One of the most consistent elements of the identity politics practiced by the left is its selectivity. Whether in politics or higher education, the outrage that comes from allegedly racist or insensitive comments is confined to targets on the right. A case in point is the deafening silence after a diatribe by Rep. Jasmine Crockett D-Texas, during which she accused Hispanic voters of having a “slave mentality” and said that they “can barely vote.” There was no vaporous segment on The View or condemnations on the floor from members.
Crockett has been celebrated in left-wing publications such as Vanity Fair for schooling her colleagues, which she describes as “old as sh*t.” She offered Vanity Fair her “distilled summary of what happens within the Latino community.” Not surprisingly, it is identity politics with a race edge:
“I’ve not run into that with the Asian community. I’ve not run into that with the African community. I’ve not run into that with the Caribbean community. I’ve only run into it with Hispanics. When they think of ‘illegals,’ they think of, you know, maybe people that came out of the cartels and that kind of, like, the criminal-type book or whatever. It’s insane.”
“It almost reminds me of what people would talk about when they would talk about kind of like ‘slave mentality’ and the hate that some slaves would have for themselves. It’s almost like a slave mentality that they have. It is wild to me when I hear how anti-immigrant they are as immigrants, many of them. I’m talking about people that literally just got here and can barely vote that are having this kind of attitude.”
The attack on Hispanic voters as including people who “literally just got here and can barely vote” did not even generate objections from many Democratic Hispanic groups. Imagine if Trump or a conservative commentator made this comment.
Ironically, just before the election, I wrote how recent immigrants seemed to have a particularly strong connection to our defining and collective values. That does not appear a view shared by the congresswoman.
Crockett was, if anything, inclusive in her attacks based on gender and race. She also attacked black men and women for voting for Trump. She just dismissed black men as hating women: “I’m going to chalk up to misogyny.” What is unimaginable is that any woman or person of color could vote on the merits against the Democrats.
Notably, after her loss, Hillary Clinton offered the same attacks on women as voting against her only because they are weak and self-loathing. She claimed that Kamala, who notoriously avoided interviews and could not think of “a thing she would do differently” from Biden, “ran a flawless campaign.” The problem is again self-hating women and minorities, adding, “I don’t trust White women. I said, I’m just telling you, and I think you need to have conversations with your sisters, because they are the group that failed Hillary Clinton.”
The claim that Hispanics “can barely vote” would not be tolerated from someone on the right. It is reminiscent of the controversy involving Democratic lawyer and former Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias over what some called inherently racist comments about Georgia voters. Elias argued that Georgia voters could not be expected to be able to read their driver’s licenses correctly — a statement that seemed to refer to minority voters who would be disproportionately impacted by such a requirement.
What is striking about the Vanity Fair article is that Democrats continued to rely on identity politics despite every indication that it was not working. Now, after losing both houses and the White House, they are doubling down on identity politics.
A Canadian pastor has “exiled” his family to Kenya after his government invoked emergency war measures to punish citizens who attended a protest where he prayed and sang the national anthem. Harold Ristau, a decorated veteran and seminary professor, participated in the “trucker convoy” against lockdowns last February, when The Federalist interviewed him last. He is now party to a lawsuit arguing the government’s response to Covid that included treating dissent as terrorism violated Canadians’ fundamental rights.
“The fight is far from over,” said Marty Moore, a lawyer for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), which is litigating Ristau’s case. More than 14 months after the protest, police arrested another convoy leader this May. Lockdown litigation will likely continue for several more years, Moore said. The same is true across the West.
For peaceably assembling to petition his government for one day last year, Ristau says, he was threatened with the removal of his security clearance and government confiscation of his retirement nest egg, kids’ college funds, and other life savings. Ristau says he’s also experienced serious damage to his reputation, career, and friendships after the government used anti-terrorism measures against peaceful protesters.
“There’s no protection, if a pandemic started tomorrow, from future mandates. So that’s why I was really open to coming here,” his wife, Elise Ristau, said, sitting beside her husband in a recent video interview from Kenya.
Besides dealing with overbearing health restrictions, their children were mocked at school for their family’s religious and political views, Elise Ristau told The Federalist. After enduring more than two years of severe social and government repression, the Ristaus moved outside Nairobi with their five children last August.
“I don’t know that I can go back and be a Christian in Canada. So that’s why we’re here in Kenya,” Harold Ristau said. There, the former chaplain with a Ph.D. in philosophy trains Kenyan pastors at the Lutheran School of Theology.
Confiscating Dissenters’ Life Savings
Government use of “debanking” to punish dissent is growing in the West. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government used it on essentially every convoy participant authorities could identify, said Moore.
“As soon as they knew your name if you were on the ground [protesting] in Ottawa, they froze your bank account,” Moore told The Federalist. “…The federal government met with the banks, they gave the [protesters’] names to the banks, and the banks were then pushed to freeze the bank accounts of anyone with that name in their banks. It was a fascist collaboration.”
In May, American whistleblowers disclosed the FBI obtained, without any warrants, “a huge list” of citizens’ private banking data in its Jan. 6, 2021 capitol riot investigation. Investigators targeted any American who legally bought a firearm using a Bank of America account all the way back to the 1990s, the whistleblower testified.
Treating a Veteran Like a Terrorist
After the Canadian government announced it would freeze the bank accounts of convoy protesters and their mostly small-dollar donors without legal due process, rumors of bank runs spread. Multiple large Canadian banks appeared to shut down online operations soon after the announcement. Elise withdrew their family’s savings that Friday, too, she and Harold said. Like thousands of Canadians, they had donated to the convoy. Yet Ristau was the only one of the four plaintiffs in his lawsuit whose accounts were not frozen. He thinks it’s because of his military record.
“Some of the measures that were at least attempted to be invoked are the kind of measures you find to freeze terrorist financing,” Moore noted. “So peaceful protesters were the equivalent of terrorists and the government leaned on banks in the guise of a national emergency to freeze their bank accounts.”
Leftist activists also filed a class-action lawsuit against every Canadian who donated to the convoy. It seeks $300 million in damages. When before the convoy Canada experienced multiple race protests that included violence against stores and police, no class action was filed.
Christians Assisting Government Persecution
Canadian lockdowns kept gyms, restaurants, and liquor stores open but closed churches. Leftist protesters were allowed to yell and sing without masks, and the prime minister kneeled to them, all while provinces banned Christians from singing and chanting in church for years.
Rev. Johannes Nieminen wasn’t allowed to cross provincial borders to perform his pastoral duties, while other Canadians could do so for work, he told The Federalist. After he was denied border entry several times, he said, police finally let him through — but told him he wasn’t allowed to meet with parishioners or hold church services.
“If I’m going to go to the grocery store for physical food, I’m going to the church for spiritual food. If I’m going to the doctor’s office for physical medicine, I’m going to church for the medicine of immortality,” Nieminen said. His denomination believes Jesus Christ’s body and blood are physically present in the wine and bread of communion, and that Christians are commanded to physically eat these — impossible without gathering in person.
Until moving to pastor in New Mexico this summer, Nieminen was clergy in the same denomination as Ristau, the Lutheran Church Canada. He said lockdowns sharply divided many churches, and even though most Covid measures are now lifted, church leaders have largely failed to seek reconciliation and repentance, as commanded in the Bible.
“We need to repent. There’s been crazy division here, and we need to actually talk about it,” he said.
State-Run Western Churches
Nieminen said pastors who obeyed the government to treat churches worse than liquor stores and gyms taught lay people church is non-essential or can be conducted online. The Bible commands keeping a day of worship, meeting in person, singing hymns and psalms, and physically receiving the bread and wine of communion. Christians have done all these every week since the time of Christ.
Communion is a “sacrament,” an action God commands that produces faith and eternal salvation. Only pastors can deliver it, a tradition going back to Christ’s commissioning of His apostles. In all the great pandemics of history, priests and pastors knowingly braved death to bring the sacrament to the dying desperate for the peace and unity with God it promises.
Nieminen said he saw Canadian Christians publicly plead for the sacrament amid lockdowns that nearly lasted three years. They received no response from their pastors, who told Nieminen the pleading parishioners didn’t use the “proper channels.”
“There’s that lack of trust in pastors and a church that they see as giving up on them and basically persecuting them,” Nieminen said. “…They’re being coerced by tyrants to do something against their conscience, and then they go to church and then they’re hearing the same thing from the church.”
Within days of him praying at the protest, says Harold Ristau’s sworn affidavit, fellow clergy began refusing to let him preach and to take communion with him. Some checked with superiors on whether to commune him. Refusing communion to a church member is tantamount to excommunication.
Praying at the protest “demonstrated I was this political insurrectionist” to some clergy whose beliefs about Covid were shaped by state-funded, anti-Christian media, Harold Ristau said: “Prior to Covid, everyone recognized the media were a bunch of liars who hated Christians, but with Covid suddenly we trust them entirely.”
A Political Decision, Not a Health Decision
So far, “none of the [legal] challenges to worship restrictions on church services have succeeded” in Canada, said John Sikkema, a lawyer at the nonprofit firm ARPA Canada.
“Culturally, people find going to the gym very important and less so going to church,” Sikkema noted. “Especially when some churches don’t seem to care and don’t think it’s necessary.”
To secular authorities, keeping the economy going easily trumps the church’s work of caring for human souls, Sikkema noted. That’s why they opened restaurants while restricting churches despite similar health risks: “That’s not really a health decision, it’s a political decision about what’s important to the health of your society.”
Police regularly showed up at churches on Sunday mornings and fined pastors whose parking lots had too many cars, he said. ARPA Canada and JCCF litigated a number of those cases and were often able to get pastors’ fines negotiated down to charitable donations.
Most churches that capitulated to government discrimination against Christians were already declining before lockdowns, and disproportionate percentages of their members didn’t go back to church afterward. Churches that kept to historic orthodoxy, on the other hand, tend to have recovered better from post-lockdown membership losses and many have even grown, Nieminen and Sikkema noted.
Religious Freedom Better in Africa
The difficulty of raising their children in rapidly apostatizing Western culture also affected the Ristaus’ decision to move across the globe.
“Things are normal here, people have traditional values,” Elise Ristau said of Kenya. “It’s inconceivable to think of transgender mutilation. As a mother and father, we do our very best to keep our kids Christian.”
In Canada, Christians are often required to lie or betray their faith to access government grants and licensing credentials, and avoid punishment in many professions, Sikkema said. Many Canadian doctors, lawyers, and teachers, for example, are required to endorse abortion and LGBT sexual acts.Canadian doctors and many other health care workers must help patients obtain an abortion or doctor-assisted suicide.
In 2018, Canada’s Supreme Court banned a Christian law school from opening over Christian sexual standards. The Canadian military is also working to eject chaplains over Christian sexual ethics. Just about every Canadian business sports a government-provided pride flag, Nieminen said. Churches that object to transgender mutilation of children have faced naked protesters as families arrive to worship, Sikkema said.
“Canadians are very aware that we don’t have freedom of religion, we don’t have freedom of speech, we don’t have the right to assemble if that’s in disagreement with the regime,” Nieminen said. “Pastors and teachers cannot speak about the morality of human sexuality. That is a reality Canadians live in, and I think that’s partly why they’re afraid to speak out.”
Christians Welcome in Kenya
The Ristaus had been invited to their current post before lockdowns, but Elise hadn’t wanted to uproot after moving the family so many times for Harold’s military career. They had bought land in Canada for their dream home and planted more than 1,000 trees on it.
“I had dreamed of this perfect life for myself in Canada,” Elise said. But then “there was a kind of turning point where I said, ‘We can go. Nothing is holding us here.’ It was a ‘shake the dust off our boots’ moment.”
From Toronto to Nairobi is approximately 7,500 miles. Flying commercially between the two takes 16 hours or more.
“In Kenya, I know it’s poor, and there’s corruption, but we’re not getting arrested for praying silently outside abortion clinics,” Elise said. “For a Christian in Canada, it’s pretty bleak.”
Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Her latest ebook is “101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation.” Her bestselling ebook is “Classic Books for Young Children.” An 18-year education and politics reporter, Joy has testified before nearly two dozen legislatures on education policy and appeared on major media from Fox News to Ben Shapiro to Dennis Prager. Joy is a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs who identifies as native American and gender natural. Her several books include “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books.
By describing woke ideologies and their fruits at face value, conservatives felled the left’s self-conferred monopoly on how, when, and where the term could be used.
The Associated Press Stylebook, a once-respected linguistic guide for journalists, conceded the definition of the word “woke” to conservatives on Thursday, in an update instructing writers to “use quotes around the slang term.”
“Woke” was originally popularized by left-wing proponents of identity politics to flatteringly refer to their own “enlightenment or awakening about issues of racial and other forms of social justice,” as the AP explains. Conservatives have used it to describe those same people and their ideas.
Those ideas more often than not, demand revolutionary social changes that prejudge people based on their secondary physical characteristics. If, like the vast majority of America until about five seconds ago, you think such identarian prejudices are a bad thing, you might use the word “woke” in a less than fawning manner. Apparently, the AP’s staff can’t handle that.
AP’s concession of the word is hilariously thin-skinned, but it’s also a rare win for conservatives in the war of words. Just by describing woke behavior as such, we’ve held a bit of ground against the unhinged language police who are mad that the right is using their terminology against them. Unintentionally, it seems we’ve ended up with command of the word altogether, if left-wing outlets like the AP are henceforth refusing to use it.
While there are times individual ideologies require a more specific description — queer theory, or socialism, for example — “woke” is a completely fair and often helpful term to use when speaking generally about the coalition of people on the left who want to see meritocracy replaced by identity politics. As my colleague Samuel Mangold-Lenett noted recently in these pages, “what other slogany-sounding word really works as a catch-all for what leftism has become?”
“They lost complete control of the English language,” he added, “and the word they used to indicate their radicalism to one another is being used to expose that radicalism to the rest of the world.”
The apparatus of left-wing media outlets, cultural celebrities, and tech platforms that drives our modern discourse has a majority share in defining the language we use. From headlines to search engines to literal dictionaries, activists manipulate the tools of debate. In any debate, the first step is defining your terms — if your definitions are off, you’ve already lost.
That’s why it’s incumbent upon conservatives to be intentional, honest, and straightforward with the words we use. That includes defending the legitimacy of disfavored-but-accurate terms (like “woke,” or “woman”) and refusing to use inaccurate language.
Take the nonsense phrase “gender-affirming care,” for example. The diction dictators have effectively standardized the term, to the point where even people who disapprove of such procedures will glibly repeat it. But nothing about the phrase is tethered to reality.
The whole idea that people have “genders” beyond their natural sex is pseudo-science crafted to further an ideology. Procedures that attempt to inhibit or reverse the physical realities of a person’s sex are not “affirming” that sex, but actively rejecting it. And deformative surgeries that involve amputating healthy body parts and creating Frankenstein-esque “penises” and “vaginas” with scraps of carved-up skin are certainly not “care.”
To use the phrase “gender-affirming care” is to give up the entire argument before it’s even begun. Or, as George Orwell put it, such nonsense terms “construct your thoughts for you,” and “perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself.”
The same goes for using improper pronouns to describe sexually confused people: calling a man “she” or a woman “he.” Doing so indulges a delusion. Having physical reality on your side does little good if you concede it away by the very words you use.
Concurrent with the effort to mainstream invented euphemisms such as “gender-affirming care” is an effort to cannibalize established English vocabulary. Other victims of the AP Stylebook’s recent crusades include “riot,” “mistress,” “crazy,” and “pro-life.” Proper grammar is also a victim, with the redefinition of the plural pronoun “they” to refer to individuals who are in denial of their natural sex.
Tech monopolies such as Google instruct their employees to avoid terms like “man hours” and “blacklist.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has nixed “criminal” and “foreigner.” From journalism to medicine, terms such as “mother” and “woman” are replaced by dehumanizing lingo like “birthing parent” and “person who menstruates.” Merriam-Webster has redefined “anti-vaxxer,” “sexual preference,” and “assault rifle” to further the editors’ ideological ends.
By describing woke ideologies and their fruits at face value, conservatives felled the left’s self-conferred monopoly on how, when, and where the term could be used. But the same people policing the word “woke” are appointing themselves the arbiters of the rest of the English language, too.
For those of us who prefer our words to reflect reality, there is nothing to be gained by good-naturedly going along with linguistic charades. On the other hand, there is the entire discourse to be lost.
“The worst thing one can do with words is to surrender them,” George Orwell wrote in his 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language.” Orwell protested not just sloppy use of language, but intentional misuse of language for political purposes.
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,” he said. “Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.”
Politicians and dishonest media propagandists today use inaccurate language to frame narratives and foster a leftist perspective. Inadvertently, even well-meaning audiences sometimes internalize this language and end up propagating the very ideas and framing they fundamentally reject. Don’t let that be you.
In every debate, it’s vital to start by defining your terms. If conservatives want to counter the radical left’s agenda, we have to begin by using words that accurately reflect what we mean — not words that actively mean the opposite. Here are just 10.
1. ‘Mainstream Media’
The public communication cartel headed by The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, CBS, and MSNBC does not represent mainstream Americans. Earlier this year, Axios (another culprit of heavy-handed political spin) reported that 56 percent of Americans believe “Journalists and reporters are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations.”
Big Media has engaged in deception through false and misleading “reporting” on Georgia’s election laws, the trespass and unrest at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, and more. Embracing “Russiagate” and the allegations of the Steele dossier against President Trump was one indicator of crumbling credibility. The cover-up of the Hunter Biden laptop story just before the 2020 presidential election was another.
Even more recently, CBS’s “60 Minutes” invented a scandal about Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, while giving minuscule coverage to New York Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s cover-up of COVID-19 nursing home deaths his policies caused.
Leftist propaganda outlets who are running cover for Democrats and spreading inaccurate opposition research on conservatives don’t deserve to be called mainstream. Instead, use “Big Media,” “corporate media,” or — as DeSantis says — “smear merchants.”
2. ‘Gender,’ When You Mean ‘Sex’
Words have gender; people are one sex or another. For Latin and in many of the languages that have grown out of it, gender is a linguistic term indicating which word endings a term should possess. Gender is either feminine, masculine, or neuter. The phrase “la boulangerie,” for example, is French for “the bakery,” and its gender is feminine.
Male and female, on the other hand, refer to sex. Sex is a biological category that reflects a person’s physical characteristics and reproductive systems, and also manifests in certain broad behavioral differences that distinguish men and women.
3. ‘Sex-Reassignment Surgery’
Further, sex is not assigned, at birth or ever. If it is not “assigned,” it cannot be reassigned. Surgical procedures that remove or conceal the outward appearance of a woman or man’s reproductive organs, are most accurately described as genital mutilation or amputation.
4. ‘Democracy,’ When You Mean ‘Republic’
A democracy is direct rule by the supreme will of the people: the highest law is that of the loudest mob. Derived from the Greek “demos” (people) and “kratia” (power), democracy involves no higher law than popular consensus, and subjects the majority will to no checks and balances but itself.
In Book VIII of “The Republic,” Plato lists democracy as the social structure directly followed by tyranny. Democracy, Plato theorized, “comes into being when the poor, winning the victory, put to death some of the other party, drive out others, and grant the rest of the citizens an equal share in both citizenship and offices.” He continued, “that is the constitution of democracy alike whether it is established by force of arms or by terrorism.”
The American system was established as a constitutional republic. The highest law of the land is the U.S. Constitution, to which all public servants are (or should be) accountable. Additional laws are made by elected representatives of the people. Further, the American system is a federal republic, meaning power is divided between federal, state, and local governments, all of whom serve as the guarantors of the people’s sovereignty and rights.
5. ‘Abortion Doctors’ and ‘Abortion Clinics’
Doctors protect life; they don’t willfully take it. The Hippocratic Oath, written by the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates and long respected as a noble description of a doctor’s vocation, includes a commitment to “not give to a woman an abortive remedy.” Doctors are also obligated to, as far as it is in their power, “do no harm.” (This phrase is commonly attributed to the Hippocratic Oath, but actually comes from another work of Hippocrates, his book, “Of the Epidemics.”)
Similarly, clinics are medical facilities where people receive help and care. We do not call the room in which a prisoner on death row is executed a “clinic,” and neither should we use the term to describe the place where preborn babies are killed and dismembered. Call abortionists and abortion facilities what they are.
6. ‘Antidiscrimination’
Often, “antidiscrimination” policies actually refer to legal preferences based on sex, race, socioeconomic status, or some other category. The Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, for example, released an “Antiracist Agenda For Medicine” earlier this month that would provide “preferential care based on race” for black and Latino patients.
In another example of discrimination under the name of its opposite, Yale University unlawfully discriminated against white and Asian students, according to a two-year Department of Justice investigation. Instead of using the leftist buzzword “antidiscrimination” to describe these policies, call them legalized preferences, or simply the discrimination they are.
7. ‘Undocumented Immigrant’
“Undocumented” is the term used by people who don’t want to call breaking immigration laws “illegal.” However, most illegal immigrants have identification documents from their home governments. Further, 16 states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Washington — as well as Washington, D.C., issue drivers licenses to illegal aliens, giving them U.S. documents as well.
8. ‘Equity’ Or ‘Equality,’ When You Mean The Other
Equity and equality sound similar, but have widely different implications today. Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines “equality” as “The same degree of dignity or claims; as the equality of men in the scale of being … an equality of rights.” The Declaration of Independence’s assertion that “all men are created equal” recognizes this equal value and dignity in personhood of each human being.
Equity has traditionally been a common legal term, referring to civil remedies; it can also mean the “impartial distribution of justice.” But in the jargon of identity politics, equity describes a policy that “recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.” See the above entry for “antidiscrimination” for an example of how equity-driven policies usually work.
9. ‘Cisgender’
Cisgender is an unnecessary word and assumes that sex is a result of human choice. A cisgender man is a man; a cisgender woman is a woman. Only added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2015, “cisgender” was invented to represent the opposite of “transgender” in the 1990s.
10. ‘Pro-Choice’
“Pro-choice” is a euphemism to get around having to call yourself pro-abortion. But just as we don’t use “pro-choice” to describe supporting a person’s decision to murder another, we shouldn’t use it here. Abortion denies giving the unborn baby the choice to live; in that sense, it is violently anti-choice.
“This invasion of one’s mind by ready-made phrases,” Orwell continued, “can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them.” Sloppy, inaccurate phrases will “construct your thoughts for you,” he says, and “perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself.”
Don’t let corrupt media and politicians design your words and supplant your meaning. To win the culture debate, you better first define your terms.
Elle Purnell is an assistant editor at The Federalist, and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. Follow her work on Twitter @_etreynolds.
For at least a half-century now, every special pleader in America has made the following argument: Yeah, but what if we were black?
This is supposed to be rhetorical kryptonite, capable of anathematizing “discrimination” against any group: atheists, women, gays, immigrants, illegal immigrants, the disabled, Muslims — basically anyone except a fully abled, cis-gendered, white male born in this country.
Oh my gosh! You’re right — we DO have to let girls try out for the Green Bay Packers!
OK, fine, we’ll hire more blind lifeguards.
Of course, Shadi Abdullah is welcome to be president of our campus Hillel group.
Naturally, the “What if they were black?” argument came up ad nauseum at the Supreme Court last week during oral arguments over Colorado’s “anti-discrimination” law. According to Colorado, making two gay guys who are married to one another feel “unwelcome, objectionable, unacceptable or undesirable” is the equivalent of separate water fountains for black people.
A web designer had petitioned the court, objecting to the law’s requirement that she design a website celebrating a gay marriage, in contravention of her religious beliefs. But if you’d heard only the questions from Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, you’d think the petitioner was refusing to design websites for black people.
E.g.:
JUSTICE JACKSON: “[C]an I ask you a hypothetical … [What if] they want to have a sign next to the [shopping mall] Santa that says, ‘only white children.’ Why isn’t your argument that they should be able to do that?” [The hypothetical went on for hours, but that was the gist of it.]
These were a few of Justice Sotomayor’s questions:
— “What’s the difference between that and ‘I don’t believe black people and white people should get married’?”
— “Tell me how that’s different, by the way. What you’re basically saying is, in our Ollie’s Barbecue case, the company there said, ‘I’ll serve blacks but only on a takeout window, not inside my restaurant because that sends a message that I endorse integration ….’”
— “Well, when I sit down to eat a meal by a full chef who creates this beautiful picture on a plate, why can’t he say, ‘I make specialized meals for my clients. I will not serve a black person.’”
Here’s a cheat sheet that should help answer the justices’ questions:
Can I refuse to let black kids sit on Santa’s lap? — NO.
Can I refuse to serve black people at my restaurant? — NO.
Can I refuse to bake one of my wedding cakes for black people? — NO.
Can I refuse to write speeches for black people? — NO.
Can I refuse to perform marriage ceremonies for black people — NO.
Can I refuse to let black people into the Marines? — NO.
Can I discriminate against black people for any reason, ever? — NO.
Displaying his own unique approach, Eric Olson, Colorado’s solicitor general, who was defending the law (popular name: “We Won the Right to Gay Marriage and Now We’re Shooting the Wounded”), made this pioneering argument: “What [a business] can’t do is say, ‘I reserve the right to refuse service, which means in practice I will not serve black people.’”
A good rule of thumb is that any claim of discrimination that requires a comparison to black people is sophistry.
No offense — I’m sure the rest of you have really moving tales of woe, full of pathos and suffering. But gays, atheists, disabled people, women (whatever the hell that is), immigrants, illegals, please try to remember: YOU’RE NOT BLACK.
It’s discrimination on the basis of race — and only discrimination on the basis of race — that is forbidden by our Constitution. Other forms of “discrimination” may be stupid (if so, the market will punish you) or blindingly logical (football teams allowing only healthy young men to try out, or religious groups limiting officeholders to practitioners of the religion).
Only one type of discrimination ever stirred up such mass revulsion in this country that we decided to amend our Constitution to prohibit it: race discrimination.
You’d think that at a moment when our entire national dialogue is fixated on the legacy of slavery, it wouldn’t be so difficult for people to grasp that black Americans’ unique history is not amenable to cut-and-paste victimhood.
To make up for slavery and Jim Crow, we abrogated constitutional provisions about freedom of association, freedom of contract and freedom of speech. We tossed out basic rules of fairness to allow (temporarily) affirmative action, set-asides and quotas. Behemoth departments were created in Washington to stamp out the last vestiges of discrimination on the basis of race.
By now, of course, the only discrimination involving black Americans is in their favor. But that doesn’t change the rule: NO DISCRIMINATION ON THE BASIS OF RACE.
As G.K. Chesterton said, “When you break the big laws, you do not get freedom, you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.”
That’s what “discrimination” law is today. Instead of one big law: “No Race Discrimination!” we have a million little laws about strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, rational basis test, public accommodations, bona fide occupational qualifications, and on and on and on. At the same time, we have open race discrimination against whites and Asians.
Unless you’re alleging race discrimination, take your lumps like a cis-gendered white man. You can be fired, not hired, turned away, rejected, called names, disciplined, looked askance at — and no one cares.
This simple rule allows us to live in what we call “freedom.” As the libertarians would say (if they were real libertarians), start your own website business, bakery, Hillel organization, professional football team, holiday, all-women’s eating club, etc. etc. etc.
Gays, you’re not black. (And you’re not Allan Bakke.) Gays’ median household income is about $115,000 — the highest of any group in America. It’s $45,000 for black people. To my gay readers, answer this honestly: When you move into a neighborhood, do home prices go up or down?
Blacks must be looking at gay rights activists in bewilderment, thinking: Why couldn’t we be oppressed like that?
For the rest of you, memorize this, recite it in the shower, write it on your hand: “Unless I’m being discriminated against on the basis of my race, I will stop being a pain in everyone’s ass.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Monday morning, I swept through the marbled halls of the Supreme Court of the United States, off First Street NE here in the nation’s capital, to enter the highest room of jurisprudence in the land. The sound of my footsteps muffled atop thick carpeting, the blinds on the massive windows mostly drawn and the room packed with rows upon rows of chairs, slowly filling.
A daughter of India who grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia, little could I know that over the next four-and-a-half-hours I would ride an emotional rollercoaster as three so-called “liberal” justices and four attorneys overlooked, erased, and tried to gaslight the truth of Asian Americans who face discrimination — or as the ideologues call it, “systemic racism” — in admissions to Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
If not for fierce questioning from the court’s six conservative justices and the arguments of two attorneys for the plaintiffs, Students for Fair Admissions, Asian Americans would have been erased in the courtroom that day — much as they have been nationwide by “equity warriors” for whom we are an inconvenient minority. Instead, this is my prediction for the rulings, expected next year: a 6-2 victory by Asian American families and students over Harvard and a 6-3 win over the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Born in India, I was on an emotional roller coaster today in the Supreme Court, listening to 3 justices + 4 lawyers try to gaslight America on the reality of anti-Asian racism. Fortunately, 4 justices argued fiercely. My bet: 6-2, Harvard loses. 6-3 UNC loses. America wins 💯 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/IsQ1yK8Ny1
In 332 pages of court transcripts, “diversity” was referenced 202 times, most of the time by the universities’ lawyers and the three justices that supported them, with “Asian” mentioned only 81 times. The universities’ lawyers, the sympathetic U.S. solicitor general, and the three like-minded justices spoke many times about supporting “students of color,” “minorities” and “diversity” but most often excluded Asian Americans. Ironically, the three liberal justices waxed eloquently about “diversity” without once noting the obvious: There wasn’t an Asian American justice beside them.
In the most defining moment of the day, Harvard’s attorney, Seth Waxman, tried to downplay “race” as a “determinative factor” in admissions to Harvard, noting that it was just like, “you know,” being “an oboe player in a year in which the Harvard-Ratcliffe orchestra needs an oboe player will be the tip.”
Chief Justice John Roberts shot that comparison down immediately.
“Yeah. We did not fight a civil war about oboe players,” he said firmly.
“I—,” Waxman tried to interrupt.
Roberts continued, undeterred. “We did fight a Civil War to eliminate racial discrimination, and that’s why it’s a matter of — of considerable concern.”
Across the country, parents listening to the proceedings laughed and cheered. The day before, many of those parents, with names like Jack Ouyang, Wai Wah Chin, Eva Guo, Suparna Dutta, Yuyan Zhou, and Harry Jackson, stood on the steps of the Supreme Court at an “Equal Education Rights for All” rally with signs promoting simple ideas. “Stop Anti-Asian Discrimination.” “Diversity ≠ Skin Color.” Together, over the past years, we had become accidental activists in the war on merit and Asian American students.
Since late August, parents had been meeting at 9 p.m. on Thursday nights over Zoom to ready for the rally, trading messages through the week on WeChat, Telegram, and Signal. CNN and Fox News featured their voices in their coverage of the case. Chinese-language newspapers put news of the rally on their front pages. But inside the Supreme Court, to the lawyers for the universities and the three justices who supported them, it felt as if we were invisible.
‘Gas lighters’
I’d first visited the nation’s capital decades ago as an 18-year-old intern in the summer of 1983, but this was my first time in the Supreme Court hearing room. It is about the size of a soccer field. At 57, I had to be a witness for the approximately 22 million Asian Americans living in the United States, about one of every 15 people, most hailing from 19 countries and the fastest-growing racial group in the U.S., according to Pew Research Center.
In response to a K-12 education system that has largely failed black and Hispanic students, officials at Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill have allegedly rigged their admissions processes with “race-conscious” standards that discriminate against Asian American students to boost the number of black, Hispanic, and other “underrepresented minorities,” known today as “URMs.”
I brought two books into the Supreme Court with me: the big red book, “Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement,” and the yearbook for the class of 2021 from my son’s alma mater, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, in Alexandria, Virginia, a magnet school known as “TJ,” where about 70 percent of the students are Asian American.
The yearbook theme was simple, “We know exactly how you feel.” Unfortunately, activists for the tenets of critical race theory don’t even pretend to want to know how we feel, and I witnessed this tone-deaf callousness from the three activist justices: Associate Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor. In my notebook, I penned their three names under “Gas Lighters.”
These three justices infused their questions, comments, and analysis with the politics and worldview of critical race theory, the ideology that teaches that society’s injustices must be corrected through the lens of race. Kagan wondered whether “people who have been kicked in the teeth by our society for centuries” can get a “thumb on the scale” instead of “white men.” She spoke about “our color blindness, whatever that means, because our society is not color blind in its effects.” Sotomayor punctuated many a question with “correct?” For example, she said schools are working to examine the “whole” student as “equals” — “correct?”
Quickly, Kagan found a kindred spirit in the country’s solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, who spoke so sing-song it took a careful ear to recognize the disturbing worldview of critical race theory in her words. To the plaintiff’s argument on the “color-blind interpretation of the Constitution,” she said, “There’s nothing in history to support that.”
Under “Fierce Against Racism,” I wrote four names: Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh. Under “Sympathetic” to the plaintiffs, I penned two names: Associate Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.
Photo/Asra Nomani
Prophets of critical race theory, such as author Ibram X. Kendi, have spread a toxic, unbelievable, and illiberal idea: “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.” Asian American students have been their sacrificial lambs in their racial experiment, with K-12 schools like TJ in the crosshairs of their war on merit.
In December 2020, after the killing of George Floyd turned educrats into activists, the 12-0 Democratic school board in Fairfax County, Virginia, eliminated the merit-based admissions tests to the school and replaced them with a “holistic” process that would increase the number of black, Hispanic, and other “URM” students, assigning “bonus points” to racially engineer the student body. A group we started, Coalition for TJ, filed a lawsuit with attorneys from a public-interest nonprofit, Pacific Legal Foundation.
In early 2022, a federal judge ruled that the new admissions process is “blatantly unconstitutional,” but the “UnFairfax” school board, as we like to call it, is appealing the case, and it will likely end up in the U.S. Supreme Court as early as fall 2023.
‘Asian’ Does Not Appear
On Monday, to hear the three “Gas Lighters” and the university’s lawyers, you wouldn’t have even known they were weighing the effect of systemic racism against Asian Americans. In fact, at one point, Alito turned to David Hinojosa, an attorney representing current and former students at UNC-Chapel Hill supporting race in admissions and said: “I was struck by the fact that the word ‘Asian’ does not appear one time in your brief. Yet Asians have been subject to de jure segregation. They have been subjected to many forms of mistreatment and discrimination, including internment.”
Like a magician, Hinojosa said there was no mention of “Asian” in his brief because, voila, a “record” of discrimination against Asian Americans “actually doesn’t exist.” He instructed the court to take it up with Harvard.
When Alito pressed the Harvard attorney, Waxman, on why Asian American students received a lower “personal score” than other students on character traits, including “integrity, courage, kindness, and empathy,” the Harvard lawyer did a tap-dance, saying the “syllogism” of the question was “wrong,” then asserted that the personal score difference is a “slight numerical disparity” that doesn’t reveal any “evidence of discrimination in admissions outcomes against Asian Americans,” because it’s “simply a number” that “fades into the background.”
Simply a number.
“They think we’re that stupid.”
Alito pounced with the obvious question: “If it doesn’t matter, why do you do it?” Waxman dismissed the “personal score” as a “matter of triage” for overwhelmed admissions officers.
What about “affinity groups,” the controversial new tool for separating and segregating students in housing, discussion groups, and elsewhere in schools by race and other identity markers, asked Justice Amy Coney Barrett? Oh, they have “incredible benefits,” gushed Hinojosa.
Photo/Asra Nomani
In the 1920s, Harvard President Lawrence Lowell discriminated in admissions against another group: Jewish students, because he believed there was a “Jew problem” with the overrepresentation of Jewish students at the school. In gaslighting back then, Harvard officials said they weren’t discriminating against Jewish students but just putting in place a “holistic” admissions process.
Now, in his closing remarks, Cameron Norris, an attorney for Students for Fair Admissions, said, “Harvard thankfully does say it is ashamed of its history of Jewish discrimination. I hope someday it says the same about how it’s treating Asians.”
Asra Nomani is a senior contributor at The Federalist. A former Wall Street Journal reporter, Nomani writes a regular newsletter, Asra InvestigatesAsra Investigates, with breaking news and analysis on the frontlines of culture and politics. She is a senior fellow in the practice of journalism at the Independent Women’s Network and a cofounder of the Coalition for TJ, a grassroots parent group, and of the Pearl Project, an investigative reporting initiative. She can be reached at asra@asranomani.com and @AsraNomani.
In a recent legal settlement, Catholic Charities West Michigan successfully challenged Michigan’s decision to bar state funds to adoption agencies that do not serve same-sex couples. The settlement forced Michigan to reimburse the charity for its legal fees and other costs. Using an argument that has now become familiar to most Americans, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a lesbian mother of two and former gay rights activist, charged Catholic adoption agencies with discriminating against same-sex couples. In response, the Catholic adoption agencies used the same logic, accusing the Michigan state government of discriminating against Catholics and effectively denying them their religious freedom.
While Christians should celebrate this recent victory, it’s nonetheless sad this appeal had to be made. When gay marriage was legalized in Obergfell v. Hodges, Christians were assured that they could practice their faith and live out their values in peace, but this was almost immediately proven wrong. As the ink of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion was drying, LGBT groups immediately went after Christian bakers, florists, photographers, popular chicken sandwich chains, and other Christian organizations for their religious beliefs.
Defense Based on Reason not Faith
This war will continue so long as Christians keep using the religious freedom defense. Even though this argument has the best chance of winning in legal courts, it is unconvincing in the court of public opinion. As more Americans drift away from Christianity, they increasingly view this defense for denying service to same-sex couples not as a valid objection, but as a childish copout: “The Christian God doesn’t like gay people.”
Rather, it’s important to establish that most Christian churches are established on natural law (that is, moral laws based on objective truth) as much as the Bible. To be sure, faith and reason both matter enormously, but for an increasingly secular populace, actions and policies must be defended on the basis of reason much more than faith.
This has been the case with abortion, with the pro-life position steadily gaining popular support as it has adopted more reason-based arguments. The pro-life movement has grown because it has argued that unborn babies are people, and therefore abortion is murder. Although the Bible acknowledges this argument, the argument itself isn’t strictly based on the Bible.
Reasons Against Same-Sex Couples Adopting
Similarly, in issues involving marriage and children, Christians need to appeal to reason more than their faith. In the case of same-sex couples adopting, two issues need to be addressed. First, do all couples have a right to adopt a child? Second, do children have a right to a father and mother?
Concerning whether all couples have a right to adopt, the answer is that they do not. As any couple who has gone through the process of adoption understands all too well, many screenings and conditions have to be met. Someone from the adoption agency will inspect their home, rifle through their personal information, interview them and others, and then, after so many legal hurdles, possibly allow a child to live with them. Even then, the biological parent may change his or her mind and take back the child.
As painful and expensive as this process is, it is necessary because children are human beings with rights of their own, not objects a couple acquires out of boredom or simply some charitable impulse. Consequently, adoption agencies must discriminate among couples wanting to adopt, only selecting those who meet the criteria of good caretakers.
A Right to a Mother and Father?
This leads to the second issue of whether a child’s rights include having a mother and father, as opposed to two fathers or two mothers. The science on this is mixed, both because it’s a politically charged issue and because it’s a difficult thing to measure. One may say that a loving committed couple is enough, but one may contend that a loving committed heterosexual couple is necessary.
Katy Faust persuasively argues this latter view in her excellent book “Them Before Us.” She explains that men and women represent two distinct and essential supports to a child growing up; fatherhood and motherhood are not interchangeable or dispensable. Furthermore, she argues that a child does best with his or her biological parents in nearly all cases. For Faust, adoption is an alternative that should only be considered in cases of serious abuse or neglect.
Not only does Faust support her argument with a multitude of studies, but she has both a homosexual parent and an adopted child. Even though her situation would suggest that same-sex adoption should be treated the same as any other parental arrangement, her reasoning leads her to think otherwise.
Faust’s example is a good model for all Christians trying to serve their community in accordance with their values. Whatever charitable work they do — whether it is finding homes for orphans or allowing those orphans to be born in the first place — it is done for the person in need, first and foremost. This is not a political or religious issue, but a human one.
It is not a coincidence that this means they are doing God’s will in the process. Contrary to what opponents claim, Christian values are based on objective truth, not blind faith to various Bronze Age prejudices. As such, the goal is not about winning, but about making the world a better place.
Auguste Meyrat is an English teacher in the Dallas area. He holds an MA in humanities and an MEd in educational leadership. He is the senior editor of The Everyman and has written essays for The Federalist, The American Conservative, and The Imaginative Conservative, as well as the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. Follow him on Twitter.
The woke-o-meter in public schools is about to ramp up. Parents who think they don’t have time to homeschool may soon realize that, compared to the effort involved in monitoring and countering the nonsense from leftist classrooms, homeschooling is the relaxing alternative. Not all teachers buy into the leftist narrative of race-obsessed anti-Americanism. But leftist K-12 administrators want to ensure that, eventually, all teachers will present only approved ideas and counter any wrongthink children are taught at home. Many of these educrats are now embracing a technological fix.
Trade publication Education Week recently reported that about 500 school districts around the country are rating teacher applicants according to their “cultural competency,” another code for “wokeness.” Many of these districts are contracting with a teacher-hiring company called Nimble, which uses artificial intelligence to examine applications and interview answers to determine which candidates harbor the correct political and cultural attitudes.
A central concern of Nimble and its leftist clients is mindsets about race. The goal is to hire only teachers who are “anti-racist” activists, who will reject equal treatment of all students in favor of discrimination against some (whites) for the supposed benefit of others (racial minorities). Note that under this rubric, Asian students, who as a group work hard and consequently excel, don’t qualify as an oppressed racial minority.
“Now that we’ve become a little more aware of the concept of anti-racism and maybe a little more woke as a culture, I do think that districts have started to emphasize these questions a little bit more,” Nimble CEO Lauren Dachille told EdWeek. “They might be more common, they might be more explicit.”
Anti-racism as a motivating societal force was popularized by Ibram X. Kendi, who along with other savvy race grifters is profiting handsomely from the concept. Getting points for honesty if not integrity, Kendi teaches that discrimination against white people is a positive good, and indeed necessary to establish the “equity” of equal outcomes for all regardless of intelligence or effort. This is what is meant by anti-racism: “If discrimination is creating equity, then it is antiracist.”
Note the racism inherent in anti-racism. “Anti-racists” assume that black and brown children are “less than” white or Asian kids—they can’t excel in academics, they can’t follow basic rules of personal conduct. It’s necessary to change all standards to accommodate these presumed “inferior” beings. Such a theory ensures minority kids will never overcome personal obstacles because they’re told they don’t have to. This is the system that, with Nimble’s help, many schools are trying to establish and perpetuate.
EdWeek identified a Boston elementary school principal who “will tell candidates the school’s priorities around anti-racism and ask them to respond.” To make crystal clear the political attitudes expected from successful candidates, “she will ask them what they’ve done personally or professionally to be more anti-racist.” Presumably, getting arrested at a Black Lives Matter riot would be, as Rush Limbaugh used to say, a resume enhancement.
Applicants in Indianapolis may be asked “how [they would] ensure that student outcomes are not predictable by race, ethnicity, culture, gender, or sexual orientation.” Of course, there’s only one way to ensure such an outcome: manipulate it to guarantee that all students end up at the same low level. Any students who threaten the leveling by working too hard or achieving too much will have to be brought to heel—at least, if they’re the “wrong” race.
Indianapolis teaching applicants may also be asked, “Why do you think that low-income students predictably perform lower on standardized tests than their more-affluent peers?” One would be pretty safe to assume a preferred answer would be “because of systemic racism,” not “because those students, largely due to decades of misguided government policies, are more likely to come from fatherless families and grow up in a dysfunctional environment.”
Throughout the article, district officials emphasize the importance of hiring teachers who are amenable to the schools’ “priorities” and “values.” But how is it appropriate for a public institution, funded by taxpayers who hold a wide range of political opinions, to institutionalize one set of those opinions? Even worse, how is it appropriate for the institution to guarantee the propagation of those opinions by limiting hires to candidates who agree with them?
These questions illustrate the bubble mentality of the left. Leftists are so certain of the objective correctness of all their views that they cannot conceive of any person of goodwill taking a different position. In the leftist mind, anyone not willing to engage in discrimination against whites or Asians in the name of “equity” is the moral equivalent of a Klansman. And who would object to screening out Klansmen from the teacher corps?
Parents who hope the public schools are still salvageable might want to reconsider. The skyrocketing wokeness of administrators who control teacher hiring will ensure that all classrooms are increasingly devoted to indoctrination rather than education.
How exhausting it is for parents to constantly monitor what their children are being fed in every class and then try to repair the intellectual and moral damage at home. Viewed in this light, does choosing another schooling arrangement really seem so hard?
Jane Robbins is an attorney and a retired senior fellow with the American Principles Project in Washington DC. In that position she crafted federal and state legislation designed to restore the constitutional autonomy of states and parents in education policy, and to protect the rights of religious freedom and conscience. She is a graduate of Clemson University and the Harvard Law School.
A widely respected teacher in Virginia is out of a job and his family now has no income after he committed the gravest of politically-incorrect sins: He used the word “she” to refer to a girl.
On Thursday, Peter Vlaming was released from his teaching position at West Point High School after all five board members voted that his objection to using male pronouns for a female student was a fireable offense.
According to WRIC News, a girl at that school decided that she is transgender, and insisted that everyone call her by a new name. Vlaming had no problem with this, but drew the line at saying “him” and “his” to refer to a student who is biologically female. The teacher and students who know him explained that this wasn’t about purposely insulting the transgender person, but rather about being honest and true to his personal beliefs.
“My religious faith dictates that I am to love and respect everyone, whether I agree with them or not. Because we are all made in God’s image,” Vlaming said in an opening statement at the board meeting which decided his fate.
“I am also aware of, and agree, with speech limits that are placed on public school teachers, concerning matters of religious faith,”the teacher continued. “However, we are here today because a specific worldview is being imposed upon me.”
By all accounts, the teacher tried to accommodate the trans student in many ways but does not believe his faith or personal code permits him to pretend that a girl is now a boy.
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“I won’t use male pronouns with a female student that now identifies as a male though I did agree to use the new masculine name but avoid female pronouns,”Vlaming said, according to an online petition that circulated to protect his job. Over 2,500 people sided with him.
“Administration is requiring that I use masculine pronouns in any and every context at school. I was informed that any further instances of using female pronouns would be grounds for termination,” the teacher continued.
For their part, the school is claiming that it’s an issue of tolerance … yet they seem to be demonstrating intolerance themselves.
“We do not and cannot tolerate discrimination in any form, or actions that create a hostile environment for any member of our school family,”declared the school board.
It apparently didn’t dawn on them that firing a member of their “school family” for his personal views was fairly hostile.
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“What could be worse for your family than being fired from your job for not lying and violating conscience?” wondered Robert A. J. Gagnon, a Harvard-educated theology expert who is following the controversy.
A large number of students and parents apparently agree. “The public hearing was held in the Chorus Room, only allowing 38 members of the public to sit in on the meeting,”explained The Family Foundation.
“There were well over a hundred people who tried to attend the meeting in the middle of a Thursday afternoon. Students and parents sat in the hallway watching a live-stream of the hearing when they learned they could not get into the room,”the pro-family group continued.
Here’s the bottom line: Schools are supposed to be places where facts, reality, and critical thinking are held up as high standards. Young and often rebellious students should have a voice, but they are not the ones who run our schools.
The female student can still be treated with respect, as this teacher reportedly tried to do. She can still choose for herself how she wants to live outside of the school and make choices for herself when she’s an adult graduate.
But the reality is that this student is biologically a female, try as she might to pretend otherwise. Forcing the rest of the school and society as a whole to bend to her whims is not only contradicting scientific facts, it imposes her views onto other people. In a word, it’s dishonest.
Benjamin Arie is an independent journalist and writer. He has personally covered everything ranging from local crime to the U.S. president as a reporter in Michigan, before focusing on national politics. Ben frequently travels to Latin America and has spent years living in Mexico. Follow Benjamin on Facebook
You’ve got to love Judge Jeanine Pirro and her common-sense plain talk. She speaks to mainstream Americans just as well as, if not better than, President Donald Trump on matters that are near and dear to their hearts, on issues that affect their lives on a daily basis.
In her latest monologue Saturday night, Pirro brilliantly outlined why Americans rebelled against the establishment of either party to elect Trump.
On Friday former President Barack Obama spoke at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and in that speech he unloaded on the current administration with countless criticisms. Not only did he try his best to cast the Trump White House in a bad light, he tried to take credit for Trump administration successes.
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That gave Pirro all the ammunition she needed to so succinctly outline the current differences between the mindset of voters who elected the current president and their mindset when they elected him.
And in the “Opening Statement” segment of Fox News’ “Justice with Judge Jeanine,” she held nothing back.
She began: “All of you have a decision to make. It has never happened in the history of this country, an ex-president viciously attacking his successor, trashing our commander in chief, his party and all those Americans who put him in the Oval Office…
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“There is so much hatred and resentment over the success of this president that they simply cannot handle it. I’ve got news for you. It’s not going to stop. The haters aren’t going anywhere. But if you’re a patriot and you like the course America is on, just ignore them, get behind this president and vote.
“Yesterday, with a full-throttle savage attack on the president, Barack’s message, obstruct and resist. He pontificates about the reality of racial discrimination, slavery and the quote, ‘darker aspects of America’s story’ …”
Pirro went on to cite various instances in which Obama and his administration facilitated racial and religious division in the nation. She skillfully dissected Obama’s comments on the economy, Middle East policy, relations with Russia, money to the Clinton Foundation, antifa and the various other narratives Obama pushes to stoke his base into hatred and division.
The list is long.
Pirro addressed Obama directly and at length: “You ran the most corrupted administration since Harry Truman and you can’t stand it that every metric under Trump is better off than when you were in office.
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“And Donald Trump is one of the biggest threats to our democracy? How dare you? This man is the president of the United States, someone that we put in office and he is to be respected. Your attack on him as a racist and a fascist is not about making things better for us, its about you, your ego and your corrupt, deep-state power structure…
“You desperately tried to defeat Trump and it didn’t work. And you remain in Washington to support the resistance and obstruction of a sitting American president while you stoke your racial cop -ating narrative.”
As Pirro tied it all together, it almost seems too simple. Americans have seen through the smoke-and-mirrors version of the nation presented by the left.
“Your version of America is not the America we want,” Pirro said, still addressing Obama. “To us, social justice is about justice for American citizens, and not illegal criminals. To us, social justice is about taking care of veterans who come back to our shores with fewer limbs than when they left. To us, social justice is not about burning our flag. It is about raising it and lifting it.
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“I’m sorry to say this, but there’s one thing that you’re going to have to live with. The only reason that we have an outsider businessman president is because of you, your lies, your policies and your divisiveness. You, Barack. You elected Donald Trump and there’s nothing you can do about the fact that he’s sitting in the Oval Office now. So I guess I should say, thank you, Barack.”
Barack Obama should know better than to try to speak out against a sitting president, especially this one. Americans have woken up to the fact that they are better off under policies that support capitalism, less regulation and thriving economy rather than divisiveness, open boarders and socialism.
And Judge Jeanine delivered a perfect narrative to describe what Americans are thinking, regardless of the critical narrative presented by Obama and the left. If Obama is upset at seeing his legacy go up in smoke, he has no one to blame but himself .
An enthusiastic grassroots Tea Party activist, Lisa Payne-Naeger has spent the better part of the last decade lobbying for educational and family issues in her state legislature, and as a keyboard warrior hoping to help along the revolution that empowers the people to retake control of their, out-of-control, government.
There’s a new battleground in the gun rights debate: Corporate America. Several corporations have already made headlines by dropping NRA membership discount programs or announcing restrictions that make it more difficult for lawful citizens to purchase firearms. Now, one of the largest banks in the country has taken it a step further. Citigroup has announced that customers who are in the firearms industry are no longer welcome … and they’re essentially discriminating against law-abiding Americans based on politics.
“Citigroup said it would not work with firms that sell guns to customers who have not passed a background check or who are younger than 21,” reported BBC News. “It has also barred the sale of bump stocks and high-capacity magazines.”
Remember, federally licensed gun stores are already required by the law to conduct background checks before selling firearms. And there is currently no federal law against selling firearms to law-abiding adults between the ages of 18 and 21, although the left is trying desperately to change this.
“The measures would apply to clients who offer credit cards supported by Citigroup, or borrow money or use banking services through the firm,” explained the BBC.
In other words, if you’re a local gun shop which follows every law and banks with Citigroup, selling a hunting shotgun to a 20-year-old who passes a background check could now get your account shut down or your credit cards frozen.
Again, we must reiterate: The banking giant is talking about discriminating against sales that are 100 percent legal under federal and most state laws.
More alarmingly, The New York Times reported that the bank was “discussing the possibility” of monitoring and blocking gun purchases at the point of sale — meaning that an individual shopping at a sporting goods store could find their debit card shut down while trying to make a legal purchase.
Incredibly, the bank’s CEO openly conceded that Citigroup was playing politics and trying to “influence” society.
“As we looked at the things we thought we could influence, we felt that working with our clients, we could make a difference,” chief executive Michael L. Corbat told The New York Times.
“Banks serve a societal purpose — we believe our investors want us to do this,” he continued, before admitting that “real revenue is at risk” by shunning lawful firearms and gun accessory businesses.
This decision by Citigroup raises serious questions about the line between business policies and inappropriate — and even unconstitutional — discrimination.
Imagine for a moment that a huge bank did the same thing not against gun owners, but against people with any other political views. Let’s say they implemented a similar policy against a gay rights group or Muslim-owned businesses.
“We will be closing any bank account used by LGBT organizations and Halal restaurants. These do not align with our views. We believe our investors want us to do this.” If Citigroup had instead sent out this letter, what do you think the response would be?
The left seems to want things both ways. They actively sue Christian bakeries and wedding shops into bankruptcy for politely declining to do business with certain customers based on personal views, yet do essentially the exact same thing against a conservative-leaning industry.
Remember, these are businesses that the bank had no problem working with a month ago. They are lawful, respectable stores selling legal products. They haven’t done anything differently. The law has not changed. Yet a major bank has arbitrarily declared that their accounts are no longer accepted.
Not only is selling firearms to qualified citizens completely legal, it’s explicitly protected by the United States Constitution. Self-defense is a human right — yes, even for 20-year-olds — yet a major corporation is trampling on that right while admitting to wanting to “influence” politics.
At the very least, this is essentially corporate bullying. It sets a dangerous precedent, and is only one step away from a bank blocking customers from spending their own money on legal products if biased executives don’t approve.
It isn’t yet clear what the fallout of Citigroup’s decision will be, but it would not be surprising if a strong pushback and even lawsuits are around the corner. The next few months will definitely be interesting.
On his June 16th radio show, Mark Levin said, “I made a suggestion to the gay community. I said you better exercise your second amendment rights while you still can. What did I mean by that,” asked Levin. “What I meant was that you need to acquire weapons to defend yourselves, because you’re being targeted by the Islamo-nazis.”
That’s a good piece of advice, as Levin is known to give. However, his advice runs up against the perceived reality of a lot of today’s youth. This reality is that for today’s youth, from 20-somethings (maybe older), all the way down to elementary school children, the fight instinct has been beaten out of them (figuratively speaking) with the bat of political correctness – leaving only the flight instinct.
Along the same vein as Levin’s advice, I wrote a piece the other day calling for more Americans, particularly millennials, to fight back, become sheepdogs and stop acting like sheep, so when the wolves come calling, as one did in Orlando, you can and will stand up and protect the innocent.
Sadly, far too many young men and women (and other) have been conditioned to hide or flee, rather than fight. Obviously the parents bear some of the blame, but our education system, such that it is, also bears a great deal.
Children are no longer taught about real threats – the kind that can and will “break your bones” and much worse. Instead, they are being brainwashed by leftist educators and advisors to fear words more than actions.
One shining example of this bass-ackwards thinking is on the campus of the University of Northern Colorado. Last year Katrina Rodriguez, Dean of Students and the Title IX Coordinator (the most harmful thing to hit college campuses since the introduction of co-ed dorms), ordered 680 signs to be hung in various places across campus.
One off the wall, politically correct poster after another was hung proclaiming things like: “Language matters because, whether it is intentional or not, the impact of words can reinforce oppression and feelings of discomfort, fear and shame.”
Rodriguez told HeatStreet.com that, “The intent is to educate to foster civility—not to take punitive action,” and “We believe that fostering dialogue on a college campus so that multiple perspectives are explored and debated is the essence of free speech.”
Leftists are all about the precious “dialogue.” This way they can talk and talk, while achieving absolutely nothing. That’s not exactly accurate. They do achieve something quite important – the termination of “free speech.”
Another such poster is a rebuttal of the slogan, “All Lives Matter.” The poster reads” You are dismissing the Black Lives Matter [BLM] movement and the brutality impacting the Black community.”
You want brutality, coddled young black men?! Try being black in Africa, mercilessly slaughtered by Muslims just because you dare to exist! And look at the picture of the 49 killed in Orlando. Look – there’s a black guy – and a black girl – and another and another. Looks to me to be 12 out of the 49.
So pitiful have things gotten on the Northern Colorado campus that they’ve formed and implemented a rapid “Bias Response Team” (BRT). In March there was an incident on campus and the BRT was called into action.
It seems the BLM poster had been defaced. Across the poster was scrolled “All Lives Do Matter,” and “Free Speech Matters.” The BRT quickly removed and replaced it with another poster that read: “This was the site of a bias related behavior.”
If you are shaking your head in disbelief and disgust, join the club, but this is emblematic of the fragile nature of America’s youth.
If young skulls full of mush (attribution – Rush) are taught that there is nothing more evil than an offensive word or silly slogan, how will America’s youth ever be expected to fight back against actual evil – the kind that may say little or nothing while they actual brutalize and kill you?
Ours is not to wonder why – ours is just to do or get fined. Okay – that’s not exactly accurate, unless you are one of the 600 left to oppose the lefts new civil right – the rights of transgenders or “gender-non-conforming people.” For all these years close minded conservatives have been under the misconception that a person’s sex is synonymous with their gender. Silly backwoods bumpkins. It’s time we were dragged from the dark ages to the 21st century were all gender is fluid.
And just to make sure we comply – federal, state and city governments will force us into the proper genderless state of mind.
President Obama recently decreed that all public schools adhere to his new genderless bathroom policy or risk losing their federal education allocations. But he can’t just do that! Of course he can. Other pharaohs before him have made decrees – why not him. So let it be written – so let it be done.
Not to be outdone by Pharaoh Obama, the Communist Politburo of New York City, headed by Comrade Bill de Blasio has upped the ante.
Forget about the public sector. That’s no challenge. Progressives in the public sector are already of the same mind – like the Borg. The real challenge is demanding the private sector conform to ridiculous government demands. It’s much more satisfying to roll over the private sector and force them into compliance.
So Comrade de Blasio directed the NYC Commission on Human Rights to draft legal guidelines which “mandate that anyone who provides jobs or housing must use individuals’ preferred gender pronouns.”
“Employers and landlords who intentionally and consistently ignore using pronouns such as ‘ze/hir’ to refer to transgender workers and tenants who request them – may be subject to fines as high as $250,000.”
Okay – so what the heck are ze/hir? Well, the New York Post was good enough to provide a brief explanation. “Examples of less prominent pronouns that some transgender people may choose, according to the city, are: ‘ze,’ which is the third person singular, such as he and she: and ‘hir,’ which is the third person plural, similar to they”
Hold on there. I thought that transgendering (which is impossible) is the transforming of a male into a female or vice versa. So if a dude wants to be a girl, wouldn’t he/she/it want to be called a he or she?
Don’t be silly. The point of this social exercise is to muddy the waters of normalcy and tradition as much is possible. If “ze” ever becomes part of the normal American lexicon, it will have to then be usurped by some other more absurd gender fluid pronoun.
The Gothamist.com insists that the New York Post is overemphasizing the potential $250,000 fine. They explain that fines would only be imposed on those “who maliciously discriminate against transgender or gender-nonconforming individuals by misgendering them would be ‘determined based on the severity of the violation, a history of previous violations, knowledge of the NYC human rights law and the violating company’s size.”
Oh – now I get it. It’s not just about transgender rights.It’s also a shakedown scheme. Did you catch the end of the last quote – depending on “the violating company’s size?”Needless to say, the larger the company, the more cash can be extorted from them – of course knowing full well that most companies will pay the paltry $250,000 fine to avoid any leftist wrath.
Still, to the true believers, this is about some new human right. The city has simply found a way to combine the two. However, if they really want to capitalize on those, they should find themselves a transgender Al Sharpton who can approach companies for a preemptive shakedown.
The American left, through the tutelage of the Obama administration is determined to completely upend traditional society and it appears things couldn’t be going better. At this pace, we won’t recognize the country in 10 years – maybe less.
Perhaps conservatives should all move to Texas and secede while we still have the chance to move about freely.
Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute are planning to appeal the dismissal of a First Amendment lawsuit involving two street preachers who were charged with trespass and obstruction of justice and arrested for allegedly refusing police orders to cease proselytizing at a Princeton train station.
In coming to the defense of evangelical preachers Don Karns and Robert Parker, Rutherford Institute attorneys are challenging as discriminatory an alleged policy by the New Jersey Transit Corporation (NJTC), enforced by the NJTC police, that requires religious speakers to acquire a permit in order to engage in non-commercial speech at the station while waiving the requirement for political speakers. In dismissing the lawsuit against the police and NJTC, the U.S. District Court for New Jersey granted absolute immunity to the Corporation and ruled that because there was no clear law granting individuals the right to engage in speech on the train platforms, the police officers did not clearly violate the First or Fourth Amendment rights of the street preachers.
“This ruling sheds light on a disconcerting bureaucratic mindset that wants us to believe that the government has the power to both bestow rights on the citizenry and withdraw those rights when it becomes necessary, whether it’s the right to proselytize on a train platform, the right to address one’s representatives at a city council meeting, or the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures,”said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “Yet those who founded this country believed that our rights are unalienable, meaning that no man or government can take them away from us. Thus, the problem in this case is not the absence of any specific law allowing free speech on the train platform. Rather, the problem is government officials who have forgotten that they work for us and their primary purpose is to safeguard our rights.”
On June 26, 2012, evangelical preachers Don Karns and Robert Parker went to the Princeton Junction Station of the NJTC and began sharing their Christian beliefs with others at the station. No notices were posted at the station that engaging in First Amendment expression was in any way restricted at the station. Upon arriving at the station, NJTC police officers Kathleen Shanahan and Sandra McKeon Crowe demanded identification from Karns and Parker, informed the preachers that a permit was required in order to engage in non-commercial speech, and ordered them to cease preaching in the absence of a permit. Karns and Parker asserted the train platform was a public area and that they had a First Amendment right to engage in speech there. Parker also attempted to record the interaction with the police using his cell phone, but was ordered to stop doing so by the officers. The preachers were subsequently arrested and charged under New Jersey law with defiant trespass and obstructing an investigation. They were eventually acquitted on all of the charges.
Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute filed suit against the police and the NJTC accusing them of violating the First Amendment preachers’ rights, discriminating against them based on the religious content of their speech, and violating their Fourth Amendment rights by arresting them without probable cause. Attorney F. Michael Daily of Westmont, N.J., is assisting The Rutherford Institute in its defense of Don Karns’ and Nathan Magnusen’s First Amendment rights.
Over one hundred and fifty years ago, there was a movement in certain states that pitted one group of Americas against another. That movement was the Abolitionist Movement. It had its good and bad aspects. This group saw the horror and injustice of the Chattel slavery institution in American. They wanted to abolish this practice from our land. Many agreed with this but wanted to dismantle slavery in a slow process. But many abolitionist wanted it to end immediately.
These two factions, along with those who fought both, divided our nation. Though there was much more pushing North and South apart in the first half of the nineteenth century, there is no doubt that this was, at least, a key political wedge of the time.
Now we are faced with a somewhat similar situation. One used by the political expedient to gain power and remove it from those they wish to silence in this country. This is the “equal” movement of the LGBT.
Many states, unwilling to give these perverse people the legal club with which to beat the church into submission, are now facing the economic and political bullying that has driven this movement from the very beginning.
And Mississippi now joins Georgia and North Carolina as the latest victim.
The Democratic governors of Vermont, Minnesota, Connecticut, New York and Washington have banned all non-essential government travel to Mississippi over a new religious freedom law that protects pastors, faith-based organizations and business owners who object to being complicit in another’s same-sex ceremony.
What we have to ask is: is this a replay of the events that led to that bloody conflict fought between Americans from 1861-1865? Is the Unitarian playbook now being used by the Homosexual agenda to finish the destruction they started in the Church? Or is it just coincidence that the same things are being said about the church? Are these people just pouting or are they preparing to devour our rights?
It sure looks as if the same people are again the target of their vile threatening. We must pray for deliverance from such a situation, and from such a beast.
For decades blacks and whites have stood side-by-side – marched arm in arm, fighting for equality and desegregation. Though the odds at times were stacked against him, they persevered. However, some paid the ultimate price for the movement, including its champion, Dr. Martin Luther King.
They endured many abuses, all to give blacks the equality they deserved – so we could share a lunch counter, a water fountain, schools and universities. All spaces would be equal and open to any race.
Well, that was then and this is now. 50 years removed from the movement anddemands for segregation have returned.
You may ask: “Who’s to blame for such an affront? Is it the neo-Nazis or the Klan or maybe the Republicans?”Sadly it is none of these. What some would call bizarro world, others may refer to as college campuses, which these days are synonymous.
“Black college students across the country have demanded that they be segregated from white peers, calling for ‘safe spaces’ on campuses meant only for so-called students of color.”
These Black student groups have crafted “76 demand lists, each from a different University.” These various “lists” have been
compiled by a website “run by a racial advocacy group called the Black Liberation Collective.”
The group’s name was obviously intentional and if you have an eye for these things, you’ll notice. The name appears innocuous enough, but it isn’t. Notice the word “Black,” not African-American. This harkens back to the black-power movement of the 1960s. Next, “Liberation,” which is code for black separatism and then of course the Marxist term “Collective.”
This “Black Liberation Collective” is nothing more than just another hate filled group designed for the express purpose of fomenting divisions between races, while enriching a select few à la Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.
Many of the demands are for “safe spaces.” “At UCLA, the Afrikan Student Union is insisting upon an ‘African Diaspora floor’ as well as an ‘Afro-house,’” because “many black students cannot afford to live in Westwood with the high prices of rent. And Afro-house would provide a cheaper alternative housing solution for Black students.”
I guess the assumption is that all white students are rich and all black students are poor. That’s a pretty racist conclusion and black should be insulted by it. But evidently they are not.
Most of the “lists” demand segregated spaces for “people of color,” but if you browse the site, TheDemands.org , you’ll see that it’s all about the cash.
Virtually every list demands huge outlays of cash to support one project or another – $50,000 for this, $500,000 for that – all to fund re-segregation. And the “National Demands” list includes a demand of “free tuition for blacks and indigenous students.”
Speaking as a taxpaying white guy, this sounds perfectly fair and reasonable.
But these groups are a function of the times and they’ve learned from the race pimps and community agitators of yesterday and today. They claim discrimination and disrespect when it furthers their agenda and likewise segregation and racial pride when it suits them. They, as most leftists, want it both ways and if they can’t have it they make a loud enough fuss until some guilty white liberal administrator accedes to their demands – whatever they may be at that moment.
The only way to stop this madness is to say no. Sadly, considering the makeup of American universities, this demand/acquiescence model will continue until the demands can’t possibly be met. And then it will explode in riotous violence.
Evidence of the Growing Persecution of Christians in The United States of America
Think if it as a variation on the Groucho Marx quip about not wanting to belong to a club that would have people like him as members.
According to Fox affiliate KMVT, California State University at Stanislaus has deactivated its chapter of Chi Alpha, a national Christian fellowship group, because one of the organization’s requirements — that its leadership be Christian — discriminates against non-Christians.
The article quotes Cal State Associate Vice President Tim Lynch as explaining:
What they cannot be is faith-based where someone has to have a profession of faith to be that leader…. Every club is allowed to establish its own standards for how leaders are selected as long as it’s non-discriminatory.
Matthew Jacob, a city councilman, claims that if any discrimination is taking place, it is religious discrimination — and it is against Chi Alpha. In a letter to the university’s chancellor, Jacob wrote:
It goes against the very purpose of the organization to begin with, to have somebody that doesn’t even uphold that faith system to be teaching and mentoring other students in that capacity.
Chi Alpha responded itself in a statement asking:
How can we function as a Christian group without Christian leaders in our group? How can someone lead us if they don’t follow our mission?
The policy might at least be defensible if it were applied consistently to all campus groups, but the university fails to practice what it preaches.As Lynch himself acknowledges in the video below, fraternities and sororities are granted a gender exemption.
In addition, the university sponsors an Asian Pacific Islander Club, a Hmong Student Association, and an Indian Student Association, none of which presumably is forced to open its leadership to nonmembers of those cultural groups.
Growing up down south in Georgia, I was well aware of the struggles of the black community in the face of segregation. I remember listening to my parents and the “old folk” talk about how things were — but also about their hopes and dreams for the next generation.
This past weekend we remembered the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” and the events surrounding the crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. I was only 4 years old when this happened, but the events that fateful day set in motion a needed change in America resulting in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. No longer would there be such discriminatory tactics — such as poll taxes and arbitrary literacy tests — used by white officials to prevent black Americans from voting. However, what has been the real story of the past 50 years? And will the black community do a true and focused “soul searching” post Selma or just launch a political three-point shot?
Based on this story from USA Today, it seems the latter, “With tens of thousands of people expected to gather this weekend in Selma, Ala., to commemorate the 50th anniversary of a turning point in the American Civil Rights movement, activists hope to use the moment to turn the spotlight back on voting rights issues in the USA. The protesters of Selma ultimately prevailed, and the moment helped usher in the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.”
“But in moves that activists call sweeping erosions of voting rights that disproportionately affect minority communities, several states have passed more stringent voter ID rules after the Supreme Court in 2013 struck down a key provision of the landmark legislation that was birthed with the blood and sweat of the Selma protesters.”
I know what I will present in this missive will cause some in the black community to go into a state of apoplectic rage because I dare to not just join in, sing songs, and follow along like a good little lemming. Unfortunately, that’s not how my parents, Buck and Snooks West, raised me. They taught me — actually demanded — that I be an independent thinker, as they were.
So if you review the SCOTUS decision called into question as “threatening” voting rights for blacks, it actually makes a reasonable case and presents a logical premise — because things have indeed changed, for the better. We have truly turned a corner and the mandated restrictions that once existed are no longer needed.
As USA Today says, “With the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling, Chief Justice John “Roberts wrote that the Voting Rights Act formula used to determine which parts of the country would need federal approval — known as preclearance — to change their voting procedures was outdated. The court instructed Congress to write a new formula that was reflective of current conditions, but Congress has yet to act.” … “Since the court ruling, legislatures — including those in North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin — have passed measures that require voter ID or proof of citizenship and have reduced early voting days and poll locations.”
Under the system of federalism, there should be more rights granted to states as long as they are not violating their privilege. I would ask, where can Americans go that they are not required to have a picture ID? As you know, I recently accepted a position at the National Center for Policy Analysis and purchased a new home here in the Dallas area. I had to present proof of citizenship, a picture ID (also required for refinancing a home), and had to present a DD214 record of my military service – that’s not discriminatory, just procedure.
So what is the furor about presenting a picture ID for verification of identity in voting? Why are people working so hard to foment an unnecessary emotional response in the black community? And having seen voter fraud at a personal level, I like the idea of presenting a picture ID to vote and agree we should only have Election Day voting and absentee ballots– heck, just make federal Election Day a national holiday with polls open from 7am to 7pm, twelve hours.
But if you hear the rant emanating from Selma’s Mayor, “We’re celebrating something that has been neutered,”said James Perkins, who was elected as Selma’s first African-American mayor nearly 25 years after the Voting Rights Act was passed. “That is exactly what it feels like. You’ve kicked the teeth out of a lion.”
And here is the leader of a church from my home neighborhood: “We have witnessed over the last few years, the worst assault on voting rights since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965,” said the Rev. Raphael Warnock, who leads the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. “Come this weekend we’ll see a parade of politicians make their way to Selma. Our message to those politicians is that you cannot celebrate the lessons of history while sitting on the wrong side of history.”
And even last week during a Sirius/XM radio interview, President Barack Obama compared Selma to the issue of illegal immigration. That is a horrible comparison designed solely to score political points and again create a faux moral equivalency on the backs of people like my parents who were American citizens denied of an essential right— to vote. Does this mean that Obama believes illegals should be allowed to vote in America? And when have we seen any violence unleashed on illegals as it was on blacks that Bloody Sunday?
Perhaps these three men should stop trying to score political points and instead assess what the real issue is in the black community in the past 50 years. Let us remember that this year is also the 50th anniversary of something else- The Great Society programs of President Lyndon Johnson — what is that legacy?
Well, just look at Selma. Since all of this attention was on Selma this past weekend, “Local leaders also plan to use the moment to highlight the current plight of Selma, which suffers from high levels of poverty, unemployment and violent crime. To that end, Rep. Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat whose district includes Selma, is taking Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro on a “listening tour” of three of the city’s public housing sites.”
We know high poverty rates and the number of food stamps recipients, lack of better education opportunities, decimation of the family, and higher unemployment rates in the black community have skyrocketed over the past 50 years — and very much exacerbated in the past six years. We reported here during Black History Month about the genocidal-like numbers of abortions in the black community.
So my question is simple: why aren’t these the issues of concern from “black leaders?” No one is disenfranchising the black vote – as a matter of fact, the SCOTUS ruled as it did because of the incredibly high numbers of black voters. Doggone, the only folks seen at a polling location trying to prevent voting were the New Black Panthers in 2008 — an incident dismissed by the first black attorney general.
Fifty years after Selma, what should we be doing? The black community should be forward thinking and assessing. When are we going to have that real conversation on the societal ills in the black community?
When will we talk about school choice and restoration of the black family — you know, that ol’ school manner in which many of us were raised?
When will we talk about entrepreneurship in the inner city and how do we get capital once again flowing there — while first establishing a more secure environment where law enforcement is respected and less needed.
When do we start talking about self-reliance and not dependency? As Snooks West taught me, “self-esteem comes from doing ‘esteemable’ things.”
No more diatribe about “social justice” which is nothing more than the rhetoric of social egalitarianism. Young black men are oriented to succeed in sports and entertainment, there are many other areas open for exceptionalism.
Selma was an important and vital turning point in the civil rights movement — but let’s not hit the rewind button, instead let’s press forward. After all it was Paul who stated in Philippians 3:13-14 (NIV), “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
In August of 2010, almost three years before Lois Lerner announced at a law conference that the IRS had indeed targeted certain groups, Z Street — a non-profit organization dedicated to “educating the public about Zionism” — filed a lawsuit contending it was being targeted by the IRS because it disagreed with President Obama’s policy on Israel. In fact Z Street filed its suit against the IRS after an agent allegedly told the group that Obama directed the tax collection agency to “give special scrutiny to organizations connected to Israel” and that the files of some of those “organizations were sent to a special unit in Washington, D.C. to determine whether the activities of the organization contradicted the public policies of the administration.”
In its lawsuit against the IRS, Z Street alleges that the IRS violated the First Amendment when it implemented a policy that subjected Israel-related organizations applying for tax-exempt status to more rigorous review procedures than other organizations applying for that same status. The group call this viewpoint discrimination.
Ironically, Z Street’s case received a boost last summer when Democrats tried to defend the administration and prove the IRS was not just engaging in viewpoint discrimination against politically conservative groups. As part of their defense, Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee along with Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) released 14 IRS documents indicating the IRS created a category for review it labeled “progressive.”
Within that “progressive category” was a subset labeled “occupied territory advocacy” (page 12 of linked document). That particular subset contained only
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one organization: Z Street. According to the documents, a notice to IRS inspectors to “be on the look out” (BOLO) for groups under this category was sent on August 6, 2010, just days after Z Street’s file was reviewed.
In other words, the IRS was indeed singling out applications for tax exempt status on the basis of a particular political viewpoint, advocating for the “occupied territories” which is inconsistent with this administration’s.
The Manager of the IRS Touch and Go (“TAG”) Group stated under oath, after Z Street brought its lawsuit against the IRS for viewpoint discrimination, that he concluded, based upon Z Street’s application for tax exempt status and other submissions that Z Street’s file should be sent to the TAG Group, #7830.
The TAG Group manager based his decision upon his view that Z Street might be engaged in the funding of terrorism because “there is a higher risk of terrorism in Israel.”
However after taking a look at the 14 documents related to the case released by Levin:
Nowhere in any of the 14 documents is any organization’s application referred to any group for anything related to the potential funding of terrorism.
Nowhere in any of the 14 documents is there even any mention of terrorism.
The 14 IRS documents released by the House Ways and Means Committee contained a category, created by IRS employees, entitled “Occupied Territory Advocacy.”
The category for “Occupied Territory Advocacy” had only one organization referred to it, and the notice to IRS inspectors to “Be on the Look Out” for groups under this category was sent on August 10, 2010, just days after Z Street’s file was reviewed, and a determination was made to send the file to the TAG Group, according to IRS statements.
The sole entity in the “Occupied Territory Advocacy” category was referred to TAG Group #7830, which is where Z Street’s file was sent, according to IRS statements.
The “Occupied Territory Advocacy” category appeared on the August 12, 2010, the November 9, 2010 and the November 16, 2010 IRS documents released on June 24, but it was not present in the next document, dated February 2, 2011, or any of the subsequent 10 IRS documents.
Z Street’s application was “put on hold” by the IRS because it brought its lawsuit against the Service, as the IRS explained in a court filing in January, 2011. Once Z STREET’s application was no longer under consideration, the category disappeared.
The IRS has defended itself in the Z Street lawsuit on several different grounds, including the absurd notion that the government is immune from such a lawsuit.
However after four year of IRS delay tactics, two months ago a U.S, District Judge rejected the Obama administration efforts to stop Z Street’s legal challenge, giving the organization a green light to go after the IRS.
Z Street merely asks the Court to require the IRS to go about it[s] usual business of evaluating Section 501(c)(3) applications in a manner that comports with the Constitution. The only matter at issue in the instant lawsuit is whether, in addition to evaluating Z Street’s activities as it would any other organizations, the IRS may constitutionally apply a more stringent standard of review that is allegedly reserved for organizations whose activities relate to the promotion of Israel.
Last week the case began its discovery phase.
The Z Street case has the potential of blowing the IRS scandal wide open. First of all, it is the furthest along, and probably will be decided first. The group’s attorneys can put on the stand the IRS employee who said Z Street were being scrutinized because its policy is different than the Obama administration’s, and the lack of terrorism in any of the documents released by Levin indicates that the TAG manager who said Z Street was being examined because of terrorism in Israel may have been committing perjury.
Despite all the evidence in the Z Street case, the FBI attorney who is supposedly investigating the case has not contacted them. Z Street President Lori Lowenthal Marcus wasn’t contacted by the Ways and Means Committee; she was forced to contact them. According to Lowenthal Marcus, they listened and chose to focus on the politically conservative groups. And of course with the exception of the Wall Street Journal and Fox News, most of the media, including the conservative media, haven’t covered the Z Street case.
Z Street President Lori Lowenthal Marcus was a guest on the Hump Day Report Radio program this past Wednesday. If you wish to hear the interview and learn more about the case, click here.
Cross-posted at The Lid
Jeff Dunetz is editor and publisher of the The Lid, and a weekly political columnist for the Jewish Star and TruthRevolt. He has also contributed to Breitbart.com, HotAir, and PJ Media’s Tattler.
So a lesbian walks into a Muslim barbershop, and asks for a “businessmen’s haircut”.
It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it really happened, and now a government agency called the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario will hear her complaint.
Faith McGregor is the lesbian who doesn’t like the girly cuts that they do at a salon. She wants the boy’s hairdo.
Omar Mahrouk is the owner of the Terminal Barber Shop in Toronto. He follows Shariah law, so he thinks women have cooties. As Mahrouk and the other barbers there say, they don’t believe in touching women other than their own wives.
The incident occurred in Canada in November 2012, but it could easily happen here and now. Let’s take a state at random — say Arizona — and graft on the same scenario. Gay rights activists usually tend to be protectors of adherents to America’s lone “diverse” religion, Islam, so where do their sympathies lie?
This question is a real head scratcher in Canada, which passed a Multiculturalism Act in 1988, paving the way for an influx of immigrants with medieval attitudes toward second-class citizens (read: women and gays). Faith McGregor belongs to both groups.
How to resolve this this “human rights” impasse? Levant envisions a hierarchy similar to the one found in the game of poker, except in this case based on some ad hoc notion of degrees of political correctness. He quips:
A white, Christian male has the lowest hand — it’s like he’s got just one high card, maybe an ace. So almost everyone trumps him.
A white woman is just a bit higher — like a pair of twos. Enough to beat a white man, but not much more.
A gay man is like having two pairs in poker.
A gay woman — a lesbian like McGregor — is like having three of a kind.
A black lesbian is a full house — pretty tough to beat.
Unless she’s also in a wheelchair, which means she’s pretty much a straight flush.
The only person who could trump that would be a royal flush. If the late Sammy Davis Jr. — who was black, Jewish and half-blind — were to convert to Islam and discover he was 1/64th Aboriginal.
So which is a better hand: A lesbian who wants a haircut or a Muslim who doesn’t want to give it to her?
Joking aside, when government attempts to decide which protected class of citizens is more aggrieved in cases like this, they run into trouble. The only “out” is to look the other way, which is what liberals have been doing here for years. The question of tolerance for one protected group over another arose during the murder trial of George Zimmerman, when the prosecution’s star witness Rachel Jeantel intimated under cross-examination that Trayvon Martin was anti-gay. Do you recall any marches by the Lambda Society or GLAAD denouncing blacks for their Stone Age view of homosexuality? Nah. Instead, liberals buried their heads in the sand, waiting till the news cycle moved on to other headlines. Hypocrisy much?
Howard Portnoy has written for HotAir, NewsBusters, Weasel Zippers, Conservative Firing Line, RedCounty, and New York’s Daily News. He has one published novel, Hot Rain, (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), and has been a guest on Radio Vice Online with Jim Vicevich, The Alana Burke Show, and The George Espenlaub Show.
Gregory Kenney claims he was axed by Trinity athletic director Pat Krieger, inset, for being a straight, married dad. Photo: Victor Alcorn
A married, heterosexual gym teacher at a tony Upper West Side private school was fired because his lesbian supervisor disapproved of his “traditional family status,” the canned teacher claims in a new Manhattan lawsuit.
Gregory Kenney, 50, taught gym at the Trinity School on W. 91st St. for 16 years before he was let go in June 2012.
Kenney, who lives with his wife and three young children in LI, says he was a well-liked employee at the elite institution that counts Truman Capote, Ivanka Trump and Eric Schneiderman as alumni, until a gay athletic director named Pat Krieger took over in 2009.
Krieger allegedly forced him to coach three sports, even though his contract only required him to join two teams, according to his reverse discrimination suit.
When he complained that the extra responsibilities interfered with his family obligations Krieger allegedly told him, “We all make choices,” the suit says.
After Kenney told Krieger that he couldn’t keep working nights and weekends, she reported him to the headmaster “while a single, female teacher faced no scrutiny when she refused to coach a third season.”
Kenney claims the allegedly biased athletic director “routinely favored other single, younger females without children and discriminated against [him] because of his gender, sexual orientation, ‘traditional family status,’ and age.”
“He felt ostracized because of his family,” Kenney’s attorney, Steven Morelli told The Post in an interview.
“He had been doing this for so many years and he certainly did the job well or they would have gotten rid of him a long time ago,” Morelli added.
Kenney coached soccer, basketball and golf at Trinity, where tuition costs as much as $41,370 a year.
“On at least one occasion Kenney was dissuaded from attending social events with his peers because he was a heterosexual, married male with children, who wouldn’t fit in with [Krieger’s] ‘culture.’”
He says three other married coaches with young children were also sacked. Kenney was replaced by a gay female, according to court papers.
Kenney, who has 7-year-old twins and a 9-year-old, is still looking for a new job.
He’s seeking unspecified damages in the suit.
A spokesman for Trinity did not immediately comment.
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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June 18, 2016
suggestion to the gay community. I said you better exercise your second amendment rights while you still can. What did I mean by that,” asked Levin. “What I meant was that you need to acquire weapons to defend yourselves, because you’re being targeted by the Islamo-nazis.”
This reality is that for today’s youth, from 20-somethings (maybe older), all the way down to elementary school children, the fight instinct has been beaten out of them (figuratively speaking) with the bat of political correctness – leaving only the flight instinct.
been conditioned to hide or flee, rather than fight. Obviously the parents bear some of the blame, but our education system, such that it is, also bears a great deal.
shame.”
slaughtered by Muslims just because you dare to exist! And look at the picture of the 49 killed in Orlando. Look – there’s a black guy – and a black girl – and another and another. Looks to me to be 12 out of the 49.
removed and replaced it with another poster that read: “This was the site of a bias related behavior.”
For decades blacks and whites have stood side-by-side – marched arm in arm, fighting for equality and desegregation. Though the odds at times were stacked against him, they persevered. However, some 
paid the ultimate price for the movement, including its champion, Dr. Martin Luther King.
“Black college students across the country have demanded that they be segregated from white peers, calling for ‘safe spaces’ on campuses meant only for so-called students of color.”
“Collective.”
But evidently they are not.
fund re-segregation. And the “National Demands” list includes a demand of “free tuition for blacks and indigenous students.”
Think if it as a variation on the Groucho Marx quip about not wanting to belong to a club that would have people like him as members.
Growing up down south in Georgia, I was well aware of the struggles of the black community in the face of segregation. I remember listening to my parents and the “old folk” talk about how things were — but also about their hopes and dreams for the next generation.
What Did You Say? 
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