, 2021