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.
In 2014, Rolling Stone published a story about a female student named “Jackie” who claimed she was raped at a fraternity party at the University of Virginia.
“The 9,000-word story prompted a wave of outrage and revulsion,” said the Washington Post. The fraternity in question was graffitied within hours, protesters descended upon the campus in Charlottesville, Va., the university president suspended Greek life until the following year, and elected officials condemned the incident.
“University of Virginia Contends With Outrage Over Horrific Rape Reports,” Time Magazine headlined. CNN reported on the story and the university’s swift reaction to it, as did ABC News. The Huffington Post also picked up the story.
The story, we now know, later unraveled, leading to a retraction from Rolling Stone and massive defamation lawsuits. But not before the appalling tale of a helpless young woman being brutally assaulted on an educational campus shook Americans’ sensibilities. No one was disagreeing that, if true, the incident deserved horror, outrage, and efforts to try and keep such abuses from happening again.
The Story We Should All Be Up In Arms About
Just seven years later, a similarly harrowing tale has emerged just 100 or so miles away from U-Va., in Loudoun County, Va. An investigation from The Daily Wire earlier this month reported allegations from Loudoun County father Scott Smith that in May, “a boy allegedly wearing a skirt entered a girls’ bathroom at nearby Stone Bridge High School, where he sexually assaulted Smith’s ninth-grade daughter.”
“A boy was charged with two counts of forcible sodomy, one count of anal sodomy, and one count of forcible fellatio, related to an incident that day at that school,” according to Smith’s attorney.
But instead of receiving national outrage across the political and media landscape, the alleged incident was reportedly covered up by the Loudoun County School Board for months. In a June meeting, board members insisted they didn’t know of any such assaults. After showing up to a school board meeting in protest, Smith was arrested and smeared as a “domestic terrorist.”
Days after the Daily Wire investigation broke, another report alleged the school district had been failing to report sexual assault claims for years. Meanwhile, LCPS appears to have quietly transferred the alleged rapist to another school, where he has since been accused of another sexual assault of a female student.
Where Is The Outrage?
Where is the outrage? A search for “Scott Smith Loudoun” returns zero results on the Washington Post’s website, despite Loudoun County’s close proximity to the Post’s home city. On Tuesday, the Post finally published something on the story, but failed to mention Smith by name and initially failed to admit that the alleged attacker identified as “gender fluid.”
A search for “Scott Smith Loudoun” or “Loudoun sexual assault” returned no results from The New York Times on Wednesday. The extent to which CNN covered the story was to say “[Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn] Youngkin on Tuesday promised action following parental outrage over two recent alleged assaults in public schools in the state’s Loudoun County,” immediately after a paragraph of damage control for Democrat candidate Terry McAuliffe’s statement that “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
Can you imagine if, instead of discovering holes in the U-Va. story, additional coverage had revealed that the school had been covering up other sexual assault allegations for years? Or, if the allegations in the Rolling Stone story had been true, can you imagine if U-Va. had quietly moved the rapists to another fraternity and tried to cover the whole thing up? Or tried to smear Jackie and her family as “domestic terrorists”?
The Loudoun County incident has all the ingredients of a horrifying scandal worthy of the front pages of every newspaper in the country. It should provoke our outrage, not as conservatives, but as caring and compassionate human souls whose sympathies are pricked by the horrors allegedly endured by an innocent 15-year-old girl.
If We Can’t Agree Rape Is Bad, What Can We Agree On?
Ensuring the safety of young girls — in their places of learning and elsewhere — should not be controversial. But the loudest voices on the left, the same ones who screamed “Me Too” from the rooftops of their Hollywood mansions, are too allegiant to the fringe demands of transgenderism to speak up. Many voices in the middle, even, seem too cowardly to come to the defense of young women like Smith’s daughter.
In a widening partisan divide, if we can’t agree that young girls being raped at school is an outrage, what can we agree on? Does the left hate conservatives with such vitriol that, once voices on the right speak up for a young girl’s right to bodily safety, that issue is suddenly anathema, tainted by the fingerprints of concerned parents slandered as domestic terrorists?
Plenty of other common-sense perspectives that any Democrat nominee would have supported up to a couple of years ago have suddenly become “radical” conservative positions too: funding police departments, not segregating kids in school based on race, having international borders, or allowing people to make their own medical decisions without government coercion. Any of these should have been enough to make Americans stop and wonder why the rules of the game are changing so drastically — and who is changing them.
But even for those who had yet to notice, the harrowing tale from Loudoun County Public Schools — and the subsequent shrug that legacy media, Democrats, and the Me Too crowd gave it — should settle that the biggest war in America right now isn’t between Republicans and Democrats, nor between blustering, blundering congressmen battling over whether to sell your children’s future for $3.5 trillion or $1 trillion.
The biggest war in America is between the allegiances we’ve always taken for granted — those of the family, church, and local community — and a conglomerate of forces that will stop at nothing to break them down. Sacrificing a 15-year-old girl’s right to basic safety at her school on the altar of fringe identity politics is just part of that fight.
Elle Reynolds is an assistant editor at The Federalist, and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. You can follow her work on Twitter at @_etreynolds.
On “LevinTV” this week, BlazeTV host Mark Levin explained why he believes Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ responses to COVID-19 — whether prioritizing care for the elderly and nursing home facilities from the very beginning of the pandemic, refusing to issue mask and vaccine mandates, or fighting the federal government’s attempt to cap the distribution of antibody treatments to his state — have been way out in front of any other political leadership. Could this be a preview of the 2024 presidential election?
Levin pointed out that the Harvard-educated governor studies the most current COVID data on a daily basis and makes his decisions accordingly, as opposed to leaders who blindly follow the advice of Dr. Anthony Fauci or comply with the political narrative of the day. As a result, Florida’s current (as of Monday, Oct 18, 2021) COVID death rate (per 100,000) is one of the lowest in the country.
Watch the video clip below to hear Mark Levin break it all down:
Disclaimer: The content of this clip does not provide medical advice. Please seek the advice of local health officials for any COVID-19 and/or COVID vaccine related questions & concerns.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has made the highest number of illegal immigrant arrests along the U.S.-Mexico border ever recorded in the last year, according to a report.
As-yet unpublished CBP data reported by the Washington Post indicates more than 1.7 million border arrests were made in the 2021 fiscal year, which ended in September. The surge of illegal immigration began last year but reached its peak in July and August, when more than 200,000 migrants were taken into custody by U.S. law enforcement each month.
Arrests made in the last fiscal year break a record set in 1986, when President Ronald Reagan signed a sweeping immigration reform bill that granted amnesty and a pathway to U.S. citizenship for migrants who entered the country illegally before 1982. In that year, Border Patrol made 1.69 million arrests, the Post reported.
The most Border Patrol apprehensions were made in the Rio Grande Valley sector, where 549,000 arrests were made. Another 259,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended in the Del Rio sector.
This record-breaking surge of illegal immigration began after President Joe Biden won the White House, promising on the campaign trail to reverse former President Donald Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policies. After taking office, Biden stopped construction of Trump’s border wall, ended the “Remain in Mexico” policy for asylum-seekers, and announced a 100-day pause on most deportations.
Republican critics of the president say reversing Trump’s policies and promising to pass widespread amnesty for illegal immigrants has incentivized the surge in migration from Central and South America. Republicans have repeatedly sought to have Biden administration officials label the surge a “crisis,” to no avail.
Most recently, Biden’s CBP director nominee Chris Magnus, the police chief of Tucson police, Arizona, was pressed by Republican senators on the surge of migrants crossing the southern border. Though Magnus said the surge was a “significant challenge” and the numbers were “very high,” he would not use the word “crisis.”
“If we spent a little less time debating on what the terminology is and perhaps a little more time trying to fix a broken system and working together, we could address what I’ve already acknowledged is one of the most serious problems that we face right now in our nation,” Magnus said.
Biden appointed Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the administration’s efforts to secure the border and address the “root causes” of illegal immigration, but the Post acknowledged her strategy has “had little to no measurable effect.”
Most migrants apprehended last year were Mexican nationals, which accounted for 608,000 of the arrests. The second largest group of migrants were from outside Mexico and Central America, which included Haitians, Venezuelans, Ecuadorians, Cubans, Brazilians, and migrants from dozens of other nations, accounting for 367,000 arrests.
Arrests of migrants from Honduras (309,000), Guatemala (279,000) and El Salvador (96,000) made up the remaining apprehensions.
The Post reported that more than 1.3 million illegal immigrants have been taken into custody since Biden assumed office in January.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is facing legal challenges to its about-face on Trump’s policies. The administration is currently negotiating with Mexico to temporarily reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy after a federal court determined Biden had acted illegally in ending the policy. The president’s attempt to pause deportations was also blocked in federal court.
One Trump policy Biden has continued to enforce is the Title 42 public health policy to rapidly “expel” adult border crossers because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the administration is under fire from immigration activists angered by the policy, who staged a virtual walkout last weekend during a meeting with White House policy advisers.
Upper Darby Township police arrested 35-year-old Fiston Ngoy, a homeless man, on charges of aggravated indecent assault without consent and rape and sexual assault. Police say Ngoy attacked and raped a woman while aboard a Philadelphia-area train last Wednesday. Compounding the alleged brazen nature of the attack, passengers who witnessed the brutal assault chose to record it instead of intervening. In fact, none of the passengers called 911 to report the assault, SEPTA Police Chief Thomas Nestel said.
Fox News reported that Ngoy has been illegally living in the U.S. for years, and his criminal record indicates previous history of sexual crime.
According to the report, Ngoy, a Congolese national, moved to the U.S. in 2012 legally after obtaining a student visa. However, that visa was revoked in 2015 when Ngoy was no longer a student. After having his visa revoked — meaning he was living in the U.S. illegally — Ngoy was reportedly arrested multiple times. His rap sheet includes two misdemeanor convictions, one for controlled substances and another for sexual abuse. Ngoy reportedly pleaded guilty to the sexual abuse charge in 2017, and was subsequently jailed for 120 days and placed on probation. Despite the conviction, Ngoy was never deported.
From Fox News:
He was put in immigration detention in Jan. 2018. However, he was never deported because he received a “withholding of removal” from an immigration judge in March 2019 after the Board of Immigration Appeals found that his misdemeanor sex offense was not a “serious crime” that would have made him ineligible for such a stay.
As a result, Ngoy was released and only had to report into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under an order of supervision (OSUP). OSUPs involve conditions being placed on those who have been temporarily released from custody until they are able to be deported, typically involving regular check ins.
If Ngoy is convicted of the charges against him, he will almost certainly face deportation once released from custody.
Timothy Bernhardt, the superintendent of the Upper Darby Township Police Department, has said that passengers who failed to intervene and attempt to stop the brutal assault could be criminally charged. Bernhardt said such decisions would be left to the Delaware County district attorney’s office.
“It was not immediately clear what those charges could be, and Mr. Bernhardt said he did not want to speculate. He added that Pennsylvania does not have a good Samaritan law and said it would be ‘very difficult to bring charges against those’ who witnessed the attack but did not intervene,” the New York Times reported.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com, and WhatDidYouSay.org.
Source: AP Photo/Ben Gray
If you really, really miss Donald Trump, MSNBC may just be for you! Biden is cratering, fuel prices are skyrocketing (hey, anybody seen Greta Thunberg?), hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are pouring across our border, and the murder rate keeps hitting historic highs. But the establishment media can’t stop talking about TRUMP.
So for my friends in the media, here are a few thoughts on your Trump obsession.
Rep. Liz Cheney, daughter of Dr. Evil, has become an unlikely hero among the Can’t-Get-Enough-Trump media — because she can’t stop talking about Trump either.
Cheney says:
— Jan. 6 was dumb (true: As David Cole says, “What was supposed to happen?”);
— Trump is hurting the GOP (true: He endorsed Stacey Abrams and says his voters won’t come out in 2022 and ’24 if Republicans don’t make the “Presidential Election Fraud of 2020” their No. 1 issue); and
— Trump is lying about the Arizona recount (also true).
But then she had to add: Oh, and now I’m for gay marriage! Isn’t Bush the greatest?
Is there a political party for people who think Jan. 6 was dumb, notice that we don’t have a wall, and can read an election report, but still say Bush is a male bimbo and pretty much everything liberals said about him was true?
“Trumpism Without Trump” is the winning formula. We’re keeping the policies, but getting rid of the 8-year-old.
The main lesson out of the Arizona election hand recount a few weeks ago isn’t about the election at all. It’s that media misinformation is a serious problem in a democracy.
We got some very confusing messaging on the results of the recount. First, there were headlines all over saying it resulted in Biden winning again. I didn’t really care one way or another, except then Trump started going around claiming that the hand recount clearly showed … HE WON!
It’s a simple yes-or-no question: Did Trump win Arizona or didn’t he?
This turned out to be an epistemological puzzle. You see, both sides are gigantic liars, so whom to believe?
In this instance, the media were telling the truth, because the truth favored them, and Trump was lying, because it didn’t favor him.
But thanks, media, for so debasing yourselves with idiotic lies over the past five years — e.g., Russian collusion, the “Access Hollywood” tape, Trump’s remarks on Charlottesville — that I had to look up a basic fact question for myself because I simply couldn’t trust you.
Trump lost Arizona. The hand recount was conducted by a hardcore conservative Christian, Doug Logan, famed for his integrity, and who was, therefore, viciously attacked by liberals. The recount was ordered up by Trump Republicans in the Arizona legislature. It was paid for by Trump supporters.
If you don’t believe Logan, right-wingers, you won’t believe anyone, except the guy who promised to build a wall; bring manufacturing home; and end anchor babies, the carried interest loophole and the war in Afghanistan — but didn’t do any of those things.
Logan’s hand recount of the ballots resulted in Biden receiving 99 more votes and Trump receiving 261 fewer votes. The report is here in black and white.
When Trump says, We have conclusively proven that we won, he’s just doing the salesman thing he always does, telling you that a used car is a fantastic deal, an amazing car, runs like a top!
But the transmission just fell out.
I’m telling you, it’s a humdinger!
Yeah, and we have a big, beautiful wall. Thousands and thousands of miles.
File this under: At Least He Was Thinking of Us, Briefly.
The New York Times reported this week:
Trump’s Pentagon Chief Quashed Idea to Send 250,000 Troops to the Border
“Top national security aides to former President Trump also talked him out of launching military raids against drug cartels inside Mexico.”
Typical Trump. He talks a good game, then one person raises an objection and he says, OK, I’ll just tell my supporters I wanted to do it.
Of course, the Times’ take is: Isn’t he awful? Yes, New York Times, because he didn’t do it. Not because he said he would.
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.
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.
President Joe Biden’s support in the black community is one of the most inexplicable phenomena of modern politics. Despite several racial gaffes during the 2020 primaries — like talking about his work with Dixiecrat segregationists on racial busing as evidence of “civility” in Washington or telling a crowd in Iowa that “poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids” — it was black support in the South Carolina primary that saved his campaign after a series of botched debates and poor showings in the first three primaries and caucuses in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.
While it could be argued that the only other viable Democrat candidate after the first three contests, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, never gelled with black voters (or anyone outside of his white progressive base, for that matter), black support propelled Biden to the nomination. Many pundits felt black turnout for Biden — particularly in Georgia — helped Biden take the presidency.
What fueled the loyalty? Was it the fact Biden is seen as being close to former President Barack Obama, having served as his vice president? Was it the connections he’s made with black leaders during nearly a half-century in Washington politics? Was it the time he went on the New York City-based radio program “The Breakfast Club”and told listeners that “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black?”
Or is it the fact he keeps lying to black America about what he’s done for racial justice?
Case in point: On Monday, Biden addressed the 2021 State and National Teachers of the Year event at the White House. These are the kinds of national TV speeches that should easily pass without incident. As far as the White House and Biden supporters are concerned, the best news that can come out of these affairs is if no news comes out of them. We’re talking about it, however, so guess how that went?
According to a White House transcript, the president began getting himself in trouble when he told the long-winded tale of how he first got elected to the Senate in Delaware even though the seat was considered “to be a lead-pipe cinch” for the Republicans.
If you’re familiar with Biden’s backstory, that part’s actually kind of true. We have an improbable Democratic upset during a 1972 Republican landslide to thank, in part, for the fact we now have a president who, if his handlers weren’t there to direct him to Air Force One, would spend the afternoon wandering around Joint Base Andrews looking for the Braniff International check-in counter.
The rest of the rambling story would probably be marked on Wikipedia as [citation needed]. It involves attending an off-year state party convention and having a bunch of Democrat bigwigs bust into his room while he was “in a towel with shaving cream on my face,” saying he should run for the seat that was supposed to be a GOP lock.
After leaving the convention, Biden said, he went and saw an old professor at the University of Delaware, a Dr. Ingersoll, who paraphrased Plato to him: “The penalty good people pay for not being involved in politics is being governed by people worse than themselves.”
There are so many jokes one could make about that statement, particularly when we look at who’s governing us from the White House. The important part, however, was the lie Biden was about to tell:
“And he looked at me, and he said, ‘Joe, you should run.’ I said, ‘But I — I feel strongly about all of these issues, but I…’ I had gotten involved in the civil rights movement and the wa- — but I —
“He said, ‘Joe, you should do it,’” Biden continued. “He had enough confidence in me that he gave me confidence in myself. With a kid with no money, coming from a middle-class family, who grew up in grade school stuttering, literally — for me, I’m confident I would have never done it were it not for Dr. Ingersoll.”
Maybe if Dr. Ingersoll knew Biden was lying about being involved in the civil rights movement, this could have worked out differently.
Joe Biden was never involved in the civil rights movement in any meaningful sense. He’s admitted as much in his own words, when he wasn’t trying to exaggerate his own importance. He was “concerned,” he said, but was not an “activist.”
By that standard, football fans who watch every Sunday from their couch or a stool at the local bar are more “involved” in the NFL than Biden was in the civil rights movement. (They’re not just “concerned.” They’re screaming.)
And we know this would get a “pants on fire” fact-check rating because he’s been caught lying about his involvement in the civil rights movement before and had to walk it back.
And then he started spouting the same lies again:
In 1987, Joe Biden claimed he marched in the civil rights movement. A few months later, Biden disavowed the claim. Decades later, during the Obama era, and more recently on the campaign trail, he started making the same claims again. https://t.co/NAlMJ6ZTq7pic.twitter.com/tpmE6VXmG6
The first spurious claims came during his abortive 1988 presidential run, which eventually died after he was caught plagiarizing a speech. However, claims he made about his involvement in marching and protesting for civil rights also came under scrutiny.
As The Intercept pointed out, his rhetoric changed considerably over the course of 1987.
In February: “When I was 17 years old, like many of you, I participated in sit-ins to desegregate the restaurants and movie houses of Wilmington, Delaware.”
In April: “I came out of the civil rights movement … I was one of those guys that sat in and marched and all that stuff.”
In September: “During the 1960s, I was in fact very concerned about the civil rights movement,” Biden said. “I was not an activist. I worked at an all-black swimming pool in the east side of Wilmington, Delaware. I was involved in what they were thinking, what they were feeling. I was involved, but I was not out marching. I was not down in Selma, I was not anywhere else. I was a suburbanite kid who got a dose of exposure to what was happening to black Americans in my own city.”
What’s more, this pattern continued during the Obama years. As The Intercept reported, Biden would frequently spend his time as vice president citing his attempts to desegregate Delaware movie theaters despite inconsistencies in his stories and almost no evidence he was seriously involved. And this isn’t even counting his biggest race-related whopper — technically not related to the American civil rights movement but still worth noting.
In February of 2020, Biden claimed apartheid-era South African police arrested him as he was trying to visit Nelson Mandela, saying “I had the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him on Robbens Island.”
Soweto is a township in Johannesburg, hundreds of miles away from Robben Island, the prison off of Cape Town where Mandela was being held. Biden would later try to explain this away by saying he was “stopped” and could not “move where I wanted to go,” not that he was actually arrested. As for being hundreds of miles away from Mandela, he didn’t explain that part — nor was he asked to.
In short, Biden has lied and continues to lie about what he’s done for civil rights and racial justice. He gets called on it occasionally — but is rarely taken to task in any serious manner for inflating his civil rights resumé. And yet, in 2020, a man who blatantly and repeatedly lied to the black community about his commitment to their cause got their overwhelming support.
Sure, Bernie Sanders was and is no great shakes. At least he never claimed he got arrested in Toronto trying to bail Martin Luther King Jr. out of a Birmingham, Alabama jail.
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.@CillianZealFacebook
In a city notorious for fierce political and ideological division, New York City has recently seen unity amongst groups perceived to be on different ends of the political spectrum, such as Freedom Patriot groups and Black Lives Matter.
Patriot Freedom Groups, Trump Supporters, Teachers, Labor Unions, Medical Freedom Advocates, Black Lives Latter Leaders and everyday New Yorkers came together in harmony this past weekend to demand the government reverse the vaccine mandates that have rocked New York City and the nation.
New Yorkers from every walk of life rallied and marched together this past Saturday in the ongoing battle to overturn what many perceive to be unconstitutional mandates and an infringement of civil liberties. New York City has the strictest vaccine passport rules in the nation and residents continue to face discharge from their workplaces and denied entry to restaurants for not complying with the mandates.
The crowd gathered near Times Square before the march, chanting “We The People Will Not Comply”, “We Will Not Comply, We Do Not Consent”, “No Forced Vaccines”, “No Vaccine Mandates”, “Mr Body, My Choice”, “No Vaccine You Won’t Force, My Body My Choice”, “Wake up New York”, “F**k Joe Biden”, “Let’s Go Brandon” and “No Nazi Passport.”
Thousands gathered near Times Square to protest the unprecedented mandates, where speakers like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., NYC Artist Scott Lobaido, BLM Activist Reverend McCall, Children’s Health Defense Attorney Mary Holland, Dr. Lawrence Palevsky and Dr. Christiane Northrup spoke to the audience.
More speakers:
According to activists, the anti-vaccine mandate movement in New York has been rapidly growing.
“We are extremely excited to see such a large and diverse crowd turning up for our events,” said rally organizer Kevin Peters of New York Freedom Rally. “It is growing by the week and all credit it due to Bill de Blasio and Joe Biden who have inadvertently emerged as unifying figures because of the backlash they created with their absurd and illegal policies.”
New Yorkers at the event seemed relieved to find allies in unexpected places after the past years of division that has swept the nation since Covid emerged in early 2020.
“The sleeping giant awakens. New Yorkers are finally coming together on this issue,” said John Tabacco, New York City Conservative Activist and host of the Newsmax show “Wiseguys”. “Biden and the government overplayed their hand with these draconian vaccine mandates and as a result people are uniting on the right and left. This is the government’s worst nightmare. Let’s Go Brandon!”
A Black Lives Matter activist made it clear to the crowd that sometimes civil disobedience is the only way to get the government to listen.
“The resolution will not be televised. The revolution is going to be in the streets,” said Black Lives Matter Leader Reverend Kevin McCall. “Yea we can rally, yea we can say ‘no justice no peace’, yea we can scream ‘my body, my choice’ but the only thing that they respect is when we shut stuff down!”
After the rally, the large crowd marched from Times Square to Hudson Yards and landed in front of CNN, where another rally took place protesting the corporation and other news organizations the group feels propagate vaccine lies, such as The New York Times.
“There is no better example than The New York Times and CNN that push these false narratives,” said Peters.
“We are the white hot center right now,” said event organizer Cat McGuire. “But mark my words- as goes New York so goes the rest of the country- and that’s why we are trying to push back as hard as we can. Don’t feel complacent if you are in a rural area. This is the panopticon and they have everybody’s number, especially if you are getting that toxic injection. That is how they are going to track us. So we’re pushing back here at ground zero- stand up and join us in your own communities- don’t just say well its not happening here- you wait!”
This day was planned by local organizers in coordination with the “World Wide Rally For Freedom”.
Worldwide Rallies for Freedom are ongoing bimonthly events planned all over the USA as well as in over 400 locations including Argentina, Australia, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Israel, Lebanon, New Zealand, Scotland, Switzerland, Uruguay. According to their website, The World Wide Demonstration (also known as the World Wide Rally For Freedom), is an internationally syndicated community demonstration dedicated to emboldening citizens to push back against Coronavirus related restrictions in their countries. The event is deployed by member organizations in each city, with full local autonomy at the grass roots level.
New York organizers said the protests started off in New York with under 100 attendees at the beginning of the lockdown and has since grown to thousands per event.
“The whole entire world needs to rise up,” said Trump supporter Jamiee S. “Or else it is too late, We are going to lose our freedom, we are going to lose our country, we are going to lose everything.”
“The only way to create the power that we need and to get the thing done is that we come together,” said NYC Black Lives Matter activist Stephon Banks. “That means people from all aspects of life. People from different races and classes coming together.”
After surrendering Afghanistan to the Taliban, stranding thousands of Americans and green card holders and arming the terror regime with tens of billions of US weapons the US military is back focusing on the important work. The woke US military deployed “gender and protection advisors” to Fort McCoy recently to deal with the domestic abuse and assaults on children.
Instead of focusing on how to rescue stranded Americans or how to prevent losing to 7th-century barbarians, they’re focusing on gender issues. Meanwhile, China surprised the US by testing a new hypersonic nuclear-capable missile that circled the entire globe at low orbit in August.
The U.S. military has sent “gender and protection advisors” to Fort McCoy to handle domestic abuse, child care emergencies and the upcoming winter for the thousands of Afghan refugees still housed at the army base.
The advisors hope to address gender-specific needs of the nearly 13,000 men, women, boys and girls at Fort McCoy and eight other U.S. military installations since the Afghan government fell to the Taliban in August, the military said in a statement. Gender advisors for the Department of Defense were created by a 2018 law that mandates the U.S. military to address the gender needs of people and minorities in war and conflict zones.
“We realized that this is a perfect kind of deployment,” said in the statement Sharon Feist, the chief gender advisor for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. “What better place to help women and children and different gender needs than at U.S. installations hosting Afghan evacuees.”
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.
It’s a phone call every parent dreads receiving. Earlier this year, Virginia father Scott Smith was notified his 15-year-old daughter had been sexually assaulted. While that news was horrific, little did Smith know this would just be the start of a nightmarish series of events in which he would end up being cast as the villain. He can thank Democrats for enabling the whole outrageous affair.
The saga began back on May 28 at Loudoun County’s Stone Bridge High School, the sheriff’s office confirmed, where Smith was summoned by school officials. Smith told The Daily Wire he learned his daughter had allegedly been assaulted in a girls’ restroom by a boy wearing a skirt. (According to some reports, the boy identifies as “gender-fluid.”) Smith said school officials told him they intended to handle the incident in-house, instead of through the police and courts. After Smith became understandably upset at this callous and wholly improper decision not to involve law enforcement, he says school officials calls the police on him.
Fortunately, Smith was not arrested that day, but the story did not end there. A month later, he attended a Loudoun County School Board meeting to protest a proposed policy that would, among other things, allow students to access whatever restroom or locker room corresponds with their self-identified sex.
Concerned parents argued the policy would take privacy and safety from girls. LCPS Superintendent Scott Ziegler responded, “To my knowledge, we don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms.” Smith couldn’t believe his ears. Later, a conversation between a left-leaning parent and Smith grew heated when the other parent implied Smith was lying about his daughter. This time, police did arrest him and video of the incident went viral. Overnight, Smith became the poster boy of supposedly dangerous parents. The National School Boards Association even specifically pointed to him in the now-infamous letter to the Biden administration, arguing that distraught parents ought to be seen as “domestic terrorists.”
The full truth about what had happened to Smith’s daughter did not become public until this past week: The sexual assault committed against her was no anomaly. Not only that, it was the direct result of policies promoted and advanced by Democrats who are willing to sacrifice the bodies, minds, and souls of innocent children to protect leftist gender ideology from criticism.
The prime culprits of the Smith family’s tragedy are dictates like Virginia’s “Model Policies for the Treatment of Transgender Students in Virginia’s Public Schools.” Such dictates — disarmingly labeled “policies” — elevate subjective “gender identity” over sex, allowing male students to participate in girls’ sports, lodge with girls on overnight school trips, and, yes, access girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms.
This is far from a new project. Democrats have been attempting to impose their gender insanity on the rest of the country since at least the Obama administration, when the U.S. Department of Education threatened schools with a loss of federal funding if they did not implement such policies. Unfortunately, weak Republican governors like South Dakota’s Kristi Noem have also been complicit through their refusal to meaningfully resist this agenda.
Concerned parents and others have fought this effort, arguing these changes would put girls in particular at risk to potential predators. Sespite Democrats’ best attempts at gaslighting, this is exactly what’s happened, and not just in Virginia. In November 2017, a five-year-old girl in Georgia was allegedly sexually assaulted in her school bathroom after the school introduced a new transgender policy. Her case, Thomas v. City Schools of Decatur et al, is still making its way through the state’s courts.
Still, Democrats and their left-wing allies refuse to even acknowledge this outcome of their transgender policies. After claiming there had been no assault in a school restroom, the Loudoun County School Board passed its new transgender policy in August. The alleged perpetrator was reportedly transferred to a different high school where, earlier this month, he was reportedly charged with sexually assaulting yet another girl. Still, the corporate media blackout of the story persists, while the Biden administration and Democrat politicians — and their henchmen in Big Tech and the press — continue to vilify ordinary parents like Smith.
Democrats’ true priorities are clear. Despite past “believe all women” rhetoric, their party’s ideology about sex has driven them to summarily toss aside the safety of girls in their campaign to normalize crazed gender ideology. As for the fundamental right of parents to choose how their children are raised, Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe last month spelled out where he and his Democrat comrades stand: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
To stop the left’s nefarious agenda, parents and pro-family Americans must become politically engaged and toss out bad elected officials. If this doesn’t happen soon, Scott Smith’s nightmare could be endured by many others around the country.
Terry Schilling is the executive director at American Principles Project.
A tale of two drugs. One has become the standard of care at an astronomical cost despite studies showing negative efficacy, despite causing severe renal failure and liver damage, and despite zero use outpatient. The other has been safely administered to billions for river blindness and now hundreds of millions for COVID throughout the world and has turned around people at death’s doorstep for pennies on the dollar. Yet the former – remdesivir – is the standard of care forced upon every patient, while the latter – ivermectin – is scorned and banned in the hospitals and de facto banned in most outpatient settings. But according to the NIH, a doctor has the same right to use ivermectin as to use remdesivir. And it’s time people know the truth.
Although the NIH and the FDA didn’t officially approve ivermectin as standard of care for COVID, it is listed on NIH’s website right under remdesivir as “Antiviral Agents That Are Approved or Under Evaluation for the Treatment of COVID-19.” It is accorded the same status, the same sourcing for dosage recommendations, and the same monitoring advice as remdesivir … except according to NIH’s own guidance, remdesivir has a much greater potential for severe reactions in the very organs at stake in a bout with acute COVID.
Now, let’s take a closer look at the details.
As you can see, they admit that remdesivir causes renal and liver failure! One of the symptoms is “ALT and AST elevations,” which are indications of liver damage. Is that really the drug you want when someone is at risk for a cytokine storm and thrombosis? They even have a monitoring requirement for these side effects. Also, it does have some drug interactions as well.
Now, let’s move on to the ivermectin side effects.
Notice how the NIH is essentially saying it has no side effects by the fact that it prefaces the section by noting the drug is “generally well tolerated,” a distinction not accorded to remdesivir. Then it proceeds to list the same boilerplate GI and nausea warnings on every drug under the sun. There are almost no drug interactions and ZERO specific guidance for monitoring!
Just looking at the NIH’s own table, why in the world would remdesivir be the expensive mandatory standard of care and ivermectin, buttressed by 64 studies, be relegated to hemlock status even for patients about to die and with no other options?
Yes, we get the message – every one of those studies is supposedly low-powered, a fraud, and all the thousands of doctors turning people around on ivermectin are some how frauds even though they have nothing to gain and everything to lose from pushing it. But if that is our standard for ivermectin, it raises the obvious question about remdesivir. How could remdesivir not only be approved but made the standard of care when it has negative efficacy in trials, has a negative recommendation from the WHO, and, by the NIH’s own admission, causes liver and kidney failure?
Even if the medical establishment dismisses the preponderance of evidence and reality of the past 18 months, with ivermectin saving so many people, just from a safety standpoint, why would they not allow people to at least try something this safe while forcing on them a dangerous drug like remdesivir? In addition, these are the same hospitals that administer Olumiant, which has a rare FDA black box warning for blood clots, even though these very patients are at high risk for a pulmonary embolism and other clotting disorders?
In other words, there is no way anyone can justify the war on ivermectin (and every other cheap treatment that has been and will be proposed) as being rooted in anything related to medicine and science. If that were the case, the medical establishment would be dead set against remdesivir and Olumiant. Moreover, to the extent remdesivir has any efficacy that is worth its risk, it would be outpatient during the viral stage. There is quite literally no scientific way remdesivir can work in the pulmonary inflammation stage. Unlike ivermectin, which tones down inflammatory cytokines such as IL-1beta and IL-10 as well as tumor necrosis factor alpha, remdesivir has no anti-inflammatory qualities.
Gee, is there any wonder hospitals will fight patients in court – including those whom they already recommend to remove from life support – to not even try ivermectin as a last resort?! So much for the desire to flatten the curve of hospitalizations. They want people in the hospital! If they really cared about the run on hospitals, they’d promote treatments that work early and outpatient so that nobody would need to come to the hospital.
Here’s one other strong piece of evidence that this is not about any shortcoming of ivermectin, but stems from unrelenting war on anything off patent that might work, in order to run interference for expensive, dangerous, and ineffective tools of big pharma. Let’s go back to that NIH chart of potential antiviral drugs for COVID. There is actually a third one on that list aside from remdesivir and ivermectin.
Nitazoxanide, much like ivermectin, is a (potentially) cheap off-patent anti-parasitic that has been praised for years as a very safe, broad-spectrum anti-parasitic mechanism and is written about glowingly in studies. And it actually has an even longer and more direct precedent of research and clinical use against viruses than even ivermectin. It is the standard of care for norovirus and rotavirus in Brazil and has shown promise against not just flus and hepatitis, but coronavirus colds, SARS, and MERS. This research has been known even in the media for well over a year! Gee, we have an antiviral that is so safe it’s given to young kids for viral diarrhea and has been known to work against coronaviruses. Yet our government has refused to pursue any meaningful research for 18 months!
Originally, it was as cheap as ivermectin, but one company seems to have bought it up, and now it is prohibitively expensive in the U.S. However, were the government to promote it, this off-patent drug could easily be mass-produced for pennies on the dollar and costs just a few dollars for a full regimen in Mexico and Brazil.https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=BMDC5574376707
Notice that, just like with ivermectin, the NIH prefaces the side effects section on nitazoxanide by saying it is “generally well tolerated” and then proceeds to list the boilerplate of typical minor side effects that are disclosed for every drug under the sun. Anyone merely looking at this NIH page alone can see how the government and medical establishment’s treatment of remdesivir vs. every other therapeutic that has been tried is built upon control, greed, and something much darker than that. Now, just remember, these are the same people who will look you in the eye and say the shots are 100% effective and carry zero risk. It’s all in the $cience. What is self-evident from the NIH’s disclosure, which was updated as late as July 2021, is that ivermectin and nitazoxanide work for a lot more than just parasites. It’s primarily the political parasites that fear that those drugs.
The state of Minnesota is offering financial incentives for children ages 12 to 17 to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Young people who get both doses of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine between Monday and Nov. 30 will be eligible to snag a $200 Visa gift card. A parent or guardian can register their child after that child has received the two shots. Registration opens the morning of Nov. 9.
Minnesotans ages 12 to 17 who have received two COVID-19 vaccine doses at any point in 2021 are eligible to be entered to win a $100,000 college scholarship to go to any public or private nonprofit educational institution in Minnesota. There will be five $100,000 scholarship drawings, and after a child has been entered by their parent or guardian into a drawing, they will also be included in each subsequent drawing.
“Our administration is dedicated to doing everything we can to keep our kids safe during this pandemic – and that includes working to get as many Minnesotans vaccinated as possible,” Democratic Gov. Tim Walz said in a statement, according to reports.
“We’re launching this program to help reward teens for doing their part by getting fully vaccinated and keeping our schools, community, and state safe. If you haven’t started your vaccine series yet, do it now and get $200 in your pocket. And to every Minnesota teen across the state: Get fully vaccinated and get your shot at a $100,000 college scholarship,” he said.
Just 50% of 12- to 15-year-old Minnesotans have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, while less than 60% of youth ages 16 to 17 have been fully vaccinated in the state, according to a news release, FOX21Online.com reported.
Walz, a Democrat who entered office in early 2019, authorized utilizing $12.2 million of federal American Rescue Plan money for the vaccine incentive program.
In-N-Out Burger blasted the city of San Francisco’s proof of COVID-19 vaccination requirements after the San Francisco Department of Health closed one of the popular California burger joint’s locations for serving customers who were not carrying the proper papers.
“On Thursday, October 14, the San Francisco Department of Public Health closed our restaurant at 333 Jefferson Street because In-N-Out Burger Associates (employees) were not preventing the entry of Customers who were not carrying proper vaccination documentation,” In-N-Out Burger’s chief legal and business officer, Arnie Wensinger, said in a statement.
“Our store properly and clearly posted signage to communicate local vaccination requirements,” Wensinger said. “After closing our restaurant, local regulators informed us that our restaurant Associates must actively intervene by demanding proof of vaccination and photo identification from every Customer, then act as enforcement personnel by barring entry for any Customers without the proper documentation.”
“We refuse to become the vaccination police for any government,” Wensinger declared, slamming the San Francisco Department of Health’s requirements as “unreasonable, invasive, and unsafe” and accusing the city of asking restaurants to “segregate Customers” based on vaccine documentation.
Wensinger’s statement was first reported by The HighWire.
In August, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced that the city would require businesses in “high-contact indoor sectors,” including bars, restaurants, clubs, and gyms to obtain proof of COVID-19 vaccination from patrons and employees before servicing them. The health order was implemented to “protect against the continued spread of COVID-19, particularly among the unvaccinated,” according to a statement from the mayor’s office.
“Many San Francisco businesses are already leading the way by requiring proof of vaccination for their customers because they care about the health of their employees, their customers, and this City. This order builds on their leadership and will help us weather the challenges ahead and keep our businesses open. Vaccines are our way out of the pandemic, and our way back to a life where we can be together safely,” Breed said at the time.
San Francisco was among the first major U.S. cities to require proof of COVID-19 vaccination to enter indoor restaurants and other businesses. The city also implemented a vaccine mandate for workers at these places of business, which went into effect on Oct. 13. In his statement, Wensinger accused San Francisco of forcing businesses “to discriminate against customers who choose to patronize their business.”
“This is clear governmental overreach and is intrusive, improper, and offensive.”
The San Francisco Department of Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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.
There is nothing free-market about “private” businesses joining in the violation of the Nuremberg Code. In fact, the entire concept of a rushed therapeutic that wanes quickly and causes a shocking number of known and unknown injuries never would have gotten off the ground under the free market. Socialism, subsidization, monopolization, government using taxpayer funding to create, market, coerce, censor, and reshape society with the shot — all the while being exempt from legal liability — are the only reasons why any business even under 100 employees, much less a larger business, would be mandating it at this point. The only effective, prudent, fair, and free-market position is to use equal and opposing force to restore the balance of the free market. It’s show time for the state legislatures.
Legislative bodies throughout the country are meeting over the next few weeks to debate measures that would counter the mandates being illegally promulgated by the Biden administration. Most GOP-controlled states are going to take some form of action, but the question is whether they will take the right action or be intimidated by the visceral response of the big business and health care cartel that has become a giant arm of government tyranny. Several Iowa lawmakers have put together a bill that is the gold standard of what other red states should adopt this coming week.
The crux of the bill, Iowa SF 193, sponsored by Sens. Guth, Johnson, Schultz, Whiting, and Carlin, categorically bans all human rights violations in relation to “Pfizer” government mandates. It prohibits an employer from failing or refusing to hire, discharge, penalize, or otherwise discriminate against an employee with respect to compensation or the terms, conditions, or privileges of employment based on the employee’s vaccination history or the refusal of the employee to receive a vaccine or provide proof of immunity. It provides a cause of action in court to anyone discriminated against, along with a prescribed remedy of back pay plus 10% from the employer.
This is what we do in the context of every other form of discrimination, including when employers legitimately terminate problematic workers. So, until we get rid of all those laws and the EEOC at the federal level, we don’t need to hear about “the free market.”
Next, rather than providing an exception to this rule for hospitals and health care settings, this bill specifically bans any discrimination against health care workers or discrimination on the treatment side for patients in a health care setting. It spells out every form of medical professional, including medical students and residents. Importantly, this bill bars any health care provider licensing authority from denying or revoking a license to any applicant because they decline the shot.
At this point, it is abundantly clear that the shots provide no more protection against transmission than not having the shots, which makes any form of any mandate unjustified, even if we are to believe one can govern another’s body. For example, in health care settings, where health organizations are arguing that they must protect cancer patients who didn’t get the shot, those patients are at least as likely to get the virus from a supposed vaccinated person as from an unvaccinated person, especially if the latter individual already had the virus. Moreover, research has consistently shown that people within 14 days of the first or second shot are the most vulnerable to catching COVID because of the suboptimal levels of antibodies. Having thousands of health care workers suddenly get the shots within a period of a few weeks would expose those patients to the most risk in health care settings.
Another important provision of the Iowa bill is that it bars all insurance companies from discriminating against those who don’t get the shot. This means they cannot reject; deny; limit; cancel; refuse to renew; increase the premiums for; limit the amount, extent, or kind of coverage available to; or otherwise adversely affect eligibility or coverage for the group health policy, contract, or plan for health insurance.
We’d all love to live with a market in which any providers can offer any insurance plan they wish. But that ship sailed with Obamacare. The only things worse than full socialist mandates are half-manipulated mandates, which induce totalitarianism in addition to socialism. Thanks to Obamacare, we cannot start our own insurance companies because of the actuarily insolvent mandates. Yet the same government that pushed universal coverage now gets to manipulate the government-sponsored “private” monopoly companies to bar coverage for large groups of people based on zero scientific evidence. Repeal Obamacare, and then we will remove this provision. Until then, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Next, the bill bars any owner or manager of a public accommodation from discriminating in services against someone who has not taken the shot. Again, this virus has been used as an excuse to prohibit all landowners from evicting anyone, including those who are disruptive, destructive, and late on rent. We will not allow the socialists to use their control over the “private” sector to suddenly encourage them to discriminate against people with no cause. I’m fine with ending most discrimination laws. But if we are going to have them, the worst outcome is for government to manipulate a perfectly perverse standard of who is subject to them and who is exempt from them. When businesses can deny services or employment to those with HIV or with certain sexual behaviors, or thwart Obamacare, Sarbanes-Oxley, Dodd-Frank, OSHA, and ADA regulations, then come back to me about “the private sector can do what they want.”
More provisions of SF 193 include the following:
A prohibition on including someone’s immunization status on their driver’s license.
Expansion of the exemption process for vaccine requirements in schools related to existing vaccines.
Anyone administering the vaccine must obtain written consent from the patient prior to reporting the administration of the vaccine or immunization to the statewide immunization registry.
At present, all private businesses over 100 employees are on the hook for a looming federal mandate to require a shot that the government has essentially created and manipulated with taxpayer funding that the free market never would have sustained. Both government and the pharmaceutical companies are exempt from liability. This is not free market; this is fascism. As such, for any state to merely pass a neutral law without providing equal and opposing force to prohibit (rather than exempt from) the federal mandate is not an exercise in free market ethos but in submission to totalitarianism.
How come none of these business and health organizations cried bloody murder about “rights of the private sector” when governors placed the ultimate regulation on them – a crippling shutdown or cumbersome capacity mandates? In this case, they are not regulating affirmative expensive compliance measures – just simply a dictate to apply existing discrimination and health privacy law to where it’s needed most in order to counter Nuremberg violations by the federal government. Private business owners don’t need to lift a finger and spend any time or money on this. Just don’t harass your workers. “Well, we’re scared of COVID,” they are saying. In that case, you have the shot, so what do you care about someone else not getting it?https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=BMDC5574376707
The private sector or free market did not conjure up the riskiest and leakiest shot in history or mask-wearing; it was all induced by the federal government through fear, intimidation, misinformation, threats, and censorship. In the case of big business and health care, there has been downright collaboration with the federal government at every stage – a violation of the ultimate antitrust principles. Therefore, every state has an obligation to interpose between the federal coercion and the safety of the people. Allowing every business in every state to remain a conduit for that federal tyranny is not respect for private rights. It’s collaboration with a very dark tunnel of tyranny. We don’t want to discover what’s on the other side.
Vice President Kamala Harris is being accused of helping Virginia churches break federal law prohibiting tax-exempt churches from engaging in overt political activity. More than 300 “black churches” across Virginia will reportedly view a pre-recorded message from Harris over the next several weeks urging them to vote for Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the upcoming Virginia gubernatorial election.
According to CNN reporter Eva McKend, the message began airing Sunday and will be continue to be broadcasted through Nov. 2. The message “will air during morning services as part of outreach effort aimed to boost @TerryMcAuliffe,” McKend reported,
NEW — More than 300 Black churches across VA will hear from @KamalaHarris btwn Sun. and November 2 in video message that will air during morning services as part of outreach effort aimed to boost @TerryMcAuliffe.#VAGOV
In her message, Harris does not hide her endorsement of McAuliffe. Not only does she urge parishioners to “vote after today’s service,” but Harris tells church-goers that, “I know that you will send Terry McAuliffe back to Richmond.”
The explicitly political message, which certainly endorses a political candidate, seemingly violates the Johnson Amendment.
In 1954, Congress approved an amendment by Sen. Lyndon Johnson to prohibit 501(c)(3) organizations, which includes charities and churches, from engaging in any political campaign activity. To the extent Congress has revisited the ban over the years, it has in fact strengthened the ban. The most recent change came in 1987 when Congress amended the language to clarify that the prohibition also applies to statements opposing candidates.
Currently, the law prohibits political campaign activity by charities and churches by defining a 501(c)(3) organization as one “which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”
The IRS further explains that tax-exempt organizations that violate the law are subject to losing their tax-exempt status.
Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity.
Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.
Tax-exempt organizations, however, are permitted to engage in “certain voter education activities” and “other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process” so long as they are “conducted in a non-partisan manner.” Harris’ message clearly goes beyond such permitted activity.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki appeared to skirt the Hatch Act last week when she seemingly endorsed McAuliffe during a press briefing from the White House.
President Biden’s nomination to lead the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, Tuscon police chief Chris Magnus, is being widely criticized and called unfit for the role by “immigration hawks.” Magnus’s confirmation hearing is set at the Senate on Tuesday. A pitched battle of words is expected at that time, as critics are already making it clear that they are unhappy with the pick, and Border Patrol agents are considering early retirement.
According to Fox News, skeptical voices have been raised against Magnus because of his support for non-compliance with orders under the previous Trump administration. Because of this, immigration hawks are worried that this represents another move towards an “open borders” policy. Most notably, Magnus has shown himself to be in support of the “sanctuary city” policy, where city governments and police departments act in pro of illegal migrants, at times against official orders. He’s also been blasted for his opposition to stricter border policies by the Trump administration.
Back in 2017, Magnus, who then was and now is a police chief in Tucson, Arizona, wrote the following for The New York Times: “As the police chief here, I’m deeply troubled by the Trump administration’s campaign against ‘sanctuary cities,’ which refuse to turn over undocumented immigrants to federal authorities.”
“Tucson has come too far to jeopardize reforms that strengthen relationships with the public we serve. Department grants and other federal support funded through our taxes should not be tied to immigration policies,” Magnus wrote.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas fully supports Magnus’s nomination, saying in a statement: “I am excited that President Biden has nominated an extraordinary group of individuals for critical leadership positions in the Department of Homeland Security,”
“They are highly regarded and accomplished professionals with deep experience in their respective fields. Together they will help advance the Department of Homeland Security’s mission to ensure the safety and security of the American people. I look forward to working with the Senate in support of their swift confirmation,” Mayorkas said as Magnus and other picks were announced.
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.
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 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 proposal within Biden’s new $3.5 trillion plan will allow the Internal Revenue Service to stick its fingers in your personal finances. More specifically, the measure will give the IRS the authority to track each year the total deposits and withdrawals from accounts that have a balance of over $600 or bring in over $600 annually, according to WMUR-TV.
Americans are understandably upset over the prospect of having the government spy on their bank accounts. According to Just the News, this has become so much the case that some are even pulling their accounts from credit unions over the prospect of possible government surveillance.
The president and CEO of the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions, Dan Berger, claims that Biden’s new spying plan will carry with it “extremely serious and costly implications for consumers and financial institutions.”
“If this provision goes into effect, credit unions would not only be left facing technical challenges and added costs to meet the reporting requirements, they would also have to deal with an increase in questions and concerns about what they are reporting from their members,” Berger said according to Just the News.
“Not to mention the major financial data privacy concerns they’d need to address to ensure their members feel safeguarded and still willing to place their trust in credit unions.”
“Some credit unions are already seeing consumers withdraw their accounts because they are concerned about the possibility of this government intrusion,” Berger said. “Any increase in compliance burdens ultimately leads to higher operational costs that could impact service and credit unions’ lending capacity. Every dollar spent on cumbersome compliance costs is one less dollar to lend to members.”
These new rules won’t hurt the richest Americans. They already have a team of lawyers making sure their client is able to use every possible loophole. Moreover, the rich elite who are trying to evade taxes don’t keep the money they’re trying to hide in checking accounts at credit unions.
Rather, the targets hit worst will likely be lower-income single mothers who run businesses out of their homes and high-school dropouts working for the minimum wage, to name just two examples. Those are the people on whom the IRS will clamp down.
Many Americans are already aware of this reality. According to Just the News, some of the Americans most concerned over the new proposal are immigrants who escaped from countries with “state-controlled banks.”
“We work with a number of minority banks across the country, minority depository institutions,” said Aaron Stetter, the executive vice president of The Independent Community Bankers of America.
“And many of them that are within our membership have come to us, and their concern is that many are serving a community that have come from authoritarian regimes, that have a natural distrust for governments and big government. And this is actually furthering or exacerbating those concerns, so they’re very concerned with how they communicate to their customer base.”
When big government is given more power, despite what Biden may claim, rich elites aren’t ultimately the ones who pay the price. It’s everyday, low-to-middle income Americans that will face the consequences.
Michael Austin joined The Western Journal as a staff reporter in 2020. Since then, he has authored hundreds of stories, including several original reports. He also co-hosts the outlet’s video podcast, “WJ Live.”
How badly have we lost our way? It is an important question that many Americans, including this one, can no longer avoid asking just because we intuitively know we are going to be profoundly depressed with the answer.
Yes, we have lost our way as a nation in foundational ways. It will be difficult to find our way again without divine intervention. The moral compass of a significant number of our fellow citizens has been desensitized and demagnetized. Is it a plurality, a majority, or just a significant minority?
Does that really make much of a difference? I don’t think it does, really, because whatever the percentage is, it is enough to vitiate and blunt the basic Judeo-Christian morality upon which this nation was founded, and to which a majority of its citizens aspired to achieve. Eventually, even many of the blind spots resulting from their human frailty were confronted by the foundational ethos embedded in the founding document, their sine qua non as a nation, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…”
That is indeed a revolutionary credo that has impelled the nation to an evermore expansive understanding of the depth and breadth of that truth.
Tragically, somewhere along the way, America veered seriously off course and we are now confronted with a collapse into full-blown paganism.
What triggered this lugubrious conclusion? I have seldom been both as shocked and saddened as I was after reading the Rev. Rebecca Todd Peters’ op-ed in USA Today, “Faith Guided Our Decision on 2 Abortions.” Rev. Peters identifies herself as a Presbyterian minister (John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, and Peter Marshall, among others, would find that statement astounding considering the op-ed’s content.)
The Rev. Peters also states that she is “a wife and a mother of two” and that she has “also had two abortions.”
She immediately follows this by asserting, “I did not make my abortion decision despite my Christian identity and faith, but rather because of it.”
As my heart sank and my spirit was distraught, my mind immediately went to the first chapter of the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. There Paul describes the ever-downward spiral of human sin where one of the most distinguishable things about sin is its ability to generate ever greater sin and depravity (Rom. 1:18-32).
After all, the Apostle Paul confronted a Roman society that was as depraved, if not more so, than our own era. Even the pagans noticed and were offended. Seneca observed that it was an age “stricken with the agitations of a soul no longer master of itself.” Tacitus opined that “the greater the infamy, the wilder the delight.”
As the masterful New Testament scholar William Barclay so discerningly observed of the people of that time, “He has so erected an altar to himself in the center of things that he worships himself to the exclusion of God and man.”
Before we go any further, let us be clear — “Waterford crystal clear.” The Reverend Peters does not represent any historic form of the genuine Christian faith — Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant.
The Roman civilization into which the Christian faith was birthed out of Judaism was one in which the life of the child was discounted and devalued perhaps more than ever before or since until the modern pro-abortion era in the West. Abortion was common, as was infanticide.
Will and Ariel Durant in their multi-volume The Story of Civilization report that when a child was born it was placed in front of the father. If the father picked up the child and acknowledged it, the baby lived. If the father turned away, the child was literally abandoned. This abandonment was commonplace.
The only real difference between then and now in the extreme pro-abortion regime in America is that in Rome it was the father who had absolute power of life and death over their child, and in modern America, it is the mother who wields such absolute power. By the way, the Durants reported that after the first girl was safely delivered in a family, 99 out of every 100 subsequent girl babies were discarded to die.
The Jewish civilization was the only ancient civilization in the Mediterranean Basin which did not routinely practice infanticide and abortion.
It was into this pro-death, anti-child milieu that Christianity burst forth in the first century AD with a courageous and uncompromising pro-life message. As Michael J. Gorman has pointed out in Abortion and the Early Church: “Writers of the first three centuries laid the theological and literary foundation for all subsequent early Christian writing on abortion…three important themes emerged during these centuries: the fetus is the creation of God; abortion is murder; and the judgment of God falls on those guilty of abortion.”
In fact, the Didache, the first widely acknowledged post-Apostolic teaching of the early church (circa 134 AD) vehemently condemned abortion and declared that it was beyond the pale for those identifying themselves as followers of Jesus Christ.
For the Reverend Peters to assert that “without a doubt…the two decisions we made to have children were far more morally significant than the decision to end two pregnancies” is quite literally blasphemous. Morally significant for whom? The two babies she killed would undoubtedly have pleaded with their mother to let them live.
We are talking about two babies, her babies, and she says killing them can be “a moral good.” Every abortion stops a beating human heart. In this case — two of her babies’ beating hearts.
In Paul’s analysis of the moral degeneracy of Roman civilization, he declares the downward spiritual spiral of degradational sin produces people “without natural affection” (Rom 1:31). The Greek root of that phrase is Storgē(astorgos), a special word in the Greek language, standing for “mother love” or “family love.”
In first-century Rome, as in 21st century America, the natural love a parent has for a child was in serious decline — a decline evidenced by Reverend Peters’ proud declaration of her “moral” decision-making. The Christian church, in all its historic traditions, until the last half of the 20th century, would rightly have declared the Rev. Peters’ theology “apostasy.”
In another part of the New Testament, the Apostle Paul warned of those bearing at least the name “Christian” and the consequence of teaching false doctrine leading to their consciences being “seared” or cauterized as if by “a hot iron” (I Tim 4:2).
I fear that the Rev. Peters is emblematic of far too many Americans who have had their consciences seared and deadened by the child sacrifice of at least 65 million of our unborn citizens.
The contrast with those who still have a sensitive and accurate moral compass was illustrated for me in a particularly dramatic way just a few days ago. Fox newscaster Ben Domenech was reporting on the resurgent pro-life movement while noting that America has one of the most radically extreme pro-abortion legal regimes in the world, keeping gruesome company with Communist China and North Korea.
In the course of his report, he began to relate an episode recounted by the remarkable Whittaker Chambers in his even more remarkable memoir, Witness. Chambers and his wife were Soviet Communist spies operating in the U.S. Chambers later became a Christian, turned away from Communism, exposed Alger Hiss as a Soviet spy, and authored a memoir, Witness, which had a huge influence on a large number of people, including Ronald Reagan.
Chambers records that in 1933 he and his wife discovered that they were pregnant. Realizing that this would be very different considering they were both Communist spies in America, Mrs. Chambers went to make arrangements to abort the child. When she came home a few hours later she was very subdued and quiet.
Chambers explained, “My wife came over to me, took my hands, and burst into tears.’
“‘Dear heart,’ she said in a pleading voice, “we couldn’t do that awful thing to a little baby, not to a little baby, dear heart.’”
As Domenech’s voice broke and he teared up, he quoted Chambers’ response: “A wild joy swept me. Reason, the agony of my family, the Communist Party and its theories, the wars and revolutions of the 20th century, crumbled at the touch of the child.”
Whittaker Chambers and his wife, while then atheists, had not had their consciences seared and neither has Mr. Domenech. The current struggle over killing our unborn babies at horrific rates will reveal just how cauterized and desensitized many Americans’ consciences have become as a consequence of having been submerged in the ever-burgeoning culture of death.
I pray to God that we have not been so fatally, morally impressed as a people that we cannot be convicted and moved “at the touch of the child.”
Aldous Huxley once observed, “The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that the other set of people are human.” Our unborn babies are human beings and God has a plan and purpose for each one of them and I tremble for my country when I think of the massive child sacrifice of our children which we have already allowed to be perpetrated.
Dr. Richard Land, BA (Princeton, magna cum laude); D.Phil. (Oxford); Th.M (New Orleans Seminary). Dr. Land served as President of Southern Evangelical Seminary from July 2013 until July 2021. Upon his retirement, he was honored as President Emeritus and he continues to serve as an Adjunct Professor of Theology & Ethics. Dr. Land previously served as President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (1988-2013) where he was also honored as President Emeritus upon his retirement. Dr. Land has also served as an Executive Editor and columnist for The Christian Post since 2011.
Dr. Land explores many timely and critical topics in his daily radio feature, “Bringing Every Thought Captive,” and in his weekly column for CP.
SMART, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, is one of North America’s most dynamic and diverse unions with 203,000 members. The union consists of sheet metal workers, service technicians, bus operators, engineers, conductors, sign workers, welders, production employees and more. SMART is the largest railroad operating union in North America, with more than 500 Transportation locals.
On Thursday SMART Union General Chairperson Roy Davis sent a letter to advise Union Pacific Company that the SMART Union strongly disagrees with the company’s “unilateral” requirement for COVID vaccinations.
SMART demanded an immediate response and demands that Carrier negotiate in good faith.
Here is another letter by SMART Union sent a letter to the Union Pacific Railroad.
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.
The Boeing Company announced on Tuesday that employees must get vaccinated against COVID-19 or face the possibility of termination. Leaked documents show workers allegedly planning a “sickout” for every Friday beginning October 15. The deadline for employees of the aerospace giant to get the shot is December 8. The policy will apply to the approximately 140,000 employees throughout the company.
According to communications obtained by Human Events, Boeing union workers claim that “Boeing has acted in bad faith” and knew “months ago” that a mandate was coming. Boeing employees told The Post Millennial that they were under the impression that union leadership was fighting the mandates and that a compromise would be worked out, or at the very minimum, a test out option would be provided.
Jon Holden, president of International Association of Machinists (IAM) District 751, wrote in his message to members in the October issue of the union’s paper Aero Mechanic, “the reality is our members are polarized on this issue.”
Holden added, “It is our responsibility to defend and advocate for all our members including “those who can’t or won’t accept the vaccine.”
The communications discussing the sickout were tagged #Freedomflu. A rally against the mandate has been planned for Friday from 12 pm to 4 pm at the Boeing factory in Everett, Washington. Boeing employees who are not yet vaccinated are required to have the first shot of Moderna’s vaccine by October 27, or the first dose of Pfizer by November 3, or get the Johnson and Johnson single dose vaccine by November 24. According to internal Boeing emails obtained by The Post Millennial, “A failure to meet the vaccine requirements by the due date would result in an involuntary resignation, not a termination for cause. It is considered a resignation and would not result in any variation of policy for pay out of VAC, PTO, SL, Pension, 401K…”
The email added, “Boeing 100% wants to retain all of our employees. That being said many employees have strong feelings around the recent company response to the Executive order-implementing a Vaccine Requirement.”
A Boeing internal presentation on Tuesday from management to employees via webcast obtained by The Post Millennial stated, “Compliance with these requirements is a condition of employment. Employees who are unable to meet these requirements … may be released from the company.”
Employees can request exemptions “…due to a disability or sincerely held religious belief,” and employees granted an exemption will have to “undergo frequent testing for COVID-19” and “…present a negative test result upon request.”
According to an email to Boeing employees obtained by The Post Millennial, “As a US government contractor, Boeing is required to comply with President Biden’s recent executive order requiring COVID-19 vaccines for federal contractors.”
Amazon has not announced a vaccine mandate, however, as a federal contractor, the company could be required to do so under new rules from the Department of Labor. Southwest and American Airlines, both based in Texas, have also mandated the vaccine for employees and faced strong opposition from employees, especially pilots.
One Boeing employee told The Post Millennial that the email “…is what they sent to the masses, leaving the managers to deliver the details around termination.” The same employee added, “They have opted to not allow for a testing option unless you get a religious exemption. Then it’s weekly testing and testing on demand. I’ll lose my job, and forfeit unemployment insurance. Likely losing my pension due to termination.”
Boeing may face resistance to the new policy in certain states the company operates in. On Monday, Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order prohibiting private companies or any other entity from requiring vaccines. Boeing has over 5,000 employees in Texas and over 32,000 more at facilities in other Republican governed states such as Alabama, Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma and South Carolina.
According to The Seattle Times, “…production in Boeing’s factories is still depressed,” despite ramping up deliveries of the 737 MAX in September, because of manufacturing quality problems since May with the 787 Dreamliners. It is unclear what affect the mandates could have on production of aircraft.
The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), said in a statement that they are engaging with Boeing “to ensure implementation gives proper consideration to members’ concerns.”
After a record high number of Americans said last year that the federal government should do more to solve the nation’s problems, a new survey from Gallup finds that most Americans have reverted to thinking the government should have a more limited role. Last September, when the nation was firmly in the grips of the coronavirus pandemic, with states locked down, businesses closed, and racial unrest dominating headlines, a record-high 54% of U.S. adults surveyed by Gallup said the government should do more to solve problems.
But in the year since then, President Joe Biden took office and started a massive expansion of the federal government’s role in the pandemic response. Biden signed a $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill into law last spring and Democrats are seeking to follow that up with another $1 trillion infrastructure bill and a $3.5 trillion spending bill funding free community college tuition, child care, paid family leave, Medicaid expansion, and Biden’s climate agenda. Additionally, Biden issued a controversial executive order mandating that businesses with more than 100 employees force their workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or be tested regularly for the virus.
Now, Gallup finds that 52% of Americans say the government is doing too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses, while 43% say the government needs to do more to solve problems.
Last year’s surge in support for big government was driven by Democrats and independents, who opposed how President Donald Trump was handling the coronavirus pandemic. Gallup notes that in times of crisis, Americans tend to favor more government action, as seen in a surge of trust in government after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. However, “all party groups are less likely now than a year ago to favor a more active government role,” Gallup finds, with the largest shift in opinion happening among independents.
In 2020, 56% of independents said they favored a more expansive role for government compared with just 38% now. In fact, independents have reacted so negatively to government action over the last year that fewer independents today support a more active government role today than before the pandemic in 2019, when 45% wanted bigger government.
Asked about the trade-off between taxes and government services, half of Americans say they prefer fewer government services and lower taxes, while only 19% want increased taxes and more services. Twenty-nine percent of survey respondents said taxes and services should remain where they are now.
Majorities of Republicans and independents say they prefer lower taxes and fewer services, while Democrats are split between increasing both (37%) and keeping taxes and services where they are (40%). Nineteen percent of Democrats actually said they want lower taxes and fewer services.
A plurality of 43% of Americans say there is too much government regulation of businesses, which is an increase of 7 percentage points from 2020, when only 36% said there was too much regulation. That change is consistent with the last time the presidency change hands from the Republican Party to the Democrats.
“Spanning the transition from Republican George W. Bush to Democrat Barack Obama between 2008 and 2009, the percentage saying there was too much government regulation also increased seven points, from 38% to 45%,” Gallup notes.
“The COVID-19 situation and the Trump administration’s response to it in 2020 may have briefly changed Americans’ views on the proper government role, but whatever effect it had has now disappeared,” Gallup concludes, observing that the reversal in opinions on the role of government may reflect a return to normal attitudes following a time of crisis.
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.
California – A 16-year-old boy died while taking his math class on Zoom last April reportedly 27 days after taking his second shot of Pfizer vaccine according to VAERS data released on October 1, 2021.
On July 13, the boy’s mother filed a report with the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) — run by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — indicating her son died 27 days after receiving his second dose of Pfizer’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine in April.
In the “Diagnostic Lab Data” section of the VAERS entry, the mother wrote, “He had no previous symptoms. I was with him one hour before and my assistant saw him 20 minutes prior and he did not show any irregularities.”
Per the report, the child’s second dose was administered on April 3, and the boy died on April 27.
The entry also indicates that the child had not been diagnosed with any allergies, pre-existing conditions, illnesses, disabilities, or birth defects, and had not been taking any medications prior to his death. He apparently stayed in the hospital for eight days, and it’s unclear how he participated in the Zoom class, or if he was released prior.
A new report seems to confirm what we all already knew about the Ashli Babbitt case: She was shot unjustifiably. For those who may not remember, Babbitt was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer while trying to open a door that led to the House chamber during the Jan. 6 incursion.
Judicial Watch reported on Wednesday that it had obtained 532 pages of documents from the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police, all regarding Babbitt’s death. Witness testimonies indicated Babbitt was not holding a weapon at the time of the shooting and that the officer involved, Michael Byrd, looked “upset” after shooting her.
A Capitol Police sergeant testified that he didn’t know why Byrd shot Babbitt.
“I saw Lt. Byrd kind of. I don’t know if it was before or after,” the sergeant said. “I don’t know if something happened to him [that] caused him to take the shot or not.”
“These previously secret records show there was no good reason to shoot and kill Ashli Babbitt,” Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said.
“The Biden-Garland Justice Department and the Pelosi Congress have much to answer for … over the mishandling and cover-up of this scandalous killing of an American citizen by the U.S. Capitol Police.”
“She was posing a threat to the United States House of Representatives,” he said in an August interview with NBC News.
“I know that day I saved countless lives. … I know members of Congress, as well as my fellow officers and staff, were in jeopardy and in serious danger. And that’s my job.”
The Capitol Police concluded an internal investigation seven months after the shooting, declaring Byrd’s actions “lawful and within Department policy,” according to Fox News.
After a full year of the establishment media and the Black Lives Matter crowd preaching ad nauseam about police misconduct and abuse of power, it was strange to see them fall completely silent regarding Ashli Babbitt’s death. Or maybe it wasn’t so strange.
After all, Babbitt was a white woman, which means her unjustified killing doesn’t play well into their race-baiting narrative.
In July, The Western Journal conducted an interview with Michelle Witthoeft, Babbitt’s mother. Witthoeft blasted Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for failing to investigate the circumstances of her daughter’s death.
“Nancy Pelosi … I feel like, orchestrated the death of my daughter,” Witthoeft told The Western Journal.
“I’ve reached out to Nancy Pelosi’s office several times, and she has yet to call me back because she’s too busy playing in her clubhouse with all of her elite people.”
She went on to remind Pelosi that she should be serving the people.
“You know, it’s the people’s house. It’s not your house, Nancy. It’s the people’s house. That’s my message to Nancy Pelosi,” Witthoeft said.
“The Capitol Police should be held accountable like every other police department in the country.”
It’s well past time that Witthoeft and Babbitt’s other family members were afforded the justice they deserve for the death of their loved one.
Now we all know the truth. Hopefully, justice comes soon.
Michael Austin joined The Western Journal as a staff reporter in 2020. Since then, he has authored hundreds of stories, including several original reports. He also co-hosts the outlet’s video podcast, “WJ Live.”
The National Sex Education Standards’ updated 2020 guidance is featuring what many parents may consider to be disturbing, indoctrinating sex-related information that public school districts are teaching children from very young ages. The new standards, according to the report, were conceived by the Future of Sex Education Initiative, a partnership between Advocates for Youth, Answer, and SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change that seeks to “create a national dialogue about the future of sex education and to promote the institutionalization of quality sex education in public school.”
According to a Tuesday report from the Federalist‘s Nick Bell, the sex education “blueprint” is steeped in “extremist sexual ethics” that are “designed to destroy children’s innocence”as well as undermine their Christian faith.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a 2016 report noted that approximately 40% of school districts across the country adopted the National Sex Education Standards’ 2011 edition — a less extreme version of its 2020 successor.
“The 2020 standards unequivocally endorse abortion at any time, teach the topic starting in sixth grade, and even force teachers to provide information on local abortion clinics to students in ninth grade,” Bell wrote. “The standards also insist that children must be allowed to choose their own gender and false pronouns must ‘be respected by the adults in their lives.'”
According to the new standards, children as young as kindergarten age should learn about gender identity, while third-grade students should learn about the role of hormone blockers for transgender youth. Teachers should also be equipped to explain masturbation to students as young as just eight years old.
It gets worse from there: Bell noted that sixth-graders — who are often 11 and 12 years old — “must define oral, anal, and vaginal sex as well as the benefits of withdrawing one’s penis before ejaculation during intercourse.”
Sixth-graders, the groups said, should also learn that people ought not “assume that people with a penis are boys and people with a vagina are girls,” and that they should never assume another person’s sexual orientation. Students of this age group, according to the guidance, should also attend LGBTQ rallies and challenge themselves and others on ways to combat homophobia. Sixth-graders would also engage in a card game in which cards ask whether various sex acts — “oral sex (mouth on genitals),” “anal sex (penis to anus)” — are considered abstinence.
For seventh-graders, anything but “sperm in vagina” would constitute abstinence, the guidance added, and teachers would demonstrate how to put on a condom.
A lesson for eighth-graders, the guidance added, would encourage anal and oral sex over vaginal sex in order to avoid pregnancy.
The new standards, according to the organization, were “written with a trauma-informed lens; have been infused with principles of reproductive justice, racial justice, social justice, and equity; address social determinants of health and how these can lead to inequitable health outcomes; and take an intersectional approach. This edition uses less cis and heteronormative language that reflects a broader range of relationships and identities.”
The updated standards also appear to place parental consent on the back burner and encourage children to demand respect from the adults in their lives when it comes to sexual choice.
“No one else is qualified to label or judge another person’s sexual identity, including their sexual orientation or gender identity, and it is important that the language and terms young people use to identify themselves is respected by the adults in their lives,” a portion of the report added.
The skirt-wearing male student at the center of a purported sexual assault that recently took place in a vacant school classroom was previously placed under electronic surveillance for another sexual assault, according to reports.
Loudoun County commonwealth’s attorney Buta Biberaj on Wednesday announced that the same 15-year-old has been charged in both crimes.
According to a Wednesday report from Newsweek, the male Loudoun County, Virginia, high school student accused of assaulting a female student in a school classroom was reportedly under court-ordered electronic surveillance for a previous sexual assault charge when the assault incident took place.
The outlet noted that it is unclear at the time of this reporting as to why the 15-year-old male student was permitted on school property after having been charged with sexually assaulting a fellow student in a bathroom just five months prior to the new incident.
The unnamed teen was accused last week of sexual assault after he reportedly forced a female victim into an empty classroom at Broad Run High School in Ashburn, Virginia, where he reportedly “held her against her will and inappropriately touched her.”
The student, just five months earlier, was arrested for reportedly sexually assaulting a female student while wearing a skirt in another Ashburn-area school bathroom in May.
Authorities in May charged the teen with two counts of forcible sodomy for the purported bathroom assault.
He is currently being held in the Loudoun County Juvenile Detention Center, according to a report from WTOP-TV.about:blank
WTOP reported that the teen was due to appear in court this week regarding the May incident, but the date has been rescheduled due to the filing of the second charge.
In a Wednesday statement, the Loudoun County School Board said that police are investigating the incident.
“Loudoun County Public Schools is aware of the media and social media reports concerning alleged sexual assaults at two of our high school campuses,” a portion of the statement said. “Principals are legally required to report to the local law enforcement agency any act, including sexual assault, that may constitute a felony offense. That process was followed with respect to these allegations.”
The statement added, “Furthermore, LCPS is prohibited from disciplining any student without following the Title IX grievance process, which includes investigating complaints of sexual harassment and sexual assault. LCPS does impose interim measures to protect the safety of students involved in the original incident, deter retaliation, and preserve the integrity of the investigation and resolution process.”
Critics have lambasted the school board, accusing it of covering up the abuse, and parents have said that the school board was complicit in the assault.
Scott Smith, father of the female student assaulted in May, recently announced that prosecutors told him to remain quiet about the case in order to help the case move forward.
Smith complied, but when parents objected to a new trans bathroom policy within the school district, officials denied any incidents of assault.
“The predator transgender student or person simply does not exist,” Loudoun County Schools Superintendent Scott Ziegler said in June. “We don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms.”
In its Wednesday statement, the district added that the board was not aware of any details of the accusations.
“School Board members are typically not given details of disciplinary matters,” the statement insisted. “The board may be obligated to consider long-term suspensions or expulsions and must ensure that students have not been deprived of due process. Consequently, members of the Loudon County School Board were not aware of the specific details of this incident until it was reported in media outlets earlier this week.”
You can read more on the background of the case here.
Loudoun County Public Schools claims the school board did not know details of horrific sexual abuse allegations
The school district accused of covering up horrific sexual abuse at one of their schools released a lengthy statement Wednesday denying that the school board knew the details of the case.
Loudoun County resident Scott Smith said that his daughter was raped on May 28 by a boy allegedly wearing a skirt in a restroom at Stone Bridge High School. He said that he was told by prosecutors to stay quiet about the case publicly in order to help the prosecution case move forward.
When parents later objected to a new transgender restroom policy at the school district, officials denied any incidents of sexual assault had occurred.
“The predator transgender student or person simply does not exist,” said Loudoun County Schools Superintendent Scott Ziegler in June. “We don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms.”
On June 22 at a school board meeting, Smith got into an altercation with a woman who he says was accusing his daughter of lying about the assault. The incident was used by the National School Board Association in their demand to the Department of Justice that threats to school boards be investigated as “domestic violence.”
Although the incident remains under investigation, the details of the horrific accusations were documented in a report by the Daily Wire.
On Wednesday, the school district responded to the controversy in a statement, which cited two assaults.
“Loudoun County Public Schools is aware of the media and social media reports concerning alleged sexual assaults at two of our high school campuses,” the statement read.
Principals are legally required to report to the local law enforcement agency any act, including sexual assault, that may constitute a felony offense,” the statement continued. “That process was followed with respect to these allegations.”
The statement went on to say that LCPS was not allowed to investigate the matter until after a criminal investigation by police is completed.
“Furthermore, LCPS is prohibited from disciplining any student without following the Title IX grievance process, which includes investigating complaints of sexual harassment and sexual assault,” the statement added. “LCPS does impose interim measures to protect the safety of students involved in the original incident, deter retaliation, and preserve the integrity of the investigation and resolution process.”
The district went on to say that the board was not aware of the details of the sexual assault accusations.
“School Board members are typically not given details of disciplinary matters. The board may be obligated to consider long-term suspensions or expulsions and must ensure that students have not been deprived of due process,” the statement claimed.
“Consequently, members of the Loudon County School Board were not aware of the specific details of this incident until it was reported in media outlets earlier this week,” the statement concluded. “We are unable to locate any records that indicate that Scott Smith had registered in advance to speak at the June 22, 2021 board meeting.”
Outraged parents demanded the resignation of Superintendent Ziegler at a school board meeting Tuesday after more details of the harrowing case were revealed.
Here’s more about the Loudon schools scandal:
Va. school district claims it followed protocol amid reports 2 girls were sexually assaulted by trans student
By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter| Wednesday, October 13, 2021
A parent speaks at a Loudoun County School Board meeting in Virginia on in October 2021 to demand the resignation of Superintendent Scott Ziegler. | Screenshot: Fox News
A Virginia school district is defending its response to two sexual assault allegations after it was accused of covering up one of the assaults because it raised questions about the potential consequences of a policy passed in August allowing students to use bathrooms based on their gender identity.
Loudoun County Public Schools released a statement Wednesday acknowledging that it is “aware of the media and social media reports concerning alleged sexual assaults at two of our high school campuses.” The district maintained that the proper “process was followed with respect to these allegations.”
On Aug. 10, the Loudoun County School Board approved Policy 8040, allowing trans-identified students to use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity instead of their biological sex.
The Daily Wire reported the May 28 sexual assault of Scott Smith’s 15-year-old daughter at Loudoun County’s Stone Bridge High School Monday. The publication reported a biological boy who identifies as a girl alleged to have been wearing a skirt entered a girls’ bathroom and sexually assaulted Smith’s ninth-grade daughter.
Although juvenile records are sealed, Smith’s lawyer, Elizabeth Lancaster, told the news outlet that the student faces two counts of forcible sodomy, one count of anal sodomy and one count of forcible fellatio related to the incident at school.
As Smith noted during an appearance on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” Tuesday night, a “concerned parent” contacted him and his wife Friday night to ask for the name of the boy who sexually assaulted his daughter.
When Smith refused to divulge that information and asked for the reason behind the inquiry, the caller informed him that “there was another assault at Broad Run High School and the rumor is that it’s the same boy.”
“Within a half an hour, it was confirmed that yes, this did happen,” he added. From there, Smith decided to speak out publicly about what happened to his daughter.
The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office released a statement last week announcing that “a teenager from Ashburn has been charged with sexual battery and abduction of a fellow student at Broad Run High School.”
“The investigation determined on the afternoon of October 6, the 15-year-old suspect forced the victim into an empty classroom where he held her against her will and inappropriately touched her,” the statement from the sheriff’s office reads.
The reaction to The Daily Wire reporting was swift and immediate. In video footage obtained by Fox News, outraged parents confronted the Loudoun County School Board and Superintendent of Schools Scott Ziegler at a school board meeting Tuesday night.
“When is Dr. Ziegler and this board going to be held accountable?” one parent asked. “What did you think was going to happen when you pushed porn into the classrooms and into the libraries and let boys into girls’ bathrooms?”
Another parent maintained that “there is something seriously wrong with a system that prioritizes reporting a rape internally to the superintendent so that they can control the narrative instead of calling the police.” A third parent accused the district of “hiding evidence from every parent in LCPS about a heinous sexual assault of a student that occurred in a bathroom so you could pass radical Policy 8040.”
In its statement Wednesday, Loudoun County Public Schools offered clarification of its responses in the cases of these two sexual assault allegations. The school district contends that police were contacted to investigate the claims of sexual assault.
“Principals are legally required to report to the local law enforcement agency any act, including sexual assault, that may constitute a felony offense [under Virginia law],” the school district’s statement reads. “That process was followed with respect to these allegations.”
The statement further adds that the Loudoun County Sherriff’s Office was “contacted within minutes of receiving the initial report on May 28.”
“Once a matter has been reported to law enforcement, LCPS does not begin its investigation until law enforcement advises LCPS that it has completed the criminal investigation,” the statement continued. “LCPS has cooperated and continues to cooperate with law enforcement.”
The school district stated that it is “prohibited from disciplining any student without following the Title IX grievance process, which includes investigating complaints of sexual harassment and sexual assault.”
“LCPS does impose interim measures to protect the safety of students involved in the original incident, deter retaliation, and preserve the integrity of the investigation and resolution process. LCPS has complied and continues to comply with its obligations under Title IX.”
The school district also maintains that members of the school board “were not aware of the specific details of this incident until it was reported in media outlets earlier this week.”
The LCPS statement didn’t address the fact that the perpetrator of the sexual assaults was a trans-identified male and that one of the incidents took place in a girls’ bathroom. The district also declined to weigh in on parental concerns about Policy 8040.
Concerns about Policy 8040 predate the reporting about the May 28 assault on Smith’s daughter.
On June 22, slightly more than three weeks after the sexual assault of Smith’s daughter, a school board meeting in Loudoun County made national headlines as parents forcefully spoke out against a proposed school district policy that would allow trans-identified students to use facilities that correspond with their gender identity.
Scott Smith, whose daughter was raped by a male wearing a skirt in a girls’ bathroom at her high school in Loudoun County, Virginia, appears on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle,” Oct. 12, 2021. | Screenshot: Fox News
At least two parents were arrested after the meeting was declared an “unlawful assembly.” Smith was one of those parents.
The Daily Wire noted that Smith became the “poster child” for the National School Boards Association’s claims that parent protests of school board policies could be a form of “domestic terrorism” as a result of a viral video showing his arrest.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice directed law enforcement agencies to collaborate on “addressing threats” against school officials after the NSBA requested “federal assistance” to combat what the organization characterized as “domestic terrorism” and “hate crimes.”
In his Fox News appearance Tuesday, Smith accused the Biden of administration of using the video of his arrest at the school board meeting to “weaponize” the government against concerned parents.
Smith also elaborated on the events that led to his arrest. As one of several parents hoping to address the Loudoun County School Board on June 22, Smith and his wife were confronted by a left-wing activist who berated them upon learning that they were there to speak out against the transgender policy. When Smith tried to tell the woman what happened to his daughter, she asserted, “that’s not what happened.” After she vowed to hurt his business by posting unfavorable reviews on social media, Smith called her a “b****.”
From there, law enforcement officials descended on Smith, wrestling him to the ground and causing his lip to bleed. Smith’s wife shouted out, “My child was raped at school, and this is what happens!”
The Daily Wire concluded that the passage of the policy would have been “politically impossible had Smith’s story seen the light of day.” Lancaster agreed, suggesting that “If someone would have sat and listened for 30 seconds to what Scott had to say, they would have been mortified and heartbroken.”
While the school district had knowledge of what happened to Smith’s daughter, it assured the public that such incidents had not taken place in Loudoun County.
At the June 22 meeting, Ziegler dismissed the idea of predators taking advantage of policies like Policy 8040 as a “red herring.” He cited a Time Magazine article and asserted that “the predator transgender student or person simply does not exist.”
Smith told Fox News that in the weeks following his daughter’s assault and his arrest, he wanted to keep a low profile because “we were under the impression from the prosecutor that this sexual predator was being held on in-house arrest with an ankle monitor and would not return to school until these court sessions were done.”
“I was told by everyone … my attorneys, the prosecuting attorney, friends of the family, people that I don’t even know that if I wanted justice for my daughter, that I needed to keep my mouth quiet and not speak out,” he said. “Because in order to get justice for my daughter, which is the most important thing to me of course, was do not come out and let justice prevail.”
Elaborating on the harm that the incident at Stone Bridge High School caused his family, Smith told Ingraham that as “the school board and the school system just went on summer break and abandoned us, my wife and I had to spend the entire summer … rebuilding our daughter.” He indicated that while his daughter had a “couple … rough nights” and the family endured “Hell,” she is “doing very well.”
“She’s a survivor,” he said. “She’s a winner.”
Smith’s daughter is not the first to have been sexually assaulted in a girls’ bathroom.
Pascha Thomas alleged that in 2017, her 5-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted in a girls’ bathroom at an elementary school in Decatur, Georgia.
“One of her classmates came into her bathroom, a little boy,” Thomas recalled. “She tried to leave the bathroom, [but] the little boy pushed her against the bathroom stall. Basically pinned her up against there. She asked him to stop. He wouldn’t. He took his fingers and he was penetrating her through his pants. She asked him to stop, and stated several times that it hurt. He refused.”
Thomas worked with the legal group Alliance Defending Freedom to file a lawsuit against the school district, contending that its bathroom policy enabled the assault on the then-5-year-old girl to take place.
A poll from Rasmussen Reports released on Wednesday finds that Americans are split in their opinions of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s order for law enforcement to address threats against school boards.
While 44% of likely voters believe that the investigation into alleged threats against school officials is warranted, 47% disagree. Support for investigating threats against school officials stands at 64% among Democrats and 31% among Republicans.
At the same time, 68% of respondents agreed with a statement from Republicans in the U.S. Senate asserting that “the reported heated encounters between concerned parents and school boards often involve speech that is clearly protected by the First Amendment.”
Seventy-eight percent of Republicans agreed with that statement, along with 57% of Democrats and 72% of unaffiliated voters.
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. “Are you ready to take back our schools?” Republican activist Patti Menders shouted at a rally opposing anti-racism teaching that critics like her say trains white children to see themselves as “oppressors.” “Yes!”, answered in unison the hundreds of demonstrators gathered this weekend near Washington to fight against “critical race theory,” the latest battleground of America’s ongoing culture wars. | AFP via Getty Images/Andrew Caballero-Reynolds
Our shocking slide into the surreal world of leftist leadership has led to this: American parents are now the enemy. Big Education and a weaponized Department of Justice are going after the very people who should have the most say in public education. School boards and public school administrators, like in Loudoun County, Virginia, where I live, have faced unprecedented informed dissent from parents of every background. Instead of acting like public servants, they act like the petty gods of Mount Olympus recklessly wielding their (unconstitutional) power as they try to strike down (e.g. silence, fire, dox and demonize) anyone who dares to challenge their rule.
But like typical progressives, they’re the victims. They’re more than deserving of the outrage and peaceful protests by American parents. We’re fed up with the pollution of our children’s minds with LGBT pedophilia and porn, racism, colorism, anti-capitalism, religious bigotry, anti-free speech, and other anti-American propaganda.
I don’t advocate violence in any form. I fully advocate parent-led education and fully oppose government-led indoctrination. My wife and I withdrew our school-aged children from Loudoun County Public Schools. I won’t be silenced by those who think parents have no right to help shape what our children learn in schools funded by our tax dollars. We now homeschool all of our children and are passionate about school choice. Sorry, Terry McAuliffe. Not sure why you “don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” There are no schools without students. There are no students without parents. Parents are the primary educators, the primary influencers, and the primary individuals who have to deal with the emotional and psychological fall-out of public education’s increasingly destructive liberal indoctrination.
The National School Boards Association, bolstered by the leftist news establishment’s false narratives, has called for President Joe Biden (whose children didn’t attend public schools) to sic the Department of Justice on dissenting parents, now grotesquely labeled as domestic terrorists.
Let me introduce you to some of the parents leading this fight in my county. These are passionate individuals who never would’ve thought they’d be forced into such a battle. These are everyday moms and dads who defy the fake news caricatures. I’ve shared the stage with each of these remarkable women and men. So, I’ve asked them why they’ve chosen to get involved.
Meet Xi Van Fleet.
Xi fled communist China. She knows, firsthand, about the suppression of basic human rights like life, free speech, and religious liberty. She knows what unlimited government control looks like. “Many black/brown/Asian parents speak up against Critical Race Theory. The Left always uses the Trump card to divide Americans and to discredit those who dare to push back on their radical agenda,” Xi explains. I asked her why it matters if you use someone’s “preferred” (and made up) pronouns. “This is not about pronouns,” she says. “The radical Left is altering reality and forcing us to conform. The goal is not to help transgenders. The goal is to control everyone else.”
Meet Joe Mobley.
Joe is another Loudoun county parent. He’s a podcaster and describes himself as an “uncloseted conservative”. One of the viral videos with his informed dissent focused on the insanely sexually explicit “diversity” books offered by the school district to young children (see it here.) I asked him about the most shocking thing he learned since getting involved in fighting LCPS [Loudon County Public Schools]. “LCPS’ willingness to openly lie, even when the truth is a matter of public record. Like saying CRT isn’t in our schools while CRT Develop Planning is a line item in the budget,” Joe explains. “Media Matters says we’re billionaire-backed professional activists. I can assure you I am struggling to stay in the fight for my family, community, and country. I have a real job that is extremely demanding and important, I’m active in my church. We are about to have our fourth child under seven. The only support I have is emotional support from my family.”
Meet Patti Hidalgo Menders.
Patti is the president of the Loudoun County Republican Women’s Club (the largest in Virginia). For some reason, it’s only a problem when a conservative is involved politically. On the Left, it is a standard operating procedure. Her parents fled communist Cuba; they were branded “enemies of the state.” Now, Patti has become the enemy of Big Education as she was blacklisted by a private Facebook group made up of former and current LCPS teachers and board members who wanted to target her publicly. She’s also a mom of six boys, one of whom is still a student at LCPS.
I asked her why she’s involved. “If parents don’t get involved, then the school boards will continue to dictate what is best for their children. I do not coparent with the government. I do not coparent with the school board. This Loudoun County school board continues to listen to special interest groups and equity consultants instead of listening to the parents and the children/students. Parents need to take a stand!”
Meet Michael Rivera.
Michael is yet another Loudoun County parent, with two children in LCPS. He’s a public safety professional who is deeply concerned about the safety of children’s minds in public education. “Students may not have the intellectual wherewithal to ‘fight’ per se but we can educate our children. As a result of the indoctrinating topics being proliferated, our job as parents got harder,” he explains. “We need to explain things to our children by stating and explaining reality and facts. That explanation includes ugly facts about the history of the United States. We need to give our children evidence and truth so they can debate and refute radical political ideologies. In the end, our children will be independent thinkers, but it is our job as parents to guide them down the right paths.”
Michael opposes the blatant CRT principles being pushed on students in government schools. “I’m not white, but I prefer not to lead with that fact. There is absolutely NO good that comes from reinforcing judgment of others solely by color. We know for a fact that it is illogical and was a false proposition during the awful years of slavery and oppression of blacks. I look to all of the successful minorities in America and only see progress for all. How ironic and ludicrous is it that wealthy, powerful, successful black Americans are trying to destroy the very [capitalist] system that allowed them to be who they are?”
Meet Shawntel Cooper.
Shawntel is a working, fighting mom. She is a no-nonsense warrior for her children who doesn’t mince words. Her speeches at school board meetings are straight fire! I asked her if she’s the parent fake news keeps talking about that wants to oppress black and brown people (insert eye-rolling and laughter here). “I’m black, and I’m very happy with my natural skin tone. I have noticed a lot of flip-flopping with the school system stating they are not teaching CRT. But then they changed the name to Culturally Responsive Framework anti-bias with the same curriculum they lied about. I was taught to never listen to rumors but check the facts before assuming. I’ve seen so many people marching for BLM, and we all witnessed BLM didn’t do a thing for those communities they encouraged [activists] to burn down. When I saw the shooting and looting, I knew then and there it was a political move to keep racism alive.”
Meet you.
The great thing about these parents, who apparently threaten Big Education and the Biden administration, is that they not only peacefully oppose the destructive policies being passed, but they also offer detailed alternatives. There are lots of great teachers and administrators in the public education system. My wife was a private and public school teacher for thirteen years (and continues as a homeschool educator). But Critical Race Theory, Feminist Theory (FemCrit), Queer Theory and other radical ideologies have been supplanting actual education for years. And the National Education Association (here, here and here) and the American Federation of Teachers (here, here and here) insist on this radicalization.
As a parent, are you willing to be silent while our children’s minds become experimental grounds for forced political activism?
There are resources to help inform and equip you like Fight for Schools, Parents Defending Education, and Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). There is a battle going on for the very heart and soul of our youth who are daily bombarded with dangerous and divisive ideologies. We must have zero tolerance for schools marginalizing parents and pretending our voices don’t matter. It’s a struggle parents cannot lose. It’s a struggle America must win.
Ryan Bomberger is the Chief Creative Officer and co-founder of The Radiance Foundation. He is happily married to his best friend, Bethany, who is the Executive Director of Radiance. They are adoptive parents with four awesome kiddos. Ryan is an Emmy Award-winning creative professional, factivist, international public speaker and author of NOT EQUAL: CIVIL RIGHTS GONE WRONG. He loves illuminating that every human life has purpose.
A “Black Lives Matter” banner hangs on the fence erected around the White House to protest the death of George Floyd in Washington, D.C., on June 10, 2020. | OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images
A former African slave said that Black Lives Matter and critical race theory advocates do not understand what is happening in Africa, where more than 9.2 million people“are still in captivity in slavery.”
“I believe Black Lives Matter does not understand what is going on in Africa. They don’t know what is going on around the world,” Bol Gai Deng, a former slave and South Sudanese presidential candidate, said during an interview with CBN News.
“They need to understand that slavery still exists in Africa today. … More than 9.2 million [people] are still in captivity in slavery,” he said.
Deng shared that in 1987, Sudanese government-backed Mujahadeen raiders kidnapped him, burned down his village and made him a slave. Deng recalled how he — at age 7 — and more than 700 other captured children were forced to walk 250 miles from their homes through jungles.
“I was beat up, I was told what to do, and sometimes they used to put chains on my legs to the point where I would become so disciplined to my master,” he recalled.
After escaping captivity three years later, Deng went to Khartoum, where a Catholic charity helped him. Following a later move to Egypt, the U.S. offered him asylum.
Deng contends that in Libya, women are being sold into slavery for as little as $400.
“A woman is being sold for $400 in a market in Libya right now,” he said.
He argued that Black Lives Matter activists “need to listen to people with my background.”
In the U.S., there has been much debate nationally and locally on critical race theory, a theory embraced by many social justice advocates and opposed by those who feel it exaggerates the state of race relations in America today.
Encyclopedia Brittanica defines critical race theory, which is tied to the Marxist discipline of critical theory, as an “intellectual and social 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.”
Adherents of the theory believe that “racism is inherent in the law and legal institutions of the United States insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans.”
Deng suggested that those who focus on America’s past slavery and racism should also look at the opportunities and freedom the country provides in the present.
“In fact,” he said, “the United States is the only country in the world that can give the slave freedom to become a congresswoman. You cannot find that in the world except in the United States of America.”
In addition to raising questions about the accuracy of its assessment of the U.S., opponents of critical race theory have alleged that its premises directly contradict the teachings of Christianity. In August, an activist who spent over two decades advocating for critical race theory shared how she grew to believe that its theoretical framework was incompatible with Christian teachings. During a livestream event sponsored by Southern Evangelical Seminary in North Carolina, Monique Duson, who co-founded The Center for Biblical Unity, attributed her abandonment of her “secular frameworks” to a conversation with theologian Krista Bontrager. She noted that although the people she knew growing up did not use the term “critical race theory,” “everyone used some of the same terms or some of the same phrases.” They sympathized with the allegations that racism was pervasive, that whites do not change their views on a race-related issue until it directly benefits them and that “white privilege” informs every aspect of American society.
Duson encouraged her audience to urge those who subscribe to critical race theory, especially any Christian friends sympathetic to the worldview, “to truly get into the Word of God to understand truly what it means.”
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent views of Townhall.com., and WhatDidYouSay.org.
Source: AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast
This isn’t a Chicago story. It’s a Democratic Party story.
Kim Foxx, the state’s attorney for Cook County and darling of MSNBC, has managed to increase murders in Chicago to astounding levels even at a time when we’re all getting used to astounding crime figures. Nationwide in 2020, murder and non-negligent manslaughter were up 29.4%, according to the FBI. That’s more than double the previous record of 1968, when murders increased by 12.7%.
Under the careful management of Foxx, murders in Chicago were up 55%. To put this in perspective, last year, there were nearly as many murders in Chicago (population: 2.7 million) as in New York City and Los Angeles combined (total population: more than 12 million).
Perhaps you’ve heard about the Wild West shootout in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago two weeks ago? One group of gang members shot up the house of rival gang members at around 10 in the morning. They blasted the house with more than 70 rounds, using handguns that had been modified into automatic weapons.Their rivals fired back from inside the home, in a gun battle that lasted so long, it was still going on when the police arrived.
All of this took place in full view of police street cameras, as well as the first officers on the scene.
Of the four initial shooters, one was shot dead at the scene and left behind. The other three took off in two (stolen) Dodge Chargers. One gang member drove to a medical center, dumped his wounded comrade, then led police on a car chase ending in a fiery crash. The other Charger turned up nearby, in flames.
Police arrested the two gang members from the hospital, as well as the three gunmen inside the home.
Foxx refused to bring charges against any of them on the grounds that it was “mutual combat.” At this point, the Chicago PD’s only option may be to resubmit charges on environmental grounds — polluting the air with lead.
Who knew that when Foxx talked about not prosecuting the small stuff, she was talking about murder and mass shootings? In today’s Chicago, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre is legal.
Foxx’s bullheaded refusal to prosecute in this case was a shock to everyone in the country, except anyone living in Chicago. This is nothing new for the Democrats’ favorite DA. The police ought to put together a calendar of Foxx’s Released Murderer of the Month.
In July it was the murderer of Chrys Carvajal, a 19-year-old National Guardsman who was gunned down when he stepped out of a house party over Fourth of July weekend. Three eyewitnesses and video evidence led the police to a notoriously violent 38-year-old gang member.
Foxx refused to bring charges, claiming there wasn’t enough evidence.
August’s Murderer of the Month shot at a guy, missed him, but managed to hit two little girls sitting in the backseat of their family’s car after returning from church. Six-year-old Aubrey Broughton took a bullet through her lung, was rushed to the hospital and survived. But another bullet lodged directly in the heart of Aubrey’s sister, 7-year-old Serenity, killing her.
Again, the police investigated, found the suspect’s vehicle, evidence inside the car, and cellphone records pointing to a 24-year-old parolee.
Foxx refused to bring charges. (On the other hand, she did remind Serenity’s parents that she too, is a “mother,” so that was nice.)
Serenity’s mother complained that the police and prosecutors are “just bickering.” That was her assessment of the situation — not that Chicago has a prosecutor who won’t prosecute murder. This may explain why — in addition to George Soros’s $2 million donation — Foxx was reelected last year.
September’s Murderer of the Month was the killer of 18-year-old Manuel Porties Jr., who showed up for a fist fight and instead was repeatedly stabbed in the neck after being knocked to the ground. Naturally, the killing was captured on cellphone cameras of bystanders.
Foxx refused to bring charges against Porties’ killer, on the grounds that it was — again — “mutual combat.”
Due to the popularity of drive-by shootings and a “snitches get stitches” ethos, there’s already only about a 20% chance of being arrested if you commit murder in Chicago. Those are pretty good odds for taking another human life.
But even if the police catch you and present the prosecutor with video evidence, eyewitnesses, cellphone signals or a dead 7-year-old girl, Foxx is there to ensure that you will NOT go to prison. At this rate, Foxx might eventually kill off every living human being in Chicago.
But as I said, this is not a story about Chicago. Kim Foxx is a dangerous nut, but she’s not a random dangerous nut. She is the Democratic Party’s beau ideal of criminal justice.
Liberal moneybags George Soros has spent millions of dollars installing criminal-friendly prosecutors around the country. (Back before it was “anti-Semitic” to mention Soros’ pro-murder campaign, The New York Times ran an article boasting of the old prune’s role in electing inert prosecutors, like Foxx.)
A few hundred thousand dollars dumped into a minor DA’s race is more than enough to decide an election. Soros has spent millions. Foxx was Soros’ first success in electing DAs who would refuse to put another black man in prison.
They’re cool with dead black teenagers and dead 7-year-olds. The only black lives the Democrats care about are the lives of black criminals.
MSNBC, mouthpiece of the Democratic Party, was ecstatic the night Foxx won the election that would make her Cook County’s top prosecutor, with Lawrence O’Donnell giddily interviewing the pro-criminal Foxx. She was triumphantly interviewed again that weekend by Al Sharpton.
When has any prosecutor’s election drawn such celebration? When has it even drawn notice?
There is not a Republican in the nation who is not required to publicly state his position on Donald Trump. How about asking Democrats to take a position on Soros’ campaign to install nolle prosequi prosecutors? Apart from Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, will any Democrat in the country criticize Foxx?
No, of course not. As dead bodies pile up in Chicago under Kim Foxx, remember: This is the criminal justice “reform” Democrats want for the entire country.
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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 establishment media has neglected, yet again, to cover a story concerning voter fraud.
What a surprise. (Sarcasm intended.)
On Monday, it was announced that three Michigan women had been charged with crimes related to their alleged attempts to commit voter fraud in the 2020 election.
“These cases highlight the scrutiny applications and ballots undergo throughout the election process, as well as the thorough investigative process that ensues when instances of attempted fraud are suspected,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement.
“We will not hesitate to prosecute anyone who attempts to undermine our elections.”
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson added that “our election system is secure, and today’s charges demonstrate that in the rare circumstances when fraud occurs we catch it and hold the perpetrators accountable.”
“These charges also send a clear message to those who promote deceitful claims about widespread fraud: the current protocols we have in place work to protect and ensure the integrity of our elections. It’s time to share that truth and stop spreading lies to the contrary,” Benson said.
But a look at what these women were charged with tells a different story and illuminates the many potential pathways to voter fraud.
It also raises an important question: Are the American people supposed to trust government officials to catch each and every instance of fraud when mail-in voting makes it so easy to cheat the system?
The first of the women, Trenae Myesha Rainey of Macomb County, was an employee at a nursing home.
Rainey stole a stack of “roughly two dozen absentee voter applications” meant for nursing home residents, filled them out, forged the residents’ signatures and had the applications turned in.
Again, under the universal mail-in voting system Democrats so desperately want, this sort of fraud couldn’t be any easier to commit.
The second woman, Carless Clark of Wayne County, returned her grandson’s absentee ballot by mail “despite her grandson deciding to vote in person.”
The third woman, Nancy Juanita Williams of both Wayne and Oakland counties, was a caretaker for legally incapacitated people.
Williams “implemented a plan to obtain and control absentee ballots” for those individuals under her care “by fraudulently submitting 26 absentee ballot applications to nine identified city and township clerks, seeking to have absentee ballots for those individuals mailed directly to her.”
A total of 50 charges were brought against the women, including 36 felonies.
Thankfully, these alleged culprits were caught and are being held to account. If Democrats get their way with their reckless election laws, however, there’s no guarantee the next fraudsters will be apprehended.
And when more fraud does occur, the American people likely won’t know until it’s too late.
Michael Austin joined The Western Journal as a staff reporter in 2020. Since then, he has authored hundreds of stories, including several original reports. He also co-hosts the outlet’s video podcast, “WJ Live.”
Outraged parents demanded the immediate resignation of Loudoun County Schools Superintendent Scott Ziegler at a school board meeting Tuesday that was dominated by public comments on allegations that the school district covered up two alleged sexual assaults. More than 60 parents, students, and county residents spoke at the school board meeting, blasting members of the school board after the Daily Wire reported on alleged efforts by the school board to conceal the sexual assault of a ninth-grade girl by a gender-fluid boy in a school bathroom amid debate over a controversial transgender accommodation policy.
“This is not China, this is the United States of America, and we will not be silenced,” said one furious mother, according to Fox News. “Remove the superintendent immediately and then resign for your negligence and duplicity. End this nightmare!”
Loudoun County resident Scott Smith says that his daughter, a student at Stone Bridge High School, was raped by a boy allegedly wearing a skirt in a school bathroom. Smith’s attorney, Elizabeth Lancaster, told the Daily Wire that a boy at Stone Bridge High School was charged with two counts of forcible sodomy, one count of anal sodomy, and one count of forcible fellatio related to an incident on May 28, when Smith says his daughter was attacked.
The sheriff’s office confirmed to Fox News that a sexual assault case from May 28, 2021, was conducted following a “thorough 2-month-long investigation that was conducted to determine the facts of the case prior to arrest.” Police said the case is still pending court proceedings.
On Oct. 6, at another Loudoun County school, a 15-year-old boy was charged with sexual battery and abduction after police said he forced a girl into an empty classroom, where he held her against her will and touched her inappropriately. The Daily Wire reported that the suspect is the same student who allegedly assaulted Smith’s daughter, though police have not confirmed that.
“These incidents were reported immediately to the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, and LCPS cooperated fully with the investigations,” said a spokesperson for Ziegler. “Any information related to student information is confidential under state and federal laws regarding student privacy.”
Over the summer, Loudoun County Public Schools debated a policy that would allow students of any gender into all school bathrooms. The policy faced opposition from parents who were concerned that a male student claiming to identify as female might abuse girl students in school bathrooms. Though parents raised these concerns, school officials repeatedly denied that the transgender policy posed any danger to girl students.
“The predator transgender student or person simply does not exist,”Ziegler said at a June 22 school board meeting. “We don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms.”
The school board voted to adopt the controversial transgender policy on Aug. 11. Policy 8040 requires teachers to use the preferred pronouns of students and mandates that school bathrooms be renovated to increase privacy, since any student can use whichever bathroom they want now.
Following the Daily Wire’s bombshell report, livid parents at Tuesday’s school board meeting castigated school officials for adopting the policy without disclosing either alleged sexual assault.
“The 8040 policy was rushed through to a vote without consideration for the safety of all students, simply to satisfy a liberal agenda – a policy that you knew full well would allow our children to be abused inside our schools,” said one mother. “At least two young women are recent victims of sexual assaults in our high schools, one of them in a restroom.’
“Your moral compasses are busted! You, Dr. Ziegler, and our school board – every one of you – are complicit in these crimes against our children because you did nothing about it, nothing.”
“What is worse than a child being raped at school? The cover-up by those who are trusted with the safety and well-being of children,” another mother said. “Today, Scott Ziegler must resign for the unconscionable act of allowing an alleged rapist back into school to rape again, and for that cover-up.”
“You guys failed. Sexual assaults happening in public schools is unacceptable and should never happen,”said Linda Killen.
“How do you expect parents across this county to drop off their kids and entrust you all to keep them safe when you’ve shown on more than one occasion you are not up for the job?” added Monica Sadeghi.
“When the Catholic Church passed predator priest from parish to parish, the walls came eventually crashing down on them. And they were finally held accountable for the abuse. When is Doctor Ziegler and this board going to be held accountable?” asked Theresa Lieberman.
A total of 36 parents expressed their concerns, each restricted to one minute of speaking time alone in the room with the school board before being ushered out for the next person to comment. None of the school board members nor the school superintendent have publicly responded to calls for their resignations.
Joseph R. Biden Jr., President of the United States of America, addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s seventy-sixth session on Sept. 21, 2001. | UN Photo/Manuel Elías
On Friday, leaders of 136 nations took actions that should send a chill up the spines of their citizens.
The representatives of those countries acted on a proposal by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to establish a global business tax.
After recovering from my shock, questions blasted in my mind: Who gave this organization the right to implement a global business tax? Is this an ominous step toward the establishment of other worldwide regulatory mandates? At what point do other global groups act on the precedent by extending their powers into broad facets of policy that should be the purview of sovereign nations?
President Joe Biden and Janet Yellen, secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, applauded the move.
They had both the constitutional authority and the power to do so. However, in the Biden administration, as in others, the balance between authority and power is delicate.
The big issue here has to do with executive authority and power, and the importance of holding it in balance.
The Bible and the histories recorded there, reveal the differences between authentic authority and raw power:
Authority is granted from the higher to the lower, while raw power is seized
As Jesus stands before the Roman magistrate, Pontius Pilate, He tells him, “You have no authority over Me at all if it had not been given to you from above.”
Authority is granted to those under authority, but raw power is submitted only to itself
King Saul learns this the hard way. He refuses to honor the commands of Samuel, the High Priest, the representative of God Himself. Saul disobeys, coming out from under Samuel’s authority, and loses his kingdom.
· Authority is accountable to the higher authority; raw power is accountable only to its own interests
Though Jesus Christ is God Himself, in His incarnate existence, He acknowledges His accountability to God the Father, telling even His earthly parents that He had to give priority to His “Father’s business.”
Authority is sustained through healthy relationship; raw power is sustained by intimidation, manipulation, condemnation and domination
A priority of Jesus was to be “with” His disciples, building and leading them through relationship
Authentic authority is in the style of servant leadership; raw power is in the style of tyrannical control
“The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and give His life for many,” said Jesus.
All these reveal that true leadership that has the right of power must understand that it can do so only if it respects and yields to the authority granted to it. The leader, be it a president, CEO, senior pastor, head of household — whatever — must not take authority as his or her own possession, but as a trust.
I have watched and been fascinated by the American presidency since 1952. Both national political conventions were televised for the first time that year. As an 11 year old, I sat transfixed for hours watching the drama on our 12-inch black-white TV screen.
Within two decades, I would be standing in the Oval Office as a member of the president’s staff watching the president model the balance between authority and power.
In 1969, new in office, Richard Nixon had to help school systems in 11 southern states desegregate. He brought together multi-racial citizen groups from each state and authorized them with the power to implement educational equality in their own states.
In the fall of 1970, the most sweeping desegregation in history occurred peacefully.
Nixon had the authority, and he shared the power.
Many still hate Nixon and his predecessor, Lyndon Johnson. However, both men took actions based on the careful balance between authority and power that should earn them respect in history, balancing whatever misdeeds attributed to them.
Lyndon Johnson, in 1968, was deep in the morass of the Vietnam war. Cities were burning, and destructive rioting would break out during the Democrats’ summer convention in Chicago.
Johnson, regarded by his opponents as being a thug, nevertheless sacrificed himself for the good of the nation. On March 31, 1968, on national television, Johnson declared, “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”
Six years later, mired in the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon told the world, “I have never been a quitter. To leave the office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as president, I must put the interest of America first. … Therefore, I shall resign the presidency.”
Some still smirk at the very mention of Johnson or Nixon, but they were admirable in their actions. They remembered that constitutional authority is held by the people. When Johnson and Nixon faced the fact that they had lost the authorization of the people they realized they could no longer exert the powers of the Oval Office.
These were insightful, gallant actions by two men many still hate.
Is this in America’s future once more?
Does the action of an international group like the OECD mean that authority and power are gravitating to the global scale?
One hopes the Biden White House and his administration understand the nature of authentic authority and the threat of raw power.
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.
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.
By Dr. David Jeremiah, Wednesday, October 13, 2021
Proverbs 19:17, NIV
Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward them for what they have done.
1 Timothy 6:17-19 (NIV)
17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 19 In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.
David Green, the founder of Hobby Lobby, remembers how his mother would crochet doilies to raise money for missions. “My parents were…some of the most generous people I’ve ever known,” he wrote. “Their spare living and meager income did not stop them from being generous in a thousand different ways. Mother may have had only three or four dresses in her closet, but if she heard of a woman who needed one, you could be sure Mother would soon arrive at the woman’s doorstep with a dress in hand.”
The Bible tells us to be generous. That’s critical to our calling as believers. But no government can ensure that everyone has exactly the same amount of assets. Every attempt to create a level economy has pushed people into poverty with only its leaders living in luxury. Shared wealth does not bring unity. It creates envy and resentment, and ultimately causes socialism to fail.
We can’t control the governments of the world. That isn’t our job. But we can be generous!
I could have become president of the United States and [my mother] would have said the same thing: “What are you doing for the Lord?” David Green
Retailers in California that sell childcare items or toys and have 500 or more employees will face fines of up to $500 if they fail to “maintain a gender-neutral section or area,” according to a new bill signed into law by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday. The bill, AB 1084 sponsored by California Assembly member Evan Low, who also chairs the state’s LGBTQ Caucus, requires large retailers that sell toys or childcare items “to maintain a gender neutral section or area, to be labeled at the discretion of the retailer, in which a reasonable selection of the items and toys for children that it sells shall be displayed, regardless of whether they have been traditionally marketed for either girls or for boys.” This new law will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2024. Stores that fail to comply with the law, which is the first of its kind in the U.S., will be “liable for a civil penalty not to exceed $250 for a first violation or $500 for a subsequent violation, as provided.”
“I’m incredibly grateful to Governor Gavin Newsom for signing AB 1084, which will bring California law up to speed with what many retailers have already realized: We need to stop stigmatizing what’s acceptable for certain genders and just let kids be kids. My hope is this bill encourages more businesses across California and the U.S. to avoid reinforcing harmful and outdated stereotypes,”Low said in a statement.
He told The Sacramento Bee in an earlier report that he was inspired to introduce the bill after learning that retail giant Target abolished gendered children’s sections in 2015.
The Consumer Federation of California also supported the bill in a statement, noting: “This bill will allow consumers to easily identify similar children’s items which will be displayed closer to one another in one, undivided area of the retail sales floor. Keeping similar items that are traditionally marketed either for girls or for boys separated makes it more difficult for the consumer to compare the products and incorrectly implies that their use by one gender is inappropriate. … Separating products by gender also helps to disguise the unfortunate fact that female products are often priced higher than male products.”
Reacting to the news on Sunday, Texas’ Republican Gov. Greg Abbott publicly decried the law, noting that in Texas, it will be “businesses — NOT government — that decide how they display their merchandise,” he tweeted.
The bill was one of several, including AB-367, signed into law by Newsom on Saturday to wrap up the 2020-’21 legislative session to advance his California Comeback Plan. AB-367, enacted the Menstrual Equity for All Act of 2021. On or before the start of the 2022–’23 school year, this bill requires public schools with a combination of classes from the sixth grade to the 12th grade that “meets a 40% pupil poverty threshold specified in federal law, to stock 50% of the school’s restrooms with feminine hygiene products, and prohibits a public school from charging for any menstrual products provided to pupils.”
“In a time when the state and country are more divided than ever, this legislative session reminds us what we can accomplish together. I am thankful for our partners in the state Legislature who furthered our efforts to tackle the state’s most persistent challenges — together, we took action to address those challenges head-on, implementing historic legislation and the California Comeback Plan to hit fast forward on our state’s recovery,” Newsom said of his plan in a statement. “What we’re doing here in California is unprecedented in both nature and scale. We will come back from this pandemic stronger than ever before.”
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.
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
A professor of political science from Fordham University says the U.S. Department of Justice has no evidence to support its claim that parents who oppose the teaching of controversial curriculum in public schools are akin to domestic terrorists. Referring to a Sept. 29 letter from the National School Board Association to President Joe Biden documenting “heinous actions” that “could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes,” Nicholas Tampio argues in a USA Today op-ed that “There is no quantitative data in the letter; instead, there are a bunch of disparate stories strung together to make it look like there is a pattern.” The professor noted that the letter cites incidents at two school board meetings: “An individual yelled a Nazi salute in protest to masking requirements, and another individual prompted the board to call a recess because of opposition to critical race theory.”
“These acts are disruptive and inappropriate, but democracy is not a graduate school seminar, and parents are allowed to express themselves to elected school board members,” Tampio asserts. “Schools should want parents invested in the well-being of their children.”
In response to the NSBA letter, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland sent a memorandum to federal law enforcement agencies “directing the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working with each United States Attorney, to convene meetings with federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial leaders … within 30 days” to “facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.”
Garland’s memo claims there has been a “disturbing spike” in the harassment of school staff and a “rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel.”
“Alas, there is no evidence of a rise in the memorandum or references to where one could find evidence of it,” Tampio writes in the op-ed.
Tampio contends that it’s “outrageous for the attorney general to meddle in situations that are local in nature and, so far, have led to incredibly few acts of overt violence, certainly not with the character of domestic terrorism.”
The threat, he writes, “appears to be mostly a figment of Democratic imagination.”
Further, he argues that, as per the U.S. Constitution, education is not a federal matter. Therefore, states and local school districts are responsible for keeping students safe, not the federal government. Tampio adds that “the use of the FBI to monitor school board meetings is an incredible expansion of the federal government’s police power.”
“Without more evidence of real threats,” he concluded that “Biden’s political appointee appears to be making a political decision rather than a prudent one.”
The NSBA letter and the Garland memo follow several publicized school board meetings where parents have voiced their concerns about the material their children have been exposed to in school. Last month, the parent of a high school student in Fairfax County, Virginia, read excerpts aloud to school board members of content within two books available in the district’s high school libraries that promote “pedophilia” and have “detailed illustrations of a man having sex with a boy.”
The outrage over sexually explicit material used in public schools extends beyond concerned parents. The mayor of Hudson, Ohio, called on members of the Hudson City School District Board of Education to resign or face criminal charges at a board meeting last month for allowing a book featuring what he likened to “child pornography” to be included in the curriculum of a college-level English class.
Criticizing the DOJ, many have noted that concerned parents have often been harassed and intimidated. For example, Beth Barts, a member of the school board in Loudoun County, Virginia, was censured for attacking parents and was subsequently recalled. An investigation found that she plotted to go after outspoken parents she disagreed with by encouraging people in an “anti-racist” Facebook group to “hack” the parents, which led to her losing her committee duties, The Daily Wire reported.
In July, a top official with the Virginia Parent Teacher Association resigned after seemingly wishing death to parents who oppose the teaching of critical race theory and other progressive ideas. Michelle Leete, the vice president of training for the Virginia PTA, had said “let them die” at a rally in Fairfax County in response to concerned parents protesting the teaching of controversial curriculum in public schools.
Brenton Netz (L), the concerned father of a child with gender dysphoria, details how his son was convinced that he was a “transgender lesbian” at the Pray Vote Stand Summit in Leesburg, Virginia, Oct. 8, 2021. Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge looks on. | Family Research Council
Leesburg, VIRGINIA — A concerned father of a child whose mother is trying to convince her autistic son that he’s a girl is warning about the dangers of “radical gender ideology,” proclaiming that “we must do everything we can to save them from the jaws of this beast.”
On the final day of the Family Research Council’s Pray Vote Stand Summit, a panel of elected officials, journalists and activists addressed a crowd of social conservatives gathered at Cornerstone Chapel. They discussed the extent to which gender ideology has permeated American society. Moderated by Joseph Backholm, the senior fellow for biblical worldview at the Family Research Council, panelists included parent activist Brenton Netz from Michigan, Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge and The Christian Post journalist Brandon Showalter.
After Backholm mentioned the astronomical rise in the number of cases of gender dysphoria in children, Netz elaborated on his “legal battle to prevent his son from being given experimental gender transition” drugs, such as puberty blockers, against his will. Netz recalled the shock he felt upon reading notes from his then-8-year-old son’s therapy session with a gender clinician in St. Cloud, Minnesota, who asserted that “Miles reports her sexual orientation as lesbian”and “she reports her gender as transgender female.”
Netz described his son as a “vulnerable child” who was “diagnosed with autism at the age of 4” with “an obsessive personality” and “other real behavioral issues.” He criticized the therapist who treated his son, Troy Weber-Brown, for referring to his “autistic son as a girl named Miley using she/her and them/their pronouns.” Weber-Brown is a licensed family and marriage therapist who specializes in LGBTQ behavioral healthcare.
The father condemned the “appalling way he (Weber-Brown) counsels troubled and vulnerable children,” adding “his stated goal is to re-parent them.”
“In my case, Troy set himself up as my son’s surrogate father,” Netz said. “He meticulously manipulated my son into thinking he was not only a transgender girl and lesbian, but they were also having structured discussions about irreversible hormones and surgical options.”
“There is no way my autistic little boy voluntarily self-identified as a transgender lesbian unless he was convinced of that by an adult,” he asserted.
Netz noted that during the therapy sessions, his son’s “crotch area was examined to see how much pubic hair he had to determine if he reached the beginning stages of puberty so a referral for hormone blockers could be written.”
Netz lamented that the medical establishment and family courts have been “steadily corrupted by … postmodern gender ideology.” He concluded his opening remarks with a call to action.
“Our kids are under attack,” he said. “We must do everything we can to save them from the jaws of this beast.”
Netz identified himself as “the only adult in my son’s life who is not affirming … his delusion.”
“[T]he schools are calling him Miley. … Everybody in the medical establishment treats him as a girl, calls him Miley,” he explained.
“In our case, what has happened is there’s kind of this gridlock that happens because the medical establishment will say well, it’s a family court issue. … You can get this solved by going to the family court. Then you go to the family court, and they can’t solve it either.”
As a divorced parent, Netz has custody of his son “every other weekend plus a lot more time in the summer.”
“If anybody met my son, within the first five minutes, you would realize that … he’s incapable of coming to those conclusions.”
Backholm attempted to explain the reasons behind the increased prominence of children with gender dysphoria and the push to “affirm” children in their chosen gender identities. He cited reporting from Abigail Shrier, journalist and author of the book, Irreversible Damage. Shrier interviewed“a former Planned Parenthood employee … about the decisions … at Planned Parenthood about whether a child should receive cross-sex hormones.” The former Planned Parenthood employee told Shrier that those decisions were made by a clinic manager who had “no prior medical experience and whose former job was managing at Wendy’s.”
The former employee characterized children with gender dysphoria as “cash cows” because, in many cases, “they are kept on the hook for the foreseeable future in terms of follow-up appointments, bloodwork, meetings, etc.”
While Planned Parenthood is known for performing abortions, the former employee said that “abortions are hopefully a one-and-done situation.” By contrast, children with gender dysphoria are seen as longterm potential customers, giving the organization a financial incentive.
Netz agreed that every child is vulnerable prey for agenda-driven gender clinicians.
“They will diagnose that child with gender dysphoria. … If they can do it to my son, they can do it to any child.”
Backholm held up the SAFE Act as an example of a legislative solution to combat the harm of “radical gender ideology,” including cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers. SAFE is an acronym for the Saving Adolescents from Experimentation Act. He cheered Arkansas for becoming the first state to pass the “model legislation that prohibits the gender transition procedures or chemicals being given to minors.”
Rutledge informed the audience that she was “wholeheartedly defending the SAFE Act.” Netz offered praise for the SAFE Act as “a necessary measure to protect children from this mess.”
Showalter illustrated how Netz’s situation is not unique.
“I have never heard such excruciating anguish from moms and dads who somehow manage to find my journalistic work at The Christian Post.” He added that “many of them are not even Christians, they’re not conservative. I’ve received phone calls from atheists, left-wing people who say they can’t believe they’re reading CP now.”
Showalter has engaged in several conversations with parents experiencing “off-the-charts pain and anguish as they are forced to watch the slow-motion dissociation and chemical disintegration of their own children.”
He told the story of a mother who had an 18-year-old daughter with a developmental delay. The daughter went to Planned Parenthood and was given a prescription for testosterone “based on her own self-diagnosis” within 30 minutes.
“So this mom wanted to see how easy it would be for her to get testosterone” as a 50-something, he added. “She was given testosterone within 30 minutes. All they had to do was take the blood pressure, did a finger prick (blood test), and she declared herself the opposite sex, and all she had to do was sign an informed consent document that she shared with me.”
Rutledge also commented on how illogical it was to allow children to choose their gender while not allowing them to make other significant decisions such as voting and serving in the military. She also stressed that “kids are not even taken into consideration when their parents are getting a divorce as to … which parent they want to live with.”
“Why is it OK now for these medical providers and courts to push forward and allow these children to make life-altering, permanent decisions that are irreversible?” she asked.
As The Daily Wire reported, Netz is considering filing a lawsuit against the gender clinic that has convinced his young son that he is a trans-identified lesbian. Last year, Netz successfully obtained a court order to prevent his son, who’s now 11 years old, from receiving further “gender-affirming” treatment at the clinic.
The logic of vaccine mandates eludes me, particularly in the health care sphere.
The country is, at present, gearing up for what should be (God willing) the last major winter wave of COVID-19. It’s an all-hands-on-deck moment for the frontline medical professionals — the ones who braved SARS-CoV-2 in its early stages, the ones Americans applauded from apartment balconies in those grim, confusing early days.
The administration and some politicians — usually Democrats — are convinced that zero-tolerance vaccine mandates are one of the critical components when it comes to blunting the force of that wave. Plenty don’t agree. Some COVID survivors — and researchers — maintain that natural immunity provides more protection than the vaccine does. Some have moral objections to the vaccine. Some don’t trust the speed with which it was developed. Some believe the mandates to be an infringement on bodily autonomy.
Does the reasoning behind vaccine mandates hold water? Does it matter? The point is that forcing the recalcitrant is a difficult task for the COVID hawks on the left, particularly given their dire predictions about ICU usage this winter and a labor shortage that doesn’t seem to be abating. The solution, therefore, is to force health care professionals to take the vaccine or consider themselves out of a job as we approach the all-hands-on-deck moment.
You may perhaps begin to see the problem here. Granted, the intent was to force unvaccinated health care professionals to swallow their objections and take one for the team. Instead, the practical effect is that the team is getting winnowed down — as proven by the case of Dr. Christopher Rake.
According to The Sacramento Bee, Rake is an anesthesiologist at UCLA Health hospital system in Los Angeles who has become a vocal social media critic of COVID vaccines. UCLA Health executives decided they had had enough of that and had him escorted out of his workplace Oct. 4 — but not without Rake livestreaming the whole affair.
“They are escorting me out of the building,” Rake said in the video, posted to Twitter on Tuesday by Beverly Hills Courier staff writer Samuel Braslow. The doctor asked for the title of the men escorting him out, although he didn’t get it.
“This is what happens when you stand up for freedom and when you show up to work, willing to work, despite being unvaccinated, and this is the price you have to pay sometimes,” Rake said, turning the camera on himself.
Then he sketched out his plan: He’s going to keep fighting the mandatory vaccination regime, no matter what it costs him.
“But what they don’t realize is that I’m willing to go lose everything,” he said. “Job, paycheck, freedom, even my life for this cause.”
UCLA anesthesiologist Dr. Chris Rake, a COVID-19 vaccine mandate opponent, was escorted out of the UCLA medical plaza yesterday and placed on unpaid administrative leave for refusing to get vaccinated or request an exemption.
“Be well. United we stand, divided we fall,” Rake concluded.
The UCLA Health System requires workers to have a COVID-19 vaccination or “an exemption in accordance with University of California policy and a state public health order issued on Aug. 5, which only exempts workers on the basis of religious beliefs or medical reasons,” according to the Bee.
“Those out of compliance are subject to progressive discipline, including restricting access to work sites and being placed on leave,” a UCLA representative told McClatchy Newspapers, the Bee’s parent company.
Rake’s profile was still listed on UCLA Health’s website as of Monday morning Eastern Time, indicating he hadn’t been terminated. However, there’s been ample time for “progressive discipline,” given he began speaking out against vaccines publicly as early as August.
While he was once a frontline hero for his work with COVID, Rake said at an anti-vaccination rally in Santa Monica Aug. 29, “this year I’m a zero.”
“They want to force a vaccination or medication or treatment into my body that I don’t want. So they’re telling me, ‘Take the jab or we take your job,’” Rake said.
“And I’m here to say no. That’s not OK.”
He also urged those who are vaccinated to consider the implications of vaccine mandates and said he wanted them with the cause “because they deserve medical freedom.”
“Many of them are going to wake up when the government says, ‘hey, by the way, you need a third booster shot,’” Rake said. “And you know, they say, ‘I felt pretty bad after that second one, can I just pass?’ No. You are now out of alignment with what the government wants and cannot go to your child’s baseball game, you can’t go to the movie theater, you can’t go to the grocery store. They’re going to take everything away.”
UCLA Health responded with a tweet saying, “These comments do not represent the views of UCLA Health. Unvaccinated people are more likely to contract COVID-19 & we encourage employees to be vaccinated. We adhere to the state public health order requiring health care workers to be vaccinated or undergo regular testing.”
Dr. Christopher Rake, an anesthesiologist from UCLA medical center, tells the crowd, “They want to force a vaccination or medication or treatment into my body that I don’t want. So they’re telling me, ‘Take the jab or we take your job.’ And I’m here to say no. That’s not ok.” pic.twitter.com/wP2kZyS1o7
I’m not a medical expert, but I don’t agree with Dr. Rake’s position — and it’s a moot point anyway, given the fact I’m fully vaccinated and I’m unaware of any way to pull the Pfizer solution out of my arm at this point. However, I agree with Dr. Rake’s ability to state his position — and to live by it. If UCLA Health was testing him, there was no reason to escort him off of their property. He plays no role in administering or championing vaccines. He plays a vital role in the operation of the emergency room. This shouldn’t be difficult.
And yet, it is. Because of vaccine mandates in health care, hospitals have lacked the requisite nurses needed to deliver babies. Outside the medical field, law enforcement officers are leaving their jobs. Experienced members of the military are considering leaving the service.
We once celebrated our frontline medical workers for keeping us alive. Now we have to hope there are enough of them left as we’re told COVID cases are “overwhelming hospitals” — all because of what the vaccine mandate hath wrought.
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.
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R) is taking a stand as he faces calls to resign for describing homosexuality as “filth.”
While speaking at Asbury Baptist Church in Seagrove, North Carolina, in June, Robinson described “transgenderism” and homosexuality as “filth,” while condemning such concepts from being taught in school.
“There is no reason anybody, anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality or any of that filth,” Robinson said. “And yes, I called it filth. And if you don’t like it that I called it filth, come see me about it.”
North Carolina state Sen. Jeff Jackson (D), who is running for U.S. Senate, demanded Robinson resign for the remarks. Gov. Roy Cooper (D), The Human Rights Campaign, and even the White House has since condemned Robinson.
In a recent interview with WRAL-TV, Robinson said he would not apologize for his remarks, and pointed out a double standard in politics.
“We will not be intimidated. We will not back down. We will not change our language,” Robinson told WRAL. “The language I used, I am not ashamed of it. I will use it in the future because, again, it is time for parents in this state to take a strong stand for their children.”
He later said, “I am tired of folks on the right being demonized for our speech while folks on the left burn, beat, rob, loot — take over entire cities and get a pass.”
In a video posted to Facebook on Saturday, Robinson responded to the growing outrage online. Robinson explained that he does not hate LGBT people. In fact, he vowed to always support their rights to express themselves, which he believes the government has no role in regulating. However, Robinson said he opposes sexualized curriculum in public schools, again rebuking curriculum that promotes “transgenderism” and other “sexually explicit” material. Still, Robinson said he would not back down from his remarks.
“This whole thing has been an attempt to, once again, change the argument and silence voices on the right,” Robinson said.
“Let me tell you plainly right here and right now: I will not back down,” he added. “I will not be silenced and I will not be bullied into submission. I will continue to fight for the rights of our children to receive an education that is free from sexual concepts that do not belong in the classroom — and I don’t care who likes it.”
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.
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.
Google and YouTube announced that they will take measures to strip online content of revenue producing opportunities if they express skepticism about global warming. In a statement from Google’s ad team on Thursday, the massive online company said they would deny ad revenue from content that contradicts “well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change.” Google says the new policy is in response to advertisers expressing frustration that their ads are appearing on content they disagree with.
“Advertisers simply don’t want their ads to appear next to this content,” the company said. “And publishers and creators don’t want ads promoting these claims to appear on their pages or videos.”
The new policy will be implemented through a mix of human review and automated tools. The company appeared to claim that not all skeptical content will be demonetized, but that they will carefully distinguish “between content that states a false claim as fact, versus content that reports on or discusses that claim.”
Big tech companies have come under fire for what some say is selective enforcement of their censorship policies to police those on the right while allowing left-leaning speech free rein.
“There is a huge risk, I mean, for one they’re not particularly accountable except through your ability to sign off of the platform or sign on,”said Kate Klonick, a law professor at St. John’s University, to CNBC.
“There’s no kind of vote, there’s no type of representative, there’s no way to weigh in on what the rules should be or shouldn’t be. There are not even a lot even a transparency around the rules or how they’re enforced, this is something that has just started developing in the last five years at all these companies,” she continued.
“And so it’s really dangerous when you think about the control that private companies have,” Klonick concluded, “but at the same time it’s really dangerous to think about what would happen if private companies weren’t doing this type of work, and everything that would be going on in these platforms without them.”
Axios called the new policy “one of the most aggressive measures any major tech platform has taken to combat climate change misinformation.”
Here’s more about censorship by big tech companies:
Illegal Haitian migrants are crossing the southern border of the U.S. via a new route in Yuma, Arizona, as Border Patrol braces for the arrival of up to 60,000 Haitian migrants. “Haitian migrants find new route to cross illegally into United States in Yuma, Arizona, location is known as ‘The Gap,’” the Daily Caller’s Jorge Ventura tweeted Thursday.
“As the state of Texas prepares for 60,000 Haitian migrants to arrive later this month, Haitian migrants find new route in the Yuma sector.”
Ventura shared a video of “three Haitian adults with three young children making their way to the United States.”
“We’re getting early reports of Haitian migrants starting to make their way into Yuma, Arizona, after the 15,000 Haitian caravan arrived in [Del Rio, Texas] in late September,” Ventura said.
Haitian migrants find new route to cross illegally into United States in Yuma, Arizona , location is known as 'The Gap". As the state of Texas prepares for 60,000 Haitian migrants to arrive later this month , Haitian migrants find new route in the Yuma sector pic.twitter.com/8sFgZEPs83
A second video showed a human smuggler receiving a cash payment from illegal Cuban migrants who had arrived at “The Gap.”
“Before crossing into the United States illegally, human smuggler gives his final instructions to these Cuban migrants and receives his cash payment. Cuban migrants cross into Yuma, Arizona,” Ventura tweeted.
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
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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