Advertisement

Yesterday’s story about Tucker Carlson’s claim that, according to a whistleblower, his electronic communications are being intercepted is sending some shock waves, at least through conservative media. On Tuesday evening, the National Security Agency released a formal statement, which reads:

“On June 28, 2021, Tucker Carlson alleged that the National Security Agency has been ‘monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air.’ This allegation is untrue. Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the Agency and the NSA has never had any plans to take his program off the air. NSA has a foreign intelligence mission. We target foreign powers to generate insights on foreign activities that could harm the United States. With limited exceptions (e.g., an emergency), NSA may not target a U.S. citizen without a court order that specifically authorizes the targeting.”

That statement appears in the updated story from the WASHINGTON EXAMINER.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/tucker-carlson-accuses-nsa-of-spying-on-him

Recall what we said yesterday about the responsibilities of the NSA as opposed to other intel agencies such as the FBI. If we're going to split hairs, the NSA’s statement might be said to be accurate, though very misleading. The NSA isn't necessarily “targeting” people or “monitoring” Tucker Carlson. That’s because what the NSA does, as far as we can tell, is scoop up communications indiscriminately. They have all the data: yours, mine, Tucker’s, everybody’s. And they just...hold on to it.

What their statement leaves out is that the FBI does the actual targeting. If we understand correctly, when FBI agents want to target you, an American citizen, and go before judges to get a warrant –- remember, we’ve seen with Carter Page how they can falsify the evidence –- that makes THEM the ones doing the targeting and the monitoring, not the NSA. The FBI can also get you by “hopping” from someone else who is targeted. The NSA gives them the data they’re looking for.

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about the alleged targeting of Tucker Carlson by the NSA, and she stuttered quickly through a non-answer. Here is her entire response: “Uh, well, the NSA, as I think you’re well aware, I’m sure everyone’s aware, uh, everyone on this plane is aware, I should say is aware, is, uh, an entity that focuses on foreign threats and individuals, uh, who are tr-attempting to do us harm on foreign soil. So, uh, that is the, their, uh, purview, um, but, uh, beyond that, I would point you to the intelligence community.”

Um, well, uh, is that a, well, denial?

The story at TRENDING POLITICS also brings up something we mentioned on Tuesday, that Tucker has been looking boldly into the FBI’s possible involvement in the January 6 “insurrection.” It is our contention that all roads lead to THAT, and that the FBI wanted to know what Tucker knew about it. They also wanted to find out who was leaking information about it to him.

https://trendingpolitics.com/jen-psaki-confronted-with-tucker-carlsons-spying-claim-and-now-the-nsa-just-responded-knab/

“We made a very straightforward claim,” Tucker said Tuesday night. “NSA has read my private emails without my permission...Tonight’s statement from the NSA does not deny that.” And he’s right; it doesn’t.

Again, given my understanding of the division of labor among departments within the intel community, let’s see what the FBI, not just the NSA, has to say about whether or not they’re monitoring Tucker’s communications. Will they, um, well, uh, deny it?

Tucker said he’d had a “very heated” conversation 20 minutes before Tuesday's show with officials at the NSA. He asked them the very specific question, “Did the Biden administration read my emails?” and “again and again” they refused to say. They couldn’t even tell him why they wouldn’t say.

“The message was clear,” Tucker said. “'We can do whatever we want. We can read your personal texts, we can read your personal emails, we can send veiled threats your way to brush you back if we don’t like your politics. We can do ANYTHING. We’re our own country! And there’s literally nothing you can do about it. We’re in charge; you’re not.'”

“Orwellian does not begin to describe the experience,” he said. “It was like living in China.”

I would stress that the Biden administration is trying to make this level of intrusion the “new normal,” something we all just need to get used to. But it’s NOT normal –- it’s un-American and something we should deeply resent and strongly resist. The only thing more chilling is imagining this “what-if”: What if this whistleblower had not contacted Tucker and the surveillance had simply continued with no one ever finding out?

Tucker said that as long as the Biden administration has classified tens of thousands of Americans as “domestic terrorists” and “white supremacist saboteurs,” there will be a lot more of this.

Tucker brought on civil rights attorney Harmeet Dhillion, who said she was not surprised by this. Ever since 9/11, she said, she and other civil libertarians had been “screaming about the Patriot Act.” Even so, since 1947, our laws have specified that the spying is supposed to be limited to people outside the United States who are not American citizens. Intelligence officials will say that your information is “incidental” to their spying on foreign individuals, she said, going on to bring up what was done to Carter Page to be able to spy on the Trump campaign.

She called that “a huge dragnet.” Under the current incarnation of this law, the phone companies gather this data, and THEY have to store it, but the NSA can “go shopping” there, “in a treasure trove of billions of pieces of data.” Anyone who might be considered “an enemy of the state” should expect that there’s some way in which the NSA can get hold of them, or somebody near them, get an order, “and then all of a sudden, they have all that information, and a bunch of unelected, faceless bureaucrats are going shopping in your data, and then talking to the guy next door [or] in the cubicle next door...”

https://news.yahoo.com/civil-rights-attorney-responds-tuckers-015051563.html

Thus, the war on terror has been re-directed inwards, by corrupt partisan ideologues, and used against Americans who challenge the political narrative. The corrupt partisan media are helping.

According to Dhillon, no lawsuits against the NSA have been successful. If you think you’ve been spied on, they’ll say it’s a matter of national security, we can’t give you any information, you can’t prove your claims, and so you essentially have no recourse. These are self-policing agencies, she said. After what happened with “Crossfire Hurricane,” that seems obvious.

But Tucker demands answers. As big a podium as he has, this could get really interesting. I still say this all leads back to Tucker’s reporting about the FBI and January 6. That's coming out, no matter what they try to do.

The latest conservative to be silenced by a Big Tech company is Andy Ngo, one of a dying breed of actual investigative journalists. Ngo has repeatedly put his own life at risk to report on the violent radical group Antifa, which has made him the target of death threats, physical assaults, and censorship and slander by left-friendly media outlets.

https://nypost.com/2021/06/03/author-andy-ngo-says-he-was-beaten-by-mob-in-portland/

Now, Ngo has received word from the audio hosting site Soundcloud that his podcast, “Things You Should Ngo,” has been permanently removed for violating their terms of service. This was baffling to him, considering they (A.) didn’t explain what he’d done wrong, and (B.) he hadn’t posted a new podcast to Soundcloud in over a year.

https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-andy-ngos-podcast-permanently-banned-from-soundcloud?utm_campaign=64470

Ngo, who at least is still on Twitter, tweeted, "Big Tech is not nonpartisan nor neutral. Being permanently suspended from Soundcloud without knowing why or even having an opportunity to appeal is how it is now."

And this is why I have my own website (www.mikehuckabee.com) and built an email list to reach you directly with this newsletter.

And did you know that I have a regular podcast? I regularly post new episodes of “The People’s Podcast with Mike Huckabee,” featuring commentary and interviews with top newsmakers. And Soundcloud can’t censor me because I’m on Quake Media, along with exclusive podcasts by other great hosts like Laura Ingraham, Gretchen Carlson and Andrew Gillum for as little as $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year.

It’s at https://quakemedia.com/show/the-peoples-podcast-with-mike-huckabee/

Worried About China

July 1, 2021

This is a premium article from the Epoch Times, but even if you’re not a paid subscriber, you should know the basics of what it says.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/from-dove-to-hawk-nebraska-governor-explains-lessons-from-dealing-with-ccp_3879190.html

It details how Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts went from being a big proponent of international trade to working to reduce China’s influence on his state and America. His evolution started with a trade mission to China, where he was welcomed with open arms and puff pieces in the media. But he soon realized deception was baked into the alleged reforms he was told about. He said the CCP talks right, but goes left. He and his staff were also followed and monitored, and one had his hard drive stolen from his computer.

But what really opened his eyes was when China tried to retaliate against Trump’s tough trade policies by targeting Midwest farmers, which backfired when they stood by Trump. Also at that time, Ricketts began to learn of their horrific human rights abuses.

Now, Ricketts is not only trying to separate Nebraska from China’s influence (he’s even banned Chinese-owned TikTok from state government devices), he’s also warning other leaders to be wary of dealing with China’s communist government. He says they have a long-range plan of dominance while too many American politicians and corporations only care about short-term gains. He’s trying to warn Wall Street that anything American companies put into China will no longer belong to them, including trade secrets. He said, “So many publicly traded companies are driven quarter-to-quarter by earnings. And so that tends to make them more short-term oriented, rather than seeing the bigger, long-term picture.”

Sound like any company you can think of, or does that reference go “Swoosh” over your head?

https://www.foxnews.com/media/sen-cotton-nikes-message-towards-genocide-in-china-is-just-do-it

A Growing Chorus

July 1, 2021

Sen. Tom Cotton has joined Rep. Dan Crenshaw in calling for hammer thrower Gwen Berry to be removed from the US Olympic team for her badmouthing of America and her demonstrations of disrespect to the National Anthem, such as turning her back and covering her head with a T-shirt during the Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon.

https://www.westernjournal.com/another-lawmaker-calling-athlete-snubbed-flag-removed-us-olympic-team/

Berry (who uses the words “I,” “me” and “my” a lot) fired back that “I never said that I didn’t want to go to the Olympic games…I never said that I hated the country.” And of course, she got support from the Biden White House and the Colin Kaepernick camp, who must appreciate any athlete’s ability to score publicity by insulting America when they can’t get it from their athletic abilities.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/olympics-gwen-berry-national-anthem-controversy

On that subject, Instapundit makes the excellent point that Berry made herself the big story, even though she came in third. Media attention should have gone to second place finisher Brooke Anderson and first place athlete DeAnna Price, who actually earned it and who both stood respectfully during the National Anthem.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/458968/

While everyone was talking about Berry’s childish political posturing, it was seldom mentioned that Price not only won first place but broke her own American record on two of her six throws, and became only the second woman ever to throw over 80 meters (80.31 on her fifth throw.) Now, that’s something worthy of media attention. I think we’ll all be proud to have her and Ms Anderson represent America in Tokyo, and more to the point, I think they’ll be proud to represent America.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies just completed a two-year assessment of the cybercapabilities of 15 nations, and they believe that China has been exaggerating its power and is at least a decade behind the US.

https://www.westernjournal.com/new-study-finds-china-fooling-world-exaggerating-true-power/

The study ranked nations in three tiers, and the US was the only one that ranked in the top tier with “world-leading strength” in all categories. The second tier of nations with world-leading strength in some categories included China, Australia, Canada, France, Israel, Russia and the UK. The third tier of nations had strengths or potential strengths in some categories but significant weaknesses in others. It included India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, North Korea and Vietnam. For more details of those categories and which strengths and weaknesses different nations had, click the link above.

The study warned that since the early 2000s, China has been engaging in “industrial-scale espionage” to acquire cyber technology and is likely to catch up to the US by 2030. So this report offers no reasons to get complacent and every reason to shore up our cyber defenses and not trust China. We also have no reason to get complacent about the non-cyber capabilities of China when it’s engaged in an aggressive military build-up while our military leaders seem more concerned with promoting transgender rights, driving patriotic conservatives (who are traditionally the backbone of the military) out of the ranks, and planning how to defend America from its #1 threat: straight, white Trump voters.

I told you about the laughable claim by the White House that Republicans are to blame for defunding police. It’s more like an I.Q. test than a legitimate political statement. Nobody in his right mind could believe that Republicans slashed the police budgets in cities that, in some cases, haven’t been run by Republicans since Jean Harlow was America’s #1 sex symbol.

But more of them are picking up that hilarious claim, so just for the record, let me explain what it’s based on.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/06/28/wh-official-doubles-down-on-gop-defund-police-lie-but-it-blows-up-in-their-faces-n404043

Since no Congressional Republican backed Biden’s “American Rescue Plan,” they claim that means Republicans voted against cities getting needed funds during the pandemic to keep their police departments running.

The facts: Republicans opposed that bill because it was a giant, deficit-fueled slush fund that forced taxpayers to bail out blue states and cities for the costs of decades of corrupt policies, like unsustainable pension benefits in exchange for unions helping reelect Democrats. There was nothing in that bill that said any portion of the money would specifically go to keep police departments funded. In fact, before it was even proposed, blue city leaders were already slashing police budgets, whether they needed to for budgetary reasons or not, and they’ve continued doing it ever since.

Breitbart News correspondent Charlie Spierling did a text search and found that in the entire 242-page bill, the words “police” and “law enforcement” never appeared once.

If that’s not enough to shatter the narrative, on the very day the Biden White House staff tried to blame Republicans for defunding police, the city council of Oakland, California, voted to slash the police budget by millions despite a surging crime wave.

News flash: Republicans do NOT run Oakland, California.

So far this year alone, there are over 42,000 cases of serious crimes in New York City, including murder, rape, robbery, burglary, felony assault, grand larceny and grand larceny auto. Many of these remain unsolved, as do many of the thousands of backlogged cases from before 2021.

And yet, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance has squandered years of effort and public resources endlessly investigating former President Trump and his companies, without any evidence that he committed any crimes, other than beating Hillary Clinton in 2016 and not being a liberal Democrat. They even went all the way to the Supreme Court to get authorization to seize his tax records. And now, it appears that Vance’s Javert-like pursuit of his political nemesis is about to come to a stunning anti-climax.

Vance recently indicated that he was considering criminal charges against the Trump Organization, which got a LOT of headlines. So last week, Trump attorney Ronald Fischetti held a meeting with Vance’s team to find out what these alleged charges are. Do they involve the much-ballyhooed accusations made by Stormy Daniels or former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen?

No. Fischetti claims Vance’s team told him that the first indictments would not be against Trump, and they have no immediate plans to charge him. Instead, they plan to charge a small number of Trump company executives with failing to pay taxes on some perks and benefits, such as company cars. It’s such common small potatoes that tax attorneys told the New York Times that they couldn’t think of any company ever being charged over it.

Fischetti told Politico, “We asked, ‘Is there anything else?’ They said, ‘No.’ It’s crazy that that’s all they had…It’s like the Shakespeare play ‘Much Ado About Nothing.’ This is so small that I can’t believe I’m going to have to try a case like this.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/28/trump-lawyer-manhattan-da-wont-charge-496768

It doesn’t surprise me that they got nothin’. They can abuse their office by harassing a citizen, but at the end of the day, they still have to come up with actual evidence of a crime (and by the way, you're supposed to have a solid reason to suspect a specific crime first; in America, investigations aren't supposed to be fishing trips.)

Vance’s team told Fischetti, “Our investigation is ongoing.” Which I’m sure it is: having wasted this much of the taxpayers’ money on a wild Trump hunt, they’re not giving up easily. Besides, they have to keep up the hopes of Trump haters and fans of politicized lawfare that if they hunt long enough, they’ll find something – anything! – to pin on Trump.

If those folks read my newsletter instead of the New York Times, they would have been better prepared for this. I’ve been saying for years that Trump must have massive tax returns filed by platoons of CPAs and tax attorneys and signed by a robo-pen. They have this fantasy of him staying up late on April 15th, sweating over his 1040 form and trying to hide criminal activity in it. The fact that the IRS examined those forms every year and never brought charges didn’t dissuade them from this delusion that his tax forms contain a smoking gun. Obviously, they know as little about how billionaires file their taxes as they do about the economy, policing, responsible public service, or just about anything you’d expect mature adults to grasp.

Mark this day on your calendar: the media have finally started to realize that Democrats sometimes lie! The Washington Post fact-checker gave President Biden 4 Pinocchios for the string of blatant whoppers he came out with in promoting his latest gun control proposals.

https://www.westernjournal.com/washington-post-slaps-biden-4-pinocchios-lie-second-amendment/

Biden declared, “The Second Amendment, from the day it was passed, limited the type of people who could own a gun and what type of weapon you could own. You couldn’t buy a cannon.”

WaPo said the cannon claim had been debunked during the campaign and they have no idea why he’s still repeating it (maybe he just forgot, the way he keeps repeating the "very fine people" hoax about Trump.) There’s no evidence that the Founders ever banned Americans from owning cannons. In fact, the Constitution gives Congress the power to allow private citizens to act as pirates on behalf of the US against nations at war with it, and if they’re pirates, surely they can own cannons. Parrots, too.

Other experts told the Post that absolutely everything in Biden’s statement is incorrect: there were no federal or state limits on the kinds of guns that citizens could own. And certainly, the Second Amendment doesn’t limit gun rights; it protects them.

I guess they didn’t bother checking his claims that guns are to blame for skyrocketing crime in Democrat cities that have defunded the police, or that more gun control will solve that problem, or it would have been six Pinocchios.

"Worse Than Trump"

June 29, 2021

I wrote last week about an online poll showing that more Republicans want Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to run for President in 2024 than want Donald Trump. And right on cue, the left begins its assault on DeSantis as being “worse than Trump!”

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/06/25/ron-desantis-gets-labeled-worse-than-trump-n402208

When you live as long as I have, you start to experience déjà vu every time a new Republican leader emerges and has to be tarred by the left as a racist/idiot/Nazi, etc. They go so over the top in doing this that it’s necessary for them to rehabilitate the last Republican they slandered just so they can say, “Well, he really wasn’t that bad, but this one definitely is!”

I’m old enough to remember when Ronald Reagan was depicted as a crazy, dimwitted, senile, bumbling warmonger who was going to start World War III. Then he became a revered statesman, compared to the moronic, fumble-mouthed “Chimpy McBushHitler,” George W. Bush. Bush became a respected elder statesman compared to the hateful, racist, white supremacist “worse than Hitler” Donald Trump.

And now, DeSantis is already “worse than Trump.” I don’t expect them to start rehabilitating Trump’s trashed reputation until they’re sure he won’t be the candidate, but at least Trump can look forward to it as soon as it’s expedient. They’ll need to stop depicting him as Satan incarnate so they can do it to DeSantis, and they’ll expect the media to carry that message and people to believe it. Democrats rely on their followers having the long-term memory of house cats.

Olympic hammer-thrower Gwen Berry is taking flak for once again showing her disdain and disrespect for the National Anthem during the US Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon, by turning her back and putting a T-shirt over her head.

https://www.westernjournal.com/olympics-bound-athlete-claims-set-turning-back-us-flag-raising-activist-message-anthem-played/

She’s attempting to deflect criticism by claiming she was “set up,” but in order to swallow that, you’d have to believe, as she apparently does, that the entire Olympic system revolves around her and her angry feelings toward her own nation that she believes is systemically racist, despite it giving her the opportunity to be an Olympian.

For instance, she claimed she was angry because they played the Anthem during the medal awards (she won bronze.) She said, “I feel like they did that on purpose,” and “The anthem don’t speak for me. It never has.” A spokesperson for the trials said the Anthem was scheduled to play at 5:20 p.m. and (gasp!) it had nothing to do with where Gwen Berry happened to be standing at the time.

Berry is also wrankled by the Tokyo Olympics’ ban on political demonstrations during medal ceremonies. She said, “It’s our sacrifice. It’s our podium. It’s our moment. So we should be able to protest whatever we want. It’s not for them to decide.”

Wow, that sure is a lot of me’s, we’s and our’s. Actually, it is their podium. She chose to participate in an organization that she doesn’t run. And she’s not just representing herself; like it or not, she’s representing the United States of America. If she finds that idea so repulsive that she’s incapable of behaving like an adult and following the rules, then nobody’s forcing her to compete for the privilege.

And by the way: it is a privilege. It’s not a right. Luckily for her, America provides her with an awful lot of rights she doesn’t seem to appreciate, but being able to go to Tokyo and compete in the Olympics while ignoring the rules is not one of them.

No Sense of Humor

June 29, 2021

The rise of cancel culture has been a curse for comedians, who are terrified that one joke that offends someone might end their careers, and these days, every joke, no matter how innocuous, offends somebody. This has also destroyed late night comedy shows, which have become smug recitations of DNC talking points, designed to elicit approving applause from the woke studio audience instead of actual laughter.

The only people who’ve remained immune to this toxicity are conservatives like me, who don’t care what a handful of humorless crybullies on Twitter say. Some others include Greg Gutfeld, Steven Crowder, and of course, the brilliant satire site, the Babylon Bee. They are bravely and hilariously doing the job that liberal comedians used to do back when they were funny: using exaggeration to point out the hypocrisy and absurdity of the humorless establishment in power (which is currently leftist Democrats.)

But one persistent trait of today’s leftists is that while they love to mock conservatives, they have ZERO sense of humor about themselves. They also have no self-awareness, and they’re utterly terrified of having anyone laugh at them, for the same reason that the Spanish Inquisition, the Soviet Union, the Iranian Mullahs and other tyrannical regimes down through history have always tried to quash humor.

That’s why Facebook and its “fact-checkers” have been trying so hard to convince us that the Babylon Bee is rightwing “misinformation” hiding behind satire, so they can censor it. Check out Facebook’s new “guidelines” on satire and tell me they weren’t crafted out of a slurry of bias and double-talk specifically to prevent anyone from sharing Babylon Bee stories that make fun of ridiculous leftist positions.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2021/06/25/the-morning-briefing-humorless-democrat-marxists-are-terrified-of-the-babylon-bee-n1456900

Let’s be clear: nobody with a functioning brain seriously believes that the Babylon Bee is trying to make you believe its stories are real. Just like the Onion, back in the days when liberals were funny, they take an inconvenient truth about the left (and sometimes the right) and spin it humorously to illustrate the absurdity of that position.

For instance, does anyone really believe the headline, “Nation starts stocking up on F-15s after Biden says you’ll need them to overthrow the government” is literally true? If so, get your head, or your sense of humor, examined.

https://babylonbee.com/news/nation-starts-stocking-up-on-f-15s-after-biden-says-youll-need-them-to-overthrow-the-government

And news flash, Facebook: this is NOT an actual documentary (it is hilarious, though):

https://babylonbee.com/news/motorcycle-that-identifies-as-bicycle-sets-world-cycling-record

I suppose the Bee should take the attempts to silence them as a compliment. When people who are that terrified of being laughed at are that desperate to censor your comedy, you know you are squarely over the target (I apologize if that phrase triggers anyone. Also if the word “trigger” triggers anyone. It’s impossible to write jokes these days faster than they become reality.)

https://notthebee.com/article/the-phrase-trigger-warning-is-now-triggering-according-to-this-ridiculous-chart-from-brandeis-university

Vice President Kamala Harris denied that pressure from Republicans or former President Trump’s visit to the border were the reasons why she finally went to El Paso after 90 long days. So maybe this is the reason why Democrats are finally trying to look as if they’re interested in doing something about the crisis created by Biden’s reversal of Trump’s border security policies. It’s the only thing that motivates some politicians: terrifying poll numbers.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/harvard-poll-80-see-border-disaster-want-trump-closure-restored-reject-teaching-critical-race-theory

A new Harvard/Harris poll (note: hardly a rightwing polling outfit) found that a staggering 80% of registered voters believe that illegal immigration is a serious issue that needs more attention than Biden and Harris are giving it. Further, 68% said the Biden White House is putting out signals encouraging more illegal immigration, and 55% believe that Trump’s border policies should have been left in place.

It’s no wonder they’re concerned: the latest disaster news is that so far this fiscal year, Border Patrol agents have arrested 353 illegal aliens with sex-related criminal convictions, many involving children. That’s an increase of 542% from fiscal 2019. And authorities have detected more than 250,000 illegal aliens who have evaded capture.

Incidentally, the poll also found that other issues are boiling up as concerns to voters, and those issues – inflation, taxes and teaching Critical Race Theory in schools – are all straight off the Democratic Party’s rancid buffet table.

It’s encouraging news for those who want to wrest power away from the Democrats who are abusing it in Congress in 2022, but remember what I always tell you: ignore polls, especially polls this far out. Don’t let them make you complacent. We need every Republican voter turning out in 2022. Remember that if Republicans in Georgia had shown up for the Senate runoff in the same numbers they did in the general election, Republicans would still be in charge of the Senate. So pray for the best, but work like dogs to help get out the vote and make it happen.

Name Change

June 29, 2021

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock kicked over a beehive by renaming an endowed professorship known as the Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy to the “William J. Clinton Professor of Constitutional Law and Public Service.” The change was made without consulting faculty members, some of whom are not happy at the idea of the school honoring a lawyer who was disbarred over giving false testimony.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2021/06/renaming-of-endowed-professorship-for-president-clinton-roils-arkansas-law-school.html

Those seeking to defend him are arguing that he wasn’t disbarred, he was only suspended. Well, that certainly should quell any questions about honoring him! To respond to that, here’s a source that liberals always claim is reputable. Even Snopes.com says the claims of Clinton being disbarred and fined are “mostly true.”

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-clinton-fined-and-disbarred-over-the-monica-lewinsky-scandal/

If you have kids in school, you might want to bookmark this:

https://reason.com/volokh/2021/06/26/kendi-and-reynolds-stamped-racism-antiracism-and-you-a-remix-a-partial-list-of-errors/

Schools pushing racist Critical Race Theory on students often rely on a book called “Stamped: Racism, Anti-racism and You, a Remix” by Jason Reynolds and Ibram Kendi, which is a simplified version of Kendi’s book, “Stamped from the Beginning.” Those who criticize it are accused of being ignorant and simply not understanding what CRT really is.

Well, if you think it’s a Marxist-derived school of dividing the races and pitting them against each other by teaching kids that they are either victims or oppressors based on their skin color, then you know what CRT is. But if school administrators start pulling out their academic credentials to claim that they know what’s true better than a bunch of ignorant parents, you can pull this article out and pelt them with quotes from it.

Prof. David Bernstein of George Mason University lists what I’m sure are just a small sample of the blatant historical errors and distortions that the book makes in attempting to convince us that America is and always has been irredeemably racist. They range from assertions unsupported by facts (a black women’s group was “racist” for opposing misogynistic gangsta rap lyrics) to easily-refuted factual errors (too many to list, but for instance, unemployment didn’t “skyrocket” during the Reagan years; Clarence Thomas didn’t get into fancy schools because he was a conservative activist; Mumia Abu Jamal was not a “political prisoner” but a convicted cop killer; and Charles Krauthammer did not coin the term “crack baby.”)

It’s one thing to claim your critics are just too dumb to comprehend your brilliant theory, but when that theory is based on a lot of easily-refuted historical falsehoods, then it has no business being taught in schools, even if it weren’t a toxic, divisive, racist, Marxist pile of horse droppings.

Saturday in Wellington, Ohio, former President Trump drew a massive crowd for his return to live rallies, this time under the banner of “Save America.” He was in classic form. Sharyl Attkisson has a good roundup of quotes, photos, clips and stats about the size of the crowd and the online viewing audience (more than 2.2 million.)

https://sharylattkisson.com/2021/06/watch-hes-baaaack-more-than-2-2-million-watch-trump-rally-in-wellington-ohio-online/

Despite the mainstream media’s efforts to silence and censor Trump and his supporters, it appears that enthusiasm for his message has not diminished. And while some outlets refused to cover it, if you want to see the entire speech, it’s available on the YouTube alternative, Rumble. Move ahead to around the 46:00 mark for his arrival.

https://rumble.com/vj2p7j-live-president-donald-j-trump-in-wellington-oh.html

Dealing With Biden

June 29, 2021

Last week, I told you that a group of Senate Republicans had agreed with President Biden on a compromise infrastructure bill. It cut the $2.3 trillion that Biden wanted to spend down to a bare-bones $1.2 trillion. Well, I barely had time to send that story before Biden undid it all by announcing that he wouldn’t sign the bill unless it was part of a “reconciliation” package that included all the government-bloating, big spending schemes that he’d just agreed to cut to get the Republicans to sign on.

https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-scrambles-recover-blunder-tries-walk-back-big-threat/

With the Republicans screaming that they’d been duped, Biden (or more likely, his panicked staffers) issued a statement on Saturday walking back Biden’s most recent statement. It said that in no way did his statement that if the other spending didn’t come along with the compromise bill, “I’m not signing. Real simple,” mean that he wouldn’t sign it. The statement read, “My comments also created the impression that I was issuing a veto threat on the very plan I had just agreed to, which was certainly not my intent.”

It’s not known whether that reassurance will be enough to lure Republicans back into the trap a second time. Will Biden’s current assurance that he’ll abide by the deal last longer than the 2-3 hours that his previous assurance lasted? According to my source, which is more reliable than the White House’s word, “Reply hazy, ask again later.”

By Mike Huckabee

Over the weekend, President Biden ordered military strikes on facilities near the Iraq-Syria border that have been used by Iran-backed militia groups to stage attacks on US troops in Iraq. White House spokespeople and Speaker Pelosi described it as necessary and appropriate action to deal with a specific threat. It was also defended by liberals as Biden serving warning to Iran that just because he was trying to revive the Iran nuclear deal, he wasn’t going to ignore other problems.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bidens-airstrikes-seen-as-message-to-iran-while-administration-tries-to-revive-nuke-deal

Some Democrats were not on board, though, like Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, who protested that Biden didn’t consult Congress before launching the attacks.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/senate-democrat-concerned-over-lack-of-congressional-approval-forairstrikes-near-iraq-syria-border

And some conservatives were not impressed by what they saw as a half-hearted strike, with conciliatory messages sent to Iran through back channels.

https://redstate.com/andrewmalcolm/2021/06/28/bidens-half-hearted-bombing-for-irans-attacks-on-u-s-troops-is-a-dud-n403507

Personally, I have no problem with Biden ordering those strikes, and not every military action taken by the President requires approval from Congress first. If it did, we’d end up losing wars before any agreement could be reached (imagine if Trump had needed Pelosi’s approval to do the exact same thing and imagine how she would have reacted.)

The most worrisome thing to me in this story comes toward the end when a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said angering Iran now could be problematic to Biden’s hopes of reviving the Iran nuclear deal because the new “hardline” “conservative” (i.e., radical Islamic mass murderer) President Ebrahim Raisi takes office in August. He said, "I think the Administration now has a heightened sense of urgency to revise the deal before Raisi and a new hardline team is inaugurated.”

Yes, because whoever heard of a new President coming in and ripping up deals that the last President already agreed to? If Biden can’t imagine that happening, would someone please remind him of the Keystone XL Pipeline and the border wall construction? Or how Trump ripped up the Iran nuclear deal?

Politicized Justice

June 28, 2021

Attorney General Merrick Garland proved once again what a service Mitch McConnell did for America by keeping him off the Supreme Court. In a stunning display of politicized “justice,” Garland announced that the Biden DOJ will sue the state of Georgia for passing its recent election integrity laws. I can't think of a better metaphor for the Biden Administration than the news that it's going to war against election integrity. Here’s a good analysis of the case by Redstate.com:

https://redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2021/06/25/biden-doj-sues-georgia-seeks-to-accomplish-the-goals-of-the-failed-elect-only-democrats-forever-bill-in-congress-n402384

I’m not an attorney, but this lawsuit seems like a huge waste of taxpayer resources. The Redstate analysts points out that the Georgia law contains nothing that other states don’t already impose (some, like Biden’s home state of Delaware, have even stricter laws.) And the DOJ is trying to argue that returning to the election laws that prevailed before they were loosened (in some cases, unconstitutionally) for the pandemic is somehow racist, without making the case that the laws were ever racist in the first place.

As Redstate notes, the success of this case will likely depend on how good a job Garland does of shopping for a liberal judge. In the meantime, this article has more on the lawsuit from the Federalist’s Margot Cleveland, who calls it “surreal,” and Redstate writer Bonchie, who uses the colorful descriptive phrase, “mind-meltingly moronic.”

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/06/25/the-dojs-lawsuit-against-the-georgia-election-law-is-mind-meltingly-moronic-n402609

Townhall.com columnist Kurt Schichter polled readers on who they want to see on the Republican Presidential ticket in 2024. He expected Donald Trump to easily win, but he was surprised at the results, which aren’t scientific, but they do reflect his conservative readers: 45.7% want Trump, 50.1% want Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/06/24/draft-n2591387

Schlichter ponders the meaning of those results, and he doesn’t believe it’s due to rejection of Trump. He still has strong Republican support and tremendous gratitude for what he did and the way he fought to make America great again. So why wouldn’t they want him to run again in 2024?

Some possibilities: he would be 78 years old. The left has spent years attacking him and trying to tar his reputation, and even though Republicans see through that, they’d still have to constantly fight the personal attacks while mounting a winning campaign. Or maybe they're just suffering from Trump fatigue. Trump does bring a lot of drama, while DeSantis is just as conservative, but is younger, more focused, less of a lightning rod, and is racking up a lot of conservative achievements of his own.

Read Schlichter’s column, then feel free to give your opinion in the comments section on whether you want to see Trump run again in 2024, or do you think it’s time for someone new, and if so, who?

Last week, we took a look at the latest developments concerning China, including information reportedly provided by a high-level Chinese defector linking the Wuhan lab with the military bioweapons program, and also the crack-down by the CCP on academics and billionaire business moguls to keep them in line. Today, we see how they must have put the screws to Nike, as that corporation’s Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe said in a phone call to Wall Street analysts, “Nike is a brand that is of China and for China.”

That statement, part of a transcript released by Nasdaq, seems oddly inconsistent, considering that as recently as March, Nike expressed concern about “reports of forced labor in, and connected to, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.” In a statement, they said that “Nike is committed to ethical and responsible manufacturing and we uphold international labor standards...Nike does not source products from the XUAR and we have confirmed with our contract suppliers that they are not using textiles or spun yarn from the region.” Read the whole statement, and it sounds as though they were concerned and being quite diligent about this.

https://archive.is/PLRfG#selection-203.111-205.41

But the inconsistencies are stark. According to an article in THE FEDERALIST, there are believed to be over 1 million Uyghur Muslims being held in Xinjiang and used for forced labor to deliver 80 percent of Chinese cotton. And last November, when the Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act was making its way through the House –- overwhelmingly passed 406 to 3 –- Nike joined with Coca-Cola and Apple to lobby against it. The bill prohibits “certain imports” from Xinjiang and imposes sanctions on those responsible for human rights violations in that region. Why would American corporations have been lobbying against THAT?

Nike is the biggest sports brand in all of China. Donahoe’s revealing phone call came as a new earnings release shows Nike’s sales in China for the past three months at $1.9 billion. This is 17 percent higher than the same time last year.

Incidentally, Nike gave over $604,000 in campaign donations in 2020, 80 percent of which went to Democrats, no doubt because they prefer the Democrats’ looser policy towards China.

“We’ve been in China over 40 years,” Donahoe said in the phone call, “and the biggest asset is consumer equity...it’s real; I saw it in my first week on the job.”

https://thefederalist.com/2021/06/25/of-china-and-for-china-nike-ceo-admits-company-exists-to-serve-communist-china/

We did a little research to try to understand what Donahoe meant by “consumer equity" regarding their marketing plan in China. In general, this term translates to “the present value of the total revenues that the customer base will generate in its lifetime.” This value is driven by three factors: perceived value for the money, emotional connection to the brand, and loyalty to the brand. The greater the consumer equity, the more future revenue can be derived over the lifetime of its clients.

And apparently, in his first week on the job, Donahoe saw evidence that these measures of long-term profitability are strong in China. When it comes to China, Nike is playing the long game, and so they have to stay on the CCP’s good side.

In light of that, a story in the WASHINGTON EXAMINER made some sense out of Nike’s flip-flopping. Apparently, after Nike’s statement in March, they were hit with a backlash on China’s social media. Looks as though the CCP has pulled Nike back into line.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/nike-ceo-company-china

In March of 2020, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute reported that “the Chinese government has facilitated the mass transfer of Uyghur and other ethnic minority citizens from the far west region of Xinjiang to factories across the country. Under conditions that strongly suggest forced labor, Uyghurs are working in in factories that are in the supply chain for 82 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen.”

According to this report, “Since 2017, more than a million Uyghurs and members of other Turkic Muslim minorities have disappeared into a vast network of ‘re-education camps’ in the far west region of Xinjiang, in what some experts call a systematic, government-led program of cultural genocide.” Inside these camps, detainees are forced to undergo political indoctrination, to renounce their culture and religion, and even in some instances to undergo torture. It’s a harsh, military-style life in which the workers are under constant surveillance and the threat of detention.

“There is mounting evidence that that many Uyghurs are being forced to work in factories within Xinjiang,” the report says. “...Some factories appear to be using Uyghur workers sent directly from re-education camps.”

This report is an eye-opener, a must-read. In addition to outlining exactly what China is doing to essentially enslave its ethnic minorities, it also contains a long list of companies, mostly American, “potentially directly or indirectly benefiting” from forced labor. Nike is just one, sharing the honor with many well-known brands. “Some brands are linked with multiple factories,” it says.

I would add that some of these corporations are going overboard right now trying to build an image of “woke-ness” in the United States. How “woke” are they to the idea that slave labor is a bad thing?

Don’t miss Case Study #1: UYGHUR WORKERS MAKING NIKE SNEAKERS IN QINGDAO. It even has pictures.

https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale

According to this report, these people who apparently make Nike shoes are not free, are not allowed to practice their faith, and must undergo political indoctrination in “night school” after work. They live and labor in a compound surrounded with barbed wire and watchtowers and are monitored everywhere they go.

Under Case Study #3, about workers making selfie cameras for Apple iPhones, the report says their work assignments were “highly politicized.” According to a local Xinjiang newspaper, the workers “were expected to ‘gradually alter their ideology’ and turn into ‘modern, capable youth’ who ‘understand the Party’s blessing, feel gratitude towards the Party, and contribute to stability.”

In its conclusions, the report says, “The tainted global supply chain that results from these practices means that it is not difficult to guarantee that products manufactured in China are free from forced labor.” Can you say, “MADE IN THE USA”?

This report is quite long and detailed, but I hope you’ll read the whole thing. As for Nike, I would say that hearing from their CEO that the Nike brand is “of China and for China” should be enough to tell us that it’s not for America. Nike's marketing plan seems to be based more in China, anyway. And if they’ve decided it’s worth humoring the CCP to maintain “consumer equity” in China, well, they can have it.

But I hope Americans will renounce any brand loyalty THEY might have had and go to the trouble of looking for shoes, sporting gear and clothing made here –- or at least not in China –- by people who choose the work they do, can think and worship as they please, and don’t exist behind barbed wire.

Finally, if you have access to THE EPOCH TIMES’ “premium” reporting, I recommend a related piece, about the CCP’s manipulation of American companies (like Nike) to shape public opinion, influence government decisions, and acquire U.S. technology.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/china-is-manipulating-american-businesses-to-serve-beijings-interests-house-gop-investigation-finds_3876041.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-06-27-3&mktids=1a70f5541a0c24ba8174d8738f88db5e&est=bkVpu8EfwdI7AI4T%2FwFx5roim0t5jn8TiyEzqyKjt607IohT6Ie3tP46GrGaeMBfWkE3UA%3D%3D

Parents who are fighting Critical Race Theory in schools (and there are many of them, with their numbers rising) but who also do lots of business with Amazon.com might be interested to know that Amazon donated hundreds of copies of one of the most controversial “anti-racist” books to an Arlington, Virginia, high school and even paid the author, Ibram X. Kendi, to address the students.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/amazon-donated-hundreds-of-copies-of-antiracist-book-to-virginia-public-school-report-says_3871295.html

If that name sounds familiar, yes, that’s the same Ibram X. Kendi who was recently pressed to define “racism” and couldn’t quite do it.

https://www.westernjournal.com/watch-tucker-shows-race-hustler-falling-flat-face-natl-tv-1-question-define-racism/

I usually don’t comment on celebrity news, but the testimony that came out of singer Britney Spears’ attempt to end her court-ordered conservatorship was so shocking that it even led serious newscasts. It was also newsworthy in ways far beyond typical celebrity voyeurism.

As Megan Fox at PJ Media reports, Spears testified that she has been stripped of virtually every basic human right. She claims she’s not only forced to perform and has no control over the money she earns, but she has zero privacy; her keepers watch her even when she’s changing clothes; and most outrageous of all, she said she wants to marry again and have children, but the “team” controlling her life has banned her from doing that and forced her to have an IUD implanted to prevent pregnancy.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2021/06/24/shocking-britney-spears-audio-rips-mask-of-california-conservatorships-n1456800

Ms Fox asks, where is the “My body, my choice” crowd? Will they speak up for someone who’s being denied the choice to have a baby?

She also makes a second important point: this high profile case may shine a spotlight on much more widespread abuse of the conservatorship system by corrupt judges, greedy guardians and predatory lawyers. She reports on a couple of journalist investigations that suggest there may be thousands of similar cases of less wealthy, non-famous people, many in nursing homes, who have had their property and rights taken away by the scandalous abuse of the conservatorship system. Perhaps a public outcry over the Britney Spears case will spark more widespread reform.

After the story broke, Ms Spears made a statement to her fans about why she spoke out and why, she says, she’s hidden the painful truth for so long behind fake happy images on Instagram. I suspect that’s what many celebrities do, but hers is an extreme case.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/britney-spears-speaks-out-after-request-end-conservatorship

Infrastructure Details

June 27, 2021

Thursday, President Biden announced that he and a bipartisan group of Senators had agreed on a compromise infrastructure bill. Here’s a list of what’s in it.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/bipartisan-infrastructure-deal-inclusions

Well, to be accurate, that’s a list of the things that are in it that address “core infrastructure,” a.k.a. anything that most people would actually consider to be infrastructure; things like roads, bridges, airports, ports, waterways and the power grid. That accounts for $578 billion worth of spending out of a $1.2 trillion bill.

Needless to say, many Republicans were not happy at the news, and Biden’s later announcement that he wouldn’t sign the bipartisan bill unless he also got all the massive partisan spending he wants in a reconciliation bill had the GOP compromisers looking as if they got played.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/06/24/republicans-got-played-by-joe-biden-and-there-needs-to-be-a-reckoning-n402030

Now, brace yourself for some Washington math: The stripped-down, compromise “infrastructure” bill spends $578 billion on infrastructure, but it’s a $1.2 trillion bill. Even so, leftists like Bernie Sanders and AOC are already attacking it for not spending nearly enough money that we don’t have (AOC also thinks it's racist because not enough minorities were part of the bargaining, but that’s another story.) They also want to get it into “reconciliation” so they can add two other pet government-expanding, multi-trillion dollar bills to it, then pass it in the Senate with just 51 votes. Because, clearly, passing $6 trillion worth of largely new spending and government programs is what simple 51-vote “budget reconciliation” rules were intended to cover. Let's hope the Senate Parliamentarian is not in a coma.

https://www.westernjournal.com/leftist-senators-furious-biden-agrees-bipartisan-infrastructure-deal-cuts-original-proposal-half/

Biden said he believes Congressional Democrats will eventually support the compromise. He said, “My party is divided. But my party’s also rational. If they can’t get every single thing they want, but all that they have in the bill before them is good, are they going to vote ‘no’? I don’t think so.”

I think they'll vote for it, then try to pass all the rest of it by hook or by crook. I also think that if he believes the Democrats in Congress are rational, then his brain may be compromised. The same may be true of any Republicans who think they can compromise with the current Democrat leaders. I believe in compromise to achieve what’s necessary for America, too. But it’s not unreasonable to limit your compromising on an “infrastructure bill” to demanding that it only spend money on actual infrastructure.

In banana republics, it’s usual for an incoming administration to put a target on the back of the outgoing President and his associates, to punish them and make sure they stay gone. That is clearly what is being done to former President Trump, and, by extension, to those who support or defend him. Today, I have a couple of examples of this that I never thought I’d see in America.

First, Rudy Giuliani, the distinguished former U.S. attorney and transformative New York mayor –- and currently the personal attorney for President Trump –- has had his law license temporarily suspended in New York State. Rudy has been practicing law in New York since 1969. The reason for the suspension: According to a five-judge panel of New York State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, Giuliani “made false and misleading statements” related to voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Rudy has 20 days to request a post-suspension hearing.

Here’s the story as told by the NEW YORK POST.

https://nypost.com/2021/06/24/rudy-giulianis-law-license-suspended-in-new-york/

The judges said Rudy had made false allegations of voter fraud while serving as Trump’s legal counsel after the election, on radio programs and in other public statements. They claimed there is “uncontroverted evidence” of this. According to the ruling, “These false statements were made to improperly bolster respondent’s narrative that due to widespread voter fraud, victory in the 2020 United States presidential election was stolen from his client. We conclude that respondent’s conduct immediately threatens the public interest and warrants interim suspension from the practice of law, pending further proceedings before the Attorney Grievance Committee.”

That the election was stolen from his client is exactly what his client contends.

Keep in mind, this ruling comes right at the time when a full audit of the election in Maricopa County, Arizona, is going on, with results expected in a few weeks. Tabulation procedures, the use of outside money, widespread mail-in and absentee voting, and fraud-facilitating changes in election law are under scrutiny in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan as well, with pressure building for similar audits and forensic analyses in those states. In key counties, we’ve seen huge statistical anomalies, highly suspicious vote-counting procedures, and affidavits from election workers that stacks of absentee ballots marked for Biden were unfolded and looked like copies. That’s without even getting into unresolved questions about the hack-ability of voting machines. We don’t have hard proof that the election was stolen, but we don’t know for a fact that it wasn’t, either. In some places that happen to have razor-thin margins, the election appears to have been an outright mess.

All five judges who gave Rudy the thumbs-down are Democrats, with three of them, if Giuliani’s son Andrew is correct, having been appointed by Andrew Cuomo. And the judges are wrong about this. It does not “threaten the public interest” to raise legitimate questions; in fact, it could be argued that doing so is very much IN the public interest. Long-term, it’s impossible to maintain trust in a system by ignoring obvious problems and preventing a transparent examination of results. But the new administration and its media minions have christened this sincere questioning “The Big Lie” and must severely punish any skeptic who dares cast even the slightest doubt on Biden’s legitimacy. That’s what they do in banana republics.

Just wondering, how many members of the New York State Bar Association have participated in the spread of the one really egregious lie –- the proven lie –- that dominated headlines for years: the Russia hoax, the lie that Donald Trump, before and after his election, was actually an agent of Vladimir Putin? How much did THAT “threaten the public interest”? And how many of those attorneys have had their licenses to practice law suspended?

These judges accused Giuliani of leveling false claims about the number of absentee ballots counted in Pennsylvania after Biden carried the state. (Trump had won Pennsylvania in 2016.) The forums were a radio show called “Uncovering the Truth” with Dr. Maria Ryan on November 8, 2020; a meeting of the Republican State Senate Majority Policy Committee in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on November 25; and an episode of “Steve Bannon’s The War Room” on December 24.

Andrew Giuliani, in a video he posted on Twitter, said he was “infuriated” and that this was a political ploy.

https://twitter.com/AndrewHGiuliani/status/1408096094169468929?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1408108837593239556%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nydailynews.com%2Fsnyde%2Fny-kathy-griffin-rudy-andrew-giuliani-video-20210624-hbtdec3fo5hjzauczd5cbwzmqu-story.htmled%3Drss_www.nydailynews.com%2Farcio%2Frss%2Fcategory%2Fnews%2F

Rudy’s son is extremely well-spoken and passionate here about what was done to his dad. The left, however, had to try somehow to dismiss his rant and keep him from being taken seriously, so they mocked the framing of the video and the fact that he was standing in a parking lot. The hateful and stunningly unfunny comedian Kathy Griffin questioned whether or not he was wearing pants. This actually became the story, to take attention off the real issue.

Recall that in April, Giuliani was served with an FBI search warrant, and agents combed through his Manhattan apartment, taking all his electronic devices. (Except, of course, for his copies of Hunter Biden’s hard drives. How interesting that the FBI wouldn’t take those, even when they were offered.)

Trump released a statement about what was done to Rudy:

https://thelibertydaily.com/president-trump-responds-to-lefts-latest-witch-hunt-against-rudy-giuliani/

Our second example of “not in America” also involves the FBI. On Thursday, they showed up unannounced at the home of Casey Cusick and arrested and handcuffed him in front of his wife and 3-year-old daughter, who asked her mom at one point, “Why are they locking daddy’s hands?” Also arrested and handcuffed was his 73-year-old father, James, who is founder and pastor of a church in Melbourne, Florida.

What was their crime? They attended Trump’s January 6 rally, and they peaceably entered the Capitol Building. Yes, the feds are still tracking down people and arresting them for that. In fact, 32 more “criminals” have been arrested this month.

Oh, and the 73-year-old pastor is a veteran who volunteered to fight for his country in Vietnam. According to his daughter, Staci, he was “shocked” to find out why they were arresting him. He had told her he was friendly with officers inside the Capitol, who even directed him to a bathroom, and that they had never told him to leave. He apparently had no idea he had done anything wrong.

We’ll have more details on this story. In the meantime, you can read how this went down at THE GATEWAY PUNDIT. Be sure and read what Staci has to say about her patriotic, law-abiding, Constitution-loving father being taken away in handcuffs.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/breaking-exclusive-73-year-old-pastor-purple-heart-veteran-arrested-capitol-son-also-arrested-front-3-year-old-daughter-videos/

This is what we’re up against, folks. We’ve had some successes in recent days, with parents realizing they have to stop schools from indoctrinating their children in toxic Critical Race Theory (or, as I like to call it, Commie Racist Theory). But our fight is on other fronts as well, as the double standard of “justice” becomes more obvious every day. Good people are harassed and even jailed while rioters and attackers go free to commit more crimes.

None of this is acceptable in the United States of America.

The Biden Department of Justice is preparing to go after the cause of all the rampant violent crime in Democrat-run cities. No, they’re not planning to arrest the mayors, DA’s and city councils, unfortunately, even though those are the root causes. No, after all the releasing of criminals and rioters, decriminalizing crimes, protecting criminal illegal aliens, and defunding and prosecuting police, they’ve decided that the reason for the skyrocketing crime wave is… guns!

https://www.westernjournal.com/bidens-doj-readying-strike-forces-go-firearms-blamed-liberal-cities-sky-high-violent-crime/

Yep, crime is caused by the hardware, not the criminal holding it. So they’re going after dealers of illegal guns and after “assault weapons.” I’m fine with them trying to get rid of illegal guns. In fact, it’s kind of nice to hear them admit that most criminals like gang members don’t buy guns legally and go through background checks (that’s for law-abiding citizens); they get them through illegal channels. But I doubt that the crackdown on “illegal gun dealers” won’t end up as harassment of legal gun dealers.

RELATED READING: Biden Fights Crime

As for “assault weapons,” I put that in quotes because it’s a silly, meaningless term made up by people who know nothing about guns. Any weapon can be an assault weapon if you assault someone with it. If you defend yourself from that assault with the exact same kind of weapon, then it’s a defensive weapon. This is the area that’s ripest for abuse, and for trampling on the rights of citizens to defend themselves.

When you have Democrat politicians releasing criminals and rioters while defunding their police, if you think the solution to ending the resulting crime waves is to disarm law-abiding citizens, then you can only be a liberal or a moron. Sorry if I’m repeating myself.

School Board Meetings

June 27, 2021

While we’re on the subject of school board meetings, remember when those were considered boring, and you could get through one without anyone being arrested? But then, that was back when schools concerned themselves with things like reading, writing and arithmetic instead of far-left politics and social issues.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/virginia-loudoun-county-school-board-mulls-transgender-critical-race-theory-policies

At another school board meeting, parents made so much noise, it sent a wake-up call to the woke board members, and they woke up, smelled the egg nog, and returned “Christmas” and other holidays to the calendar.

https://www.nj.com/education/2021/06/nj-district-reverses-course-will-add-holiday-names-back-onto-school-calendar.html

And speaking of schools being turned into racist leftist indoctrination centers, were you aware that if you want to Make America Great Again, it means you’re a white supremacist? That’s what a school district in Iowa is telling its teachers to impart to students.

https://www.westernjournal.com/iowa-teachers-forced-mandatory-crt-training-told-classify-maga-white-supremacy-report/

This will come as quite a surprise to all the black people I saw wearing MAGA caps and T-shirts at Trump rallies.

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Washington threw out lawsuits by BLM and the ACLU against former President Trump, former Attorney General Bill Barr and other officials over protesters being cleared out of Lafayette Park last year.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-wins-federal-judge-tosses-most-of-blms-claims-against-president-bill-barr-us-officials-over-lafayette-park-incident

The judge ruled that Barr and the Park Police chief were acting within the scope of their duties and so were immune from lawsuits. Also, the BLM organization wasn’t directly harmed so it didn’t have standing to sue. And the claim that Trump and Barr conspired to remove the protesters so Trump could do a photo op was “too speculative” and relied on “conclusory allegations” (actually, it relied on a Washington Post story that was recently exposed as fake news.)

The judge also denied the protesters’ request for an injunction against further action on the part of the federal government – in other words, barring them from being arrested in the future. He said, “The plaintiffs’ claims of impending future harm are too speculative to confer standing to seek an injunction.”

So they lost in the past, present and future. I’d say that pretty well runs the table.

Biden Fights Crime

June 25, 2021

Wednesday, President Biden announced his policy to reduce the big surge in violent crime that’s been caused by the policies of his fellow Democrats. Not surprisingly, it was a mixture of the obvious and the useless. The obvious: increase community policing. Wait, I thought the key to reducing violence was to defund the police? Well, that worked about as well as a cement life jacket. So now, Democrats can announce that they will solve the problem they caused by doing the opposite of what they’ve been doing for the past year and hope that voters have amnesia.

The useless proposals Biden announced were, of course, more gun control laws, like strengthening background checks and banning assault weapons (which liberals can’t even define) and high-capacity magazines (ditto.) These will inconvenience law-abiding gun owners and create a lot more paperwork while doing nothing to stop criminals from obtaining illegal weapons.

All this stuff was sadly predictable, but what got the most attention was Biden’s wandering comments (bizarre even by Joe Biden standards) about those who view the Second Amendment as protecting the citizens’ right to be armed to prevent government tyranny. Biden claimed “most responsible gun owners” agree there’s “no possible justification for having 100 rounds in a magazine…Those who say the blood of patriots*, you know, and all the stuff about how we’re gonna have to move against the government. If you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons.”

https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-accidentally-made-best-case-gun-rights-president-ever/

That statement launched a thousand conservative commentaries and memes. Some pointed out that he’s the same President who’s also trying to convince us that a handful of unarmed nuts in the Capitol were actually a serious threat to topple the government. Others pointed out that Democrats call AR-15s a “weapon of war” (they’re not), but now claim you can’t win a war with them, you need F-15s and nukes. Others reminded Biden that guerillas with rifles and IEDs have fought the US to a standstill in the Middle East for decades. Some noted that the main driving force of gun sales isn’t insurrectionists but law-abiding residents of cities where idiot Democrat leaders have slashed police forces and started releasing criminals and prosecuting cops. And still others pointed out the ludicrousness of suggesting that if there ever was a revolt against the government that Washington would fight back by…what, nuking Oklahoma?

Kurt Schlicter, who is not only a hilarious columnist and an attorney but also a former military officer, was kind enough to give the media a lesson in doing their job as well. He gave them a list of follow-up questions they should have asked the President, if they knew anything at all about military tactics or the Second Amendment or the limits on government power. It’s worth reading all the way to the end.

https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2021/06/23/kurt-schlichter-gives-journalists-some-questions-to-ask-the-president-after-his-comments-about-needing-f-15s-and-nukes-to-fight-the-government/

* (I think he was referring to the Thomas Jefferson quote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” It’s telling that he remembered the part about patriots shedding blood but didn’t mention tyrants having to shed any blood. That would sort of explain his attitude toward Iran.)

"Promoting Democracy"

June 25, 2021

One of the most positive side effects of the rising calls for investigations of the 2020 election is the spotlight that’s being shone on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s part in buying the White House for Joe Biden.

Under the guise of promoting “democracy,” Zuckerberg gave hundreds of millions of dollars to a group called the Center for Tech and Civic Life. It’s ostensible goal is to make voting easier and more common. But while a small amount of these “Zuck Bucks” went to GOP districts, the majority of the get-out-the-vote funds were poured into heavily-Democrat districts in swing states. In some cases, local election officials practically let Zuckerberg’s minions take over their election systems.

Now, some local officials are alarmed at what happened and how much influence one tech billionaire had on the election, and they’re trying to make sure that never happens again. For instance, a former county clerk in Green Bay, Wisconsin, is accusing the Zuckerberg group of making last-minute changes that may have violated state law.

https://www.westernjournal.com/wisconsin-election-official-says-zuckerberg-funded-group-seized-control-2020-election/

And in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott just signed a new law aimed squarely at Zuck Bucks, limiting private funding of election administration.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/06/14/ttexas-gov-greg-abbott-signs-bill-into-law-limits-private-funding-of-election-administration/

That’s a bill that needs to be adopted nationwide, although that won’t happen with the beneficiaries of Zuck Bucks in charge in DC. That’s why citizens have to demand that their state and local leaders step up and stop it.

Ironically, for years, Democrats have railed against “billionaires buying elections.” Their principles seem to have shifted considerably since billionaires started buying elections for them.

The Supreme Court just struck down a California regulation that’s been around since 1975 and that the SCOTUS previously declined to consider.

https://www.westernjournal.com/supreme-court-deals-significant-blow-unions-striking-california-regulation/

The regulation allowed union organizers to come onto employers’ property during non-work hours to talk to agricultural workers. Proponents claimed it was necessary to allow unions to contact and organize farm workers. Opponents say it’s outdated, since that can now be done online.

But what’s most interesting, and has broader implications, is that the SCOTUS rejected it as a clear violation of the 5th and 14th Amendments and the employers’ property rights. I’m sure California’s uber-liberal, pro-union leaders will be shocked to hear this, but the Court ruled that “the Founders recognized that the protection of private property is indispensable to the promotion of individual freedom. This Court agrees, having noted that protection of property rights is ‘necessary to preserve freedom’ and ‘empowers persons to shape and to plan their own destiny in a world where governments are always eager to do so for them.'”

They’re correct: the right to private property is one of the most maligned and belittled of all American rights, but it is fundamental to all rights. If the government has control over your property, then you don’t really own it, any more than you “own” a movie if your streaming service can cut it off any time they want. When the government controls “private” property, that’s not a free country, it’s a socialist state.

In a separate ruling, the SCOTUS reversed the (again) California Supreme Court, which ruled that a police officer can enter a suspect’s home without a warrant if the cop is in pursuit of someone for whom there’s probable cause that he committed a misdemeanor. The Court ruled that cops don’t have to wait for a warrant if it’s an emergency, but they would not “print a new permission slip” to violate the sanctity of someone’s home without a warrant or a pressing reason.

https://reason.com/2021/06/23/scotus-refuses-to-print-a-new-permission-slip-for-entering-the-home-without-a-warrant/

Another major rebuke to the leftist “all property belongs to the government” crowd is that these rulings were not narrow partisan splits, but 6-3 decisions. Liberal Justice Elena Kagan even wrote the one on warrantless entry! Unless far-left Democrats achieve their dream of packing the Supreme Court, this is bad news for all radical plans that involve seizing people’s property or telling them what they’re allowed to do on it. And that’s very good news for Americans.

House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries let the cat out of the bag by declaring that America can’t go back to pre-pandemic “normal” unless the government spends a Mount Everest-sized mountain of borrowed money on a raft of massive government social programs. Or as he calls it, “Investing in the caring economy.”

https://www.westernjournal.com/top-democrat-exposes-lefts-real-agenda-says-america-cannot-go-back-pre-pandemic-normal/

I hate to break it to him, but most of America is already returning to normal, thanks to Trump’s vaccines and Democrats finally taking their boots off their necks. And as always, “normal” includes ignoring Democrats who always claim that the only solution to any problem is to invent a massive new government program and shovel a ton of borrowed money into it.

Incidentally, Rep. Jeffries, this is what Americans are talking about when they say we need to fix our infrastructure, not spending trillions on new social programs.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/roads-open-after-northeast-dc-pedestrian-bridge-collapse/ar-AALorok

This happened very close to you in DC, so maybe you should get a few of your colleagues together and drive by to take a look at it for future reference.

The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favor of a former high school cheerleader who was punished by her public school for posting a profanity-laced caption on Snapchat when she was off school grounds.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/23/politics/supreme-court-first-amendment-cheerleader/index.html?ofs=fbia

It seems like a somewhat frivolous case (and I don’t like being forced to defend profanity), but it has major implications. As Justice Breyer wrote:

"It might be tempting to dismiss (the student's) words as unworthy of the robust First Amendment protections discussed herein. But sometimes it is necessary to protect the superfluous in order to preserve the necessary.” He said that students "do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression even at the schoolhouse gate. But we have also made clear that courts must apply the First Amendment in light of the special characteristics of the school environment. The school itself has an interest in protecting a student's unpopular expression, especially when the expression takes place off campus. America's public schools are the nurseries of democracy.”

That’s an important ruling because lately, too many schools have just seemed like nurseries, with the most immature brats in charge. By protecting the right to frivolous speech off-campus, the SCOTUS is also protecting serious speech. Let this be a warning shot to leftist school officials who are trying to monitor social media to bully and silence students who express non-“approved” political opinions off-campus. It’s past time they learned that they have no more power to silence free speech off-campus than they do on-campus.

Taxpayers Will Pay

June 25, 2021

Despite President Biden’s campaign promise that nobody making less than $400,000 a year will pay a dime more in taxes under his plan, an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that it would result in higher taxes for nearly 60% of Americans.

https://www.westernjournal.com/analysis-60-americans-will-forced-pay-taxes-bidens-plan/

That’s because, as I keep trying to tell people, higher taxes on corporations are treated as an expense of doing business, just like supplies and labor. And those costs are passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. Corporations don’t pay taxes, they collect them…from you.

Simple example: if the government taxes the company that makes Snickers bars, your Snickers bar will cost you more. Democrats will claim they’re making the corporation pay, but they won’t eat the tax. You will.

And speaking of everyday Americans having to eat the cost of Biden’s policies: Prof. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit reports that a restaurant owner friend told him food costs have skyrocketed just this week, with the price of cooking oil more than doubling. Add this to the extra costs of trying to compete with enhanced unemployment to get workers plus the higher shipping costs due to rising gas prices, and we’ll all be forced to eat the high cost of bad Democrat policies.

The same Monmouth University poll that found that more minorities than whites want voter ID laws (but large majorities of both groups want them) also found that one-third of Americans believe Joe Biden won the presidency thanks to vote fraud. That includes 63% of Republicans and those leaning GOP.

https://www.westernjournal.com/poll-one-third-americans-believe-joe-biden-won-election-voter-fraud/

Those numbers haven’t budged since November, despite the media’s insistence that it’s a false conspiracy theory, a “big lie” and an attack on democracy. You could draw a lot of conclusions from this. Maybe it’s a testament to just how divided on partisan lines we are. Or maybe these voters distrust the vote because the Dems and the media dost protest too much, with their all-out war on any attempts to examine the 2020 ballots and voting machines. Or maybe they just remember how the Dems spent four years claiming that Russia stole the 2016 election for Trump, and they just enjoy turning the tables.


RELATED READING: Election Integrity Laws Receive Biased Media Coverage


Or maybe, as this article points out, they know there’s more evidence of voter fraud (even if it’s not enough to have changed the election results) than there is of “voter suppression,” yet the media and the Democrats also insist that’s real and a genuine danger to democracy.

There’s only one thing I know for certain: all this never-ending turmoil, suspicion and divisiveness wouldn’t still be going on if Biden and Trump had joined together to call for a transparent, bipartisan investigation of the vote to get to the truth and settle all the questions and accusations before Biden took office. If only someone had suggested that! Oh, wait, I remember now: I did.

Tuesday’s school board meeting in Loudoun County, Virginia, a wealthy suburb of Washington, DC, became chaotic and must have caused great discomfort among board members who support the teaching of Critical Race Theory. We know because they cut the meeting short, filed out of the room, and had it declared an “unlawful assembly” (!) by the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Department. As we reported Wednesday morning, two attendees were arrested after the meeting hall was cleared simply for choosing to stick around, as they hadn’t had their opportunity to speak.

https://thefederalist.com/2021/06/23/two-arrested-after-loudoun-county-school-board-shut-down-public-comment-over-opposition-to-indoctrination/

One of those arrested, retired Air Force veteran and small business owner Jon Tigges –- not the one who was tackled to the floor –- appeared on Wednesday’s TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT.


RELATED READING:  "WINNING!!" against CRT: Chris Rufo wakes up parents


In his lead-in, Tucker pointed out that kids in Loudoun County public schools aren’t allowed to read TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD any more. (Note: this is one of the greatest books ever written about race, but leftists misinterpret and reject it as a sort of “white savior” story. Also, it was written by a white lady, Harper Lee.) “Instead,” he continued, “they’re assigned pornographic novels and told that America is an evil, racist place.”

What Loudoun County’s divisive curriculum is doing, paradoxically, is bringing together parents of differing political stripes. It seems most parents don’t WANT their kids to grow up racist –- who knew? So when the board agreed to solicit public comments, they got more than they bargained for. Speakers reminded the board that it works for them –- that Loudoun County residents are their bosses and will return them to the private sector at the earliest possible moment.

As Mr. Tigges explained to Tucker, he didn’t know why he was arrested, because he was in a place “where free speech has to happen.” Where else are you going to air your grievances about school than at a school board meeting? He noted that it was on public land, in a public auditorium, and they had specifically been invited to a public forum to give public comment.

“And at the end of all that,” he said, “every single person there, all 500 parents, had their First Amendment rights trampled on by the Loudoun County school board and its superintendent.”

The building was reserved until 7 p.m., and Tigges was arrested at around 5:45, he said. But “the school board heard something they didn’t like,” which he said was applause for former state Sen. Dick Black. That, apparently, is when they shut the meeting down.

According to Tigges (and there is video to back him up), there was no violence happening, nothing crazy. “People stayed there [after the adjournment], they actually started singing [“The Star-Spangled Banner], and then “if the school board didn’t want to hear it,” they thought they would continue sharing their thoughts with one another, in an orderly and peaceful way, just as if the board were there. So they lined up at the microphone as they would’ve done in front of the board. Tigges said that both sides were allowed to speak, and no one in line to speak was involved in any misbehavior.

But then, abruptly, their meeting was declared an unlawful assembly. He believes the threats of arrest and the rough take-down of that other man were, as far as he could tell, a “complete leftist diversionary tactic that was pre-planned.”

Tigges was released later after receiving a trespassing summons.

He called the First Amendment “the most sacred of all of our rights.” To shut down free speech requires an enormous amount of justification, he said. I get the impression he’s willing to get himself quietly arrested as many times as it takes for him to exercise that right.

The Loudoun County School Board is expected to vote on their new proposals on August 10. There has been no word on whether they will entertain public comments again before they vote, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Here’s another account of the meeting, from LEGAL INSURRECTION.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/06/critical-race-theory-loudoun-county-school-board-meeting-erupts-two-arrested/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=critical-race-theory-loudoun-county-school-board-meeting-erupts-two-arrested

So that’s where we are with the Loudoun County schools. Let’s look at Iowa, where some news on Twitter (the censors missed it) tells us that, according to leaked documents, Iowa teachers are forced to classify “Make America Great Again” as “racism” and “white supremacy.” The teachers have to participate in CRT training, at taxpayers’ expense.

Since Trump won Iowa in 2016 by 9 points, I guess the idea is to tell Iowans how racist they are.

Scroll down at this link to see the “Racism Pyramid.” You’ll find attributes such as “colorblindness,” “celebrating Columbus Day” and “bootstrap theory” listed as signs of racism, right along with MAGA.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/leaked-documents-iowa-school-system-show-teachers-forced-classify-make-america-great-type-racism-white-supremacy/

And here’s a good resource if you have kids or grandkids in college or soon to be. CRITICAL RACE THEORY IN HIGHER EDUCATION has stories from campuses around the country.

https://criticalrace.org

Finally, in an EPOCH TV interview, Dr. Carol Swain, who was co-chair of President Trump’s 1776 Commission, explains how teaching Critical Race Theory may violate the Constitution (1st and 14th Amendments) as well as federal civil rights legislation.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/critical-race-theory-may-violate-civil-rights-act-interview-with-dr-carol-swain_3859988.html

Much of what she says is summarized in print in this EPOCH TIME “premium” article.

If you don’t have “premium” access, I’ll summarize: Dr. Swain, a former professor of political science and law at Princeton and Vanderbilt Universities, says the demonization of one group of people because of their skin color is discriminatory. She says white people being forced to apologize for their race and confess to racism because of their race are protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

She said something that will shock leftists; namely that “white people are protected in the same way that black people are by civil rights laws.” Bullying and shaming people because of their color creates a hostile environment and might do psychological harm to school kids. White children are being bullied and told to accept guilt over their ancestors’ oppression of black people.

Also, the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment is supposed to guarantee certain protections to EVERYONE.

Dr. Swain had some great ideas for dealing with this. One way is to go public, perhaps in publications such as THE COLLEGE FIX and CAMPUS REFORM. And at a time when so many are ripping down America and condemning her past, she offered some inspiring words about America’s history: “I think America has been so important to the world, that the true history of its founding, along with the mistakes that were made and just how we address those mistakes, are things that enrich people...The true story of America is a story of blacks and whites working together to overcome the tragic part of our history.”

By the way, Dr. Swain was born in the segregated South as 1 of 12 children, dropped out of high school to get married at 16, and had 3 small children before she was 21. She got back on the road to higher learning with a high school equivalency degree and community college, going on to earn five degrees.

The head of Portland’s Police Association says morale among officers is “as bad as it’s ever been.”

https://www.foxnews.com/us/portland-police-association-leader-morale-officers-bad

Due to lack of available officers, Portland Police have been ordered not to make traffic stops for certain types of moving violations. This is being called part of an effort to “reimagine our public safety system.” Yes, try to imagine that the city is safe. You’ll need a very active imagination, since the city’s homicide rate is up 800% since the leftist city leaders slashed the police budget by $16 million.

https://www.westernjournal.com/portland-discovered-black-people-commit-minor-traffic-offences-decided-stop-enforcing/

It’s so bad for police that you might say there’s only one job in Portland that’s harder, and that’s running the tourism bureau and trying to convince people to visit. FYI: If I were trying to get people to overlook all the crime and rioters, I probably wouldn’t mention the phrase, “cutting edge.”

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/juliorosas/2021/06/22/portlands-tourism-organization-begs-people-to-come-back-to-the-city-amid-crime-wave-n2591347

Sen. Joe Manchin is proposing a compromise voting law bill in place of the Democrats’ “For The People Act” (aka, the Legalize Vote Fraud Act.) Republicans are unlikely to support it, and unless Manchin also reverses himself on killing the filibuster, we can all hope and pray that this naked power grab by Democrats to try to federalize elections and cement themselves into power forever will die the death it deserves.

And even if Manchin does reverse himself on the filibuster (which he insists he won’t), Sen. Kyrsten Sinema reiterated that she’s not willing to kill it, either. She pointed out that without the filibuster, laws could be reversed every time the majority switches sides.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kyrsten-sinema-op-ed-dems-hypocritical-end-filibuster

One of the more amusing sideshows is watching Stacey Abrams reverse herself to back the Manchin plan (thinking it’s the best they’ll be able to get) and claiming that, why, she NEVER said that voter ID laws are racist! Where did anyone get that crazy idea? She told CNN (the only place where interviewers could hear something like this and not do a spit-take):

“That’s one of the fallacies of Republican talking points that have been deeply disturbing. No one has ever objected to having to prove who you are to vote. It’s been part of our nation’s history since the inception of voting.”

https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/06/stacey-abrams-now-claims-she-was-never-against-voter-id/

Wow. This is from the Democrats’ official face of denouncing voter ID and other election integrity laws as racist. It’s not surprising, though; as I said on Sean Hannity’s show last night, she’s had more flip-flops than a Jimmy Buffett concert. But why on this one, her core issue?

https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2021/06/21/landslide-80-support-photo-id-for-voting-including-62-of-democrats-and-overwhelming-share-of-minorities-n398076

As this article at the HotAir blog suggests, it may be due to a new Monmouth University poll. Polls have long shown that the Democrats were on the wrong side of most Americans in opposing voter ID. But the new poll shows that more minorities support voter ID laws than whites (by 84-77%) and more people who make under $50,000 support them than people who make over $100,000 (81-76%.) Note that all those groups heavily support voter ID laws. Even 56% of self-identified liberals support them! Opposing voter ID laws is the lower of all loser issues. It’s like coming out against mom, apple pie and the flag, all of which Democrats have also done.

This article suggests that Abrams and the Democrats may have been looking for any excuse to leap off this losing horse, and Manchin’s compromise fit the bill. Now, they just have to see if their dominance of the news and social media is powerful enough to bamboozle Americans into believing that they actually never opposed the thing they’ve been loudly denouncing for the past year.

https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2021/06/21/the-wapos-spin-on-stacey-abrams-sudden-voter-id-flip-flop-is-something-else-n400438

By the way, it’s always worth a reminder: Stacey Abrams lost the 2018 Georgia Governor’s election by 50,000 votes. Since then, she’s repeatedly cast doubt on the fairness of the election and spoken as if she were the cheated, rightful winner. Democrats have responded not by accusing her of attacking democracy or spreading a “big lie,” but by celebrating and elevating her to a position as their leading spokesperson for blocking election integrity laws and trying to nationalize elections.

Documentary filmmaker and conservative activist Chris Rufo has been effectively exposing Critical Race Theory for what it is, sounding the warning for the past year, and, naturally, the “woke” left can’t stand that. So the WASHINGTON POST did a long hit piece on him. The slant of it was that the teaching of Critical Race Theory was being used by Republicans not because it’s evil and racist (which it is) but because they see “political promise” in making it a wedge issue to use for taking back Congress in 2022. And they made Rufo out to seem manipulative when he’s simply running a public persuasion campaign –- not by lying about CRT but by telling the truth about it.

Rufo challenged what they'd said, and WAPO ended up having to retract or add six paragraphs from their story. They had to reverse one of their key accusations against him. They even had to admit to out-and-out fabricating a timeline of events that was central to their story. They also had to admit they didn’t have an audio recording or transcript of the (fake) quotes they had used.

https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1407151635214700545

Still, the “clarification” they printed at the end of their revised story really downplays the problems with their piece. All they said was this:

“This report has been changed to clarify the sequence of events that followed Rufo’s appearance on FOX NEWS last summer. In addition, the story adds a clarification from the Cupertino superintendent that a lesson was presented once before it was canceled.”

When Rufo also called out Joy Reid of MSNBC for denouncing him “by name multiple times” and suggested she lacked the courage to invite him on her show, Reid –- who is perhaps the most racist person on television if it can narrowed down to just one –- tweeted, “This is a weirdly aggressive way to get yourself on TV, Christopher...Why not just contact my booking producers like a normal person, rather than going with the White Man Demands option? I had never even heard of you until @oneunderscore_piece exposing your plot to rebrand CRT.”

https://www.foxnews.com/media/washington-post-issues-clarifications-on-chris-rufo-story

“White Man Demands”? Told you, this person views everything from the lens of her own bigotry.

Rufo appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show Tuesday night. “I’m eating these hit pieces for breakfast,” he said. “It’s really not fazing me at all.” He’s focused like a laser on his mission.

He said WAPO had assigned three reporters and spent three weeks to try and undermine him but that this had “backfired spectacularly.”

So, “it doesn’t bother me one bit,” he said. “I think it really shows that we’re having an impact. We’ve woken up millions of parents to the dangers of Critical Race Theory. They’re now starting to take action in school boards across the country. And these neo-racist bigots are starting to get worried.”

He added that it’s important to recognize the difference between “equality” and “equity.” The former means equal protection under the law, while the latter, though it might sound good and soft and fuzzy, really means “something totally different” –- it means that they’re trying to divide and conquer by forcing groups to compete against each other.

“They’re using active racial discrimination,” he said, “which they call ‘anti-racist discrimination,’ to try to achieve equality of outcomes.” When regimes in the 20th century tried to set up this kind of society, “it left body counts in the tens of millions, and we shouldn’t try it here. There’s no chance that it will succeed. And we have to know exactly where it’s starting, which is in our schools."

Rufo is slightly off about one thing: historians will say, the body count was in the HUNDREDS of millions. And the slaughter continues to this day in some countries.

In related news, two parents were arrested Tuesday at a meeting of the Loudoun County, Virginia, school board. One who didn’t want to go quietly was roughed up and tackled to the floor. They had come “because they had been given space to speak,” Tucker Carlson reported, but so many angry parents had shown up to put the “loud” in “Loudoun” and protest the teaching of Critical Race Theory and also a proposed new transgender policy that the school board, after first calling for a five-minute recess to let things cool down, chose to adjourn the meeting and send everybody home. That didn’t sit well with some of the parents who had wanted to speak. Police were there to arrest for trespassing the ones who wouldn’t leave, and it got contentious.

More coverage on Laura Ingraham’s show and on FOX NEWS early Wednesday morning showed complete bedlam in the meeting hall, with parents demanding board members resign over their support of CRT. A total of 259 parents were signed up to make public comment, and only 51 got to speak. When board members filed out of the room after adjourning, parents chanted, “Shame on you! Shame on you!” and also sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

https://www.foxnews.com/us/virginia-loudoun-county-school-board-mulls-transgender-critical-race-theory-policies

One after another, while they had the chance, parents took to the microphone. Demographically, it was a largely white crowd, but not all-white. Black parents are upset by this as well, as it teaches black children that they are victims and losers who need intervention to do as well as others. “My child is not oppressed,” said one mother who is black, “and don’t assume that. As long as you Marxists push your unconstitutional agenda, my child --- she will not be returning back to Loudon County schools.” The room erupted in cheers.

Video of the entire event is here.

https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/crazy-scenes-from-loudon-county-school-board-meeting/

This was a rowdy crowd, and it would have been better not to see fighting and booing. But this illustrates what happens when people get pushed too far, especially where their kids are concerned. Parents are realizing that when it comes to the education of their kids, school boards aren’t even giving them a seat at the table. But school boards are answerable to THEM. Policies they vehemently disagree with are being shoved down their throats by progressives who just keep moving the goal post further and further left, and parents, in particular, are sick of it.

FOX & FRIENDS on Wednesday morning interviewed one of the parents. “We do not want to co-parent with our government,” Rachel Pisani said, concerned that kids are being indoctrinated. This board, she says, is planning to fire any teacher who isn’t on board with their cultural message. And during Tuesday’s meeting, she said, they cut off speakers with whom they disagreed. But she vowed that the protests by this “army of moms” will not stop until they are heard. The goal of these parents now is to recall and replace six of the nine members of the school board.

It's great to see that pushing back against the radical left agenda is waking more people up. Parents need to stay pedal-to-the-metal on this and any other school issue they have a problem with. To borrow a word from President Trump, it seems that finally, on the issue of Critical Race Theory, we are...WINNING!


Since most of my readers aren’t feeling too warmly toward the NCAA lately, with its leftist virtue signaling and threats to pull championship games out of states that pass laws to ensure election integrity, you’ll probably be happy to hear that the Supreme Court just slamdunked the NCAA right in the face.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/06/scotus-rules-unanimously-ncaa-violates-antitrust-law-by-limiting-athlete-compensation/

In a unanimous 9-0 decision, the SCOTUS found that the NCAA’s strict rules limiting compensation for student athletes violate antitrust law. The ruling written by Justice Gorsuch said this doesn’t open up the door to unlimited pay for college athletes, but the NCAA has to let colleges recruit them with compensation and benefits tied to education, such as internships, study abroad programs and limited pay for doing well in class.

Justice Kavanaugh went even further. You’ve got to click the link to read his opinion that sarcastically eviscerates the NCAA’s business model that he says would be “flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America.” For instance, imagine news organizations getting together to slash the pay of reporters and claim they’re preserving the spirit of public-minded journalism.

The fact is that the NCAA and pro football use colleges as minor leagues to develop talent. Star athletes risk their health to generate huge profits for colleges, but face a choice of having to work part time to survive or take help under the table and risk getting expelled. Nobody wants to see colleges openly acting like the junior NFL, but if they’re already doing it while hiding behind a veneer of NCAA-enforced rules, at least be honest and stop exploiting the athletes who make it possible.

If you wonder why so many of your fellow Americans don’t seem to understand why anyone would oppose something called the “For the People Act” or think that trying to make elections honest is “voter suppression,” you can partially thank the Democrat Party press agents known as the “news media.”

Newsbusters.org analyzed the NBC, CBS and ABC evening news from March 1 to June 10th. They found that coverage of states’ attempts to increase election integrity received 96% negative coverage. They were routinely depicted as voting “restrictions,” even though none of them prevent any eligible person from voting, and many expand voting opportunities. Coverage was also couched in partisan terms, comparing these laws to Jim Crow and claiming that “many are calling them racist” and that “Black and brown voters are screaming that this is voter suppression” (ABC.)

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2021/06/15/study-nets-blast-state-election-laws-ignore-dem-election-takeover

On the other hand, from the networks’ coverage of the Democrats’ “For the People Act” (or as I more accurately call it, the “Legalize Vote Fraud Act”), you’d think there was no legitimate criticism of that at all. They depicted it as needed to prevent voter suppression, even though turnout in 2020 was the highest since 1900. Also, as noted by Rich Lowry at National Review, it’s backers claim it would increase confidence in the accuracy of elections even though it bans states from updating voter rolls and abolishes voter ID laws (which are favored by a majority of blacks, FYI.)

Even when Sen. Joe Manchin announced his opposition to the bill, a major story, the networks gave it no air time.

It shows that in an age when you can get practically anything delivered, the people who claim to be delivering the news are the only ones not delivering.

What Changed?!?

June 22, 2021

Seth Barrett Tillman, a law lecturer at the National University of Ireland, dug up an eye-opening Newsweek article from January 18, 2018. Currently, Trump supporters who think the election was rigged are being silenced and vilified as delusional for thinking that the results could be overturned and Trump become President again. I’m not saying that could happen, but this article reminds us that many Democrats had a very different attitude when they thought the Mueller probe might prove that Russia rigged the 2016 election for Trump.

https://twitter.com/SethBTillman/status/1406665439288176644

The article quotes Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig as saying that if it was proven Trump conspired with Russia to steal the election (spoiler alert: it wasn’t, and he didn’t), both he and Mike Pence should resign or be impeached. That would make then-House Speaker Paul Ryan President, and he should nominate Hillary Clinton, "the person defeated by the treason of his own party, and then step aside, and let her become President.”

Lessig admitted that there is no “mechanism for correcting the criminal results of the previous election," and he wasn’t saying this should happen, just that it could.

The important point is that only three years ago, questioning the validity of the previous Presidential election wasn’t treason or insurrection, it was free speech. And fantasizing about the current President being forced to step down and replaced by his former opponent because the election was rigged wasn’t a conspiracy theory so crazy that anyone who even mentioned it had to be censored, monitored and investigated. It was something that Harvard professors openly discussed in mainstream media outlets.

Gee, I wonder what changed in so short a time?

Animal Hate Speech

June 22, 2021

Many civil libertarians argued against passing “hate speech” laws because when you start saying that some speech isn’t protected by the First Amendment, that means someone gets to decide what that banned speech is, and that’s a slippery slope toward partisan censorship. For instance, here’s a story about a former Congressman and the President of the American Jewish Congress arguing that the government should use hate crimes laws to ban entire social media platforms or political campaigns that are determined (by whom? Them?) to be promoting “extremism.”

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/autumn-johnson/2021/06/20/no-thanks-former-rep-argues-hate-speech-should-be

Ironically, that claim is so extreme that even Twitter’s lawyers slammed it, with other legal experts noting that there are plenty of court precedents that the First Amendment does protect so-called “hate speech.”

Well, we have hate speech laws anyway, and now, the slope for what’s “allowable speech” has become slipperier than a water slide. But I’ll bet you never saw this one coming: an “analytic philosopher” and a lecturer in political theory from Britain’s Sheffield University have written a paper in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies called “Should We Protect Animals From Hate Speech?”

https://redstate.com/alexparker/2021/06/19/legal-journal-publishes-plea-for-hate-speech-laws-protecting-animals-n399522

Utilizing an impressive barrage of both doubletalk and gobbledygook, the authors compare racist hate speech to “speciesist” hate speech and argue that if hate speech laws can ban hate speech that doesn’t actually hurt anyone, then why not apply the same ban on hateful words that don't wound to hateful words about animals that they can’t understand? Their summation:

“We thus conclude that, absent a compelling alternative argument, there is no in-principle reason to support the censure of racist hate speech but not the censure of speciesist hate speech.”

Granted, it’s not entirely clear whether they’re arguing that we need anti-animal hate speech or that all hate speech laws are as justifiable as banning phrases like “Beat a dead horse.” Another question: would animal hate speech laws also apply to animals? I’ve heard parrots say some pretty hurtful things. Personally, I just hope we never make it illegal to say bad things about cats or I’ll be facing a lot of lawsuits.

Good evening! My Evening Edition for today contains the following:

  • Daily Bible Verse
  • Hypocrisy In Regatta
  • America Is Waking Up
  • Related
  • The Olympics Are Coming
  • Another Loss In Court For The Biden Administration

Sincerely,

Mike Huckabee

DAILY BIBLE VERSE

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28

 


Hypocrisy In Regatta

By Mike Huckabee

Liberal Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse loves to expound on BLM and other people’s racism on Twitter, but when it comes to his longtime membership in an exclusive, all-white beach club in his home state of Rhode Island, he isn’t quite so woke.

https://www.westernjournal.com/pro-blm-dem-senators-hypocrisy-gets-exposed-confronted-membership-white-club/

When surprised by an interviewer who asked if Bailey’s Beach Club in Newport ever added any non-white members, Whitehouse said no, but “I think the people who are running the place are still working on that. I’m sorry it hasn’t happened yet. It’s a long tradition in Rhode Island, and there are many of them, and I think we just need to work our way through the issues, thank you.”

Whitehouse has been a member of the all-white club for decades, and his wife is even a major shareholder. He’s never quit or used his power and influence to change things. Yet he’s escaped the cancel culture apparently because he’s a prominent Democrat. If you’re one of those, and you say the “right” things (i.e., the left things), you get a pass on actually doing the right thing.

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2021/06/21/nets-blackout-sen-whitehouses-membership-all-white-elite

Guy Benson of Townhall.com had a great observation about this on Twitter:

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/457376/

“(Actress) Ellie Kemper had to issue a groveling apology because she won a pageant crown in 1999 from a group that was segregated decades prior. Sheldon Whitehouse belongs to a club that is *still all-white TODAY* (after promising to quit years ago) & his response is “it’s a tradition.”

Well, so was slavery, and it took Republicans to end that, too.


America Is Waking Up

By Mike Huckabee

It feels as if Americans are slowly awakening from a coma induced by too much CNN (trust me, that can happen), looking around at what the left is doing to their beloved nation, and finally rousing themselves to fight back. Like this black doctor, whose epic takedown of racist Critical Race Theory at an Illinois school board meeting went viral…

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/black-man-trashes-critical-race-theory-in-viral-video-watched-2-million-times/ar-AALbYWW

And as Americans shake off that coma, they’re starting to realize just how much of what they’ve been fed over the past few years by big government, big tech, big media and big business was a big load of bull droppings. Now, we have even more examples.

Remember how all last year, we were told (and some people are still pushing this) that it was necessary to shut down 95% of businesses to stop the spread of the deadly virus. If you objected, you were branded as anti-“science” or as caring more about capitalism than human life.

Many of us argued that the shutdown cure was worse than the disease: it was not only destroying our economy, but countless peoples’ lives and dreams; causing tragic side effects such as delays in needed medical treatment, drug abuse, depression, suicide and loss of schooling; and all for no good reason. Why in the world was it considered “safe” for big stores like Wal-Mart or supermarkets to stay open while small businesses that were willing to follow the exact same safety rules were forced to close?

Well, here’s more proof of just how tragically wrong those policies were:

A new study by USC and the RAND Corporation using data from 43 nations and all 50 states found that lockdown policies not only failed to save lives, they may have had lethal unintended consequences. Nations and states that implemented lockdowns earlier or longer had no lower excess death rates than those that didn’t. However, across all nations, a one-week increase in lockdowns corresponded to 2.7 more excess deaths per 100,000 people.

As for the notion that opponents of lockdowns care more about capitalism than people: first of all, those small businesses represented people, people who had poured their lives, work and all their resources into launching their dream, only to have it crushed by power-mad bureaucrats. We know now that up to 40% of American’s small businesses were destroyed by lockdowns, largely imposed by “progressive” Democrats who love to yammer on about “income inequality” and how it’s unfair that billionaires exist. But while their policies killed the middle class, who did they greatly enrich? The already rich.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/06/21/revelations-of-who-benefited-the-most-from-covid-should-change-the-republican-paradigm-n400473

The Democrats’ endless, heartless lockdown policies robbed American workers of $3.7 trillion in lost earnings, with women and Gen Z workers hardest hit. They also represented a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy, who became nearly $5 trillion richer. Nearly 500 people joined the billionaire class, thanks to the government forcibly shutting down competitors to mega-corporations like Walmart and Amazon.

So when you hear a “progressive” fulminating against a “rigged” system that transfers wealth from the middle class to well-connected billionaires, remind them that they put that system on steroids.

Be sure to read the linked Redstate article because it also includes a much-needed reality check for Republicans who still think that all big businesses should be protected in the name of free markets. Here’s an excerpt:

“…No longer should the GOP knee-jerk defend everyone with a yacht and a private jet as some next level of patriot. Rather, someone who promotes crony capitalism should be treated with the same skepticism and scorn as someone who promotes socialism. Free markets should actually be free, and that includes freedom from the government picking winners and losers at the behest of the mega-rich.

If Republicans want a working-class message that doesn’t actually violate conservative principles, it exists, and it’s just waiting to be embraced. Stop worrying about corporate tax rates for the umpteenth time and start worrying about making the system fair for the full spectrum of those involved, including those who aren’t privileged enough to have their senator’s private number saved in their phone.”

That’s pretty much what I was saying when I first ran for President in 2008. For that, some establishment Republicans accused me of being a socialist. I’m about as much of a socialist as I am a ballet dancer. Let’s hope they’re finally coming out of their comas and waking up to the reality that many of today’s billionaires are more likely to promote socialism than to contribute to the GOP.


Related

By Mike Huckabee

I read a comment from a reader that saddened me, and I'm sure they aren't the only ones this has happened to. Her kids, who are liberals, have cut off communications with their mother and father because they hold conservative political views. I will pray for those kids to see the light, regain their priorities and honor their father and mother.

In the meantime, I hope that the signs of people coming out of their comas, and the truth at last breaking free despite all the barriers put up against it, will result in more people realizing they've been hoodwinked and panicked into unthinkingly embracing false, radical political positions. I hope that realization will lead to them reaching back out to family and friends whom they cut off simply for holding different views. And I pray that they will wake up to the wisdom expressed by Mark Twain, when he wrote:

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.


The Olympics Are Coming

By Mike Huckabee

The Tokyo Olympics will allow fans into the arenas, but under severe limitations.

https://www.westernjournal.com/tokyo-olympics-set-fans-extreme-limitations/

Still, they won’t be as severely limited as the born-female weightlifters, who can only hope to compete for the silver this year.

https://www.westernjournal.com/transgender-athlete-just-officially-qualified-olympics-first-time-ever/

On the plus side, maybe this will be a good thing. It will shine an international spotlight on the outrageous, ludicrous unfairness of allowing biological males who “identify” as women to compete in women’s sports. This has been one of those stories that’s long circulated in conservative media, but the mainstream media have done a good job of smothering it under a barrage of propaganda about how anyone who believes in biological science is just a transphobe who hates “equality” and wants to prevent trans people from achieving their dreams.

Having the entire world watching as all those women are prevented from achieving the dream they’ve worked for all their lives by someone who obviously has no business being in that competition just might be the big ice bucket of reality that finally shatters the narrative.

And as always, leave it to the Babylon Bee to clarify the issue perfectly:

https://babylonbee.com/news/female-weightlifter-suffers-tragic-testicle-injury-just-weeks-before-tokyo-olympics


Another Loss In Court For The Biden Administration

By Mike Huckabee

The Biden Administration chalked up another loss in court, as a federal judge in Florida issued an injunction suspending the CDC’s “extensive, disabling, and exclusive” COVID-19 “sailing orders” that were crushing the cruise industry.

https://www.westernjournal.com/judge-puts-overreaching-cdc-place-victory-cruise-lines-gov-desantis/

I say “another loss” because, while Biden slammed Trump as a “lawless” President, he’s racked up a bigger string of court losses in his first six months than Trump. And remember, liberals challenged everything Trump did and went shopping for the most activist leftwing judges to thwart him – the kind of judges who would rule that they had powers plainly granted to the President by the Constitution, like enforcing immigration laws.

But as Jonathan Turley points out at The Hill, many of Biden’s disruptive policies have been blocked by lower courts or already rejected by the Supreme Court.

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/559247-bidens-bad-run-is-he-doing-worse-in-the-courts-than-trump

Ironically, many of these court losses have been due to the Biden’s Administration actually doing what it falsely accused Trump of doing, like blatantly exceeding the President’s Constitutional powers, engaging in systemic racial discrimination (his programs to help minority-owned restaurants and farms, but not those owned by white people), and “acting arbitrarily and capriciously in carrying out federal policy.”

It’s a good reminder that even though it’s easy to get disheartened by the aggressive attempts to “transform” America through abuse of Presidential and Congressional power, there are three branches of government, and we can still “take the bums to court” and win.

CNN is under fire for running the provocative and misleading headline “Georgia removes 100,000 names from voter rolls,” which prompted Robert Reich to declare on Twitter, “Our democracy is under attack.” But CNN omitted the important details that (A.) they were inactive voters, and (B.) all states routinely remove inactive voters from their voting rolls, as required by law.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-misleading-headline-georgia-voter-rolls

The headline on this story could be “CNN promotes divisive, misleading partisan spin over journalistic accuracy,” but that wouldn't qualify as news.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger pointed out a few more details that CNN overlooked in trying to make it appear that Georgia is disenfranchising Democrat voters.

https://www.westernjournal.com/officials-act-georgia-makes-massive-discovery-voter-rolls/

The number of voters purged is actually much smaller than in 2017 or 2019. Only 275 are on the list due to inactivity (five years or more with no contact with elections officials), but anyone who was removed mistakenly can re-register online in seconds. The vast majority are being removed because they filled out change-of-address forms or their election mail was returned as undeliverable. And 18,000 of them had died. Raffensperger said, “So they are not going to be voting anymore.”

On the other hand, you might take that as an admission that we’ve finally, at long last, found an actual example of Georgia disenfranchising a loyal Democrat constituency.

Leftwing Twitter

June 22, 2021

Courtesy of Instapundit and Brian Reidl of the Manhattan Institute, here’s some news that corporate CEOs should ponder long and hard before going “woke” to appease the Twitter mob.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/457159/

According to Pew Research, Democrats outnumber Republicans on Twitter by 15 percentage points. If Twitter were a state, that would tie it with Hawaii and Vermont for most liberal state. But it gets worse: only 10% of Twitter users post 92% of all tweets. Among those active users, Democrats outnumber Republicans by 43 percentage points. If Twitter were a Congressional district, that would make it the second-most leftwing district in America.

And 3% of Twitter users post 90% of all tweets, so you can only imagine how far left of most Americans their tweets are.

If you’re a CEO who’s making business decisions based on what people say about you on Twitter, you might as well just run your company by asking yourself, “What would Ilhan Omar do?” And I think we know what she would do: she’d put you into bankruptcy.

Gordon Chang, expert on China and author of THE GREAT U.S. - CHINA TECH WAR, appeared on TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT Monday to speak further on the likelihood that Dong Jingwei, the 57-year-old head of counterintelligence for the Chinese Ministry of State Security, had flown from Hong Kong to California on February 10 and defected to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, bringing with him a treasure trove of secret information.

Chang reiterated that he thinks the story is true.

China is denying that this happened, of course, and both BEIJING DAILY and the Hong Kong publication SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST have reported that Dong is in China doing whatever spooky things he normally does in the land of Chinese spooks, such as giving presentations at spy-catcher seminars.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3137958/top-chinese-spy-catcher-dong-jingwei-warns-agents-look-out

Chang does not believe their reports, as “China has every reason in the world to parade this guy in front of the cameras. That would squelch all sorts of rumors that are damaging to the regime. Now, China hasn’t done that, and that to me says that we have him, and that he, in fact, defected.”


RELATED READING:  Info from Chinese defector might change the course of history

Incidentally, the SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST story makes reference to the “new anti-espionage regulation released in April” that applies to “not only Chinese government departments, but also social groups and businesses, supplemented with lists of Chinese entities that are assigned counter-espionage responsibilities.” This onerous new law has received very little press in the United States, so I'm taking the opportunity here to describe it. Under this law, once entities been designated by the government, they're required to watch for and prevent foreign espionage activity. They must “vet and train personnel, particularly ahead of foreign trips, after which they must be debriefed about any national security issues.” This law treats even universities and private businesses as if they’re “sensitive government agencies.”

https://abc17news.com/news/national-world/2021/04/26/china-targets-foreign-spies-and-hostile-forces-with-new-anti-espionage-rules/

More on this soon, but for now, back to the Chang interview. Tucker brought up the fact that the media are suddenly changing their tune on the origin of the virus, as if they knew...somehow...they could no longer get away with spouting their original fairy tale about bat soup. And Chang noted what seems to be a similar shift of opinion among officials of the Biden administration. This story out of Australia mentions that same shift as evidence that the defection probably happened.

https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/chinese-spy-dong-jingwei-defects-to-the-west-while-offering-covid-secrets/news-story/d61277b586d043c6942bcce7b8b70d44

Chang said this could be due to any of a number of things, perhaps political pressure, but he thinks it’s because they now have evidence of a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Even more important is the information that the Chinese military was working with that lab as part of its bioweapons program.

As for China intentionally releasing the virus, Chang believes this scenario is possible but unlikely, given that they didn’t yet have a vaccine. He thinks it was a mistake, and that China “wasn’t able to contain it.” On the other hand, he noted that while foreigners typically believe the leak was accidental, Chinese nationals are more likely to think it was released on purpose. They know their government all too well.

We came across another report from that same Australian news outlet that provides a lot of context for this alleged defection. It says that no “convincing” photo of Dong has been released since last September, and the one that's purported to be him isn't persuading anyone. This story also includes some intriguing background on Dong’s daughter.

https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/who-is-dong-jingwei-why-us-china-wont-prove-they-have-spymaster/news-story/dc431d5bd5c547bae82c71e769cbc29f

All we’d seen in the press about Dong Yang was that she'd been studying at a California university, but now there’s more: She’s reportedly the ex-wife of Alibaba executive Jiang Fan. Alibaba, an international tech firm, has been in the crosshairs of the CCP in recent months. The company is being scrutinized for alleged “antitrust” and “corruption” issues. Jack Ma, Alibaba’s CEO, “disappeared” for several weeks earlier this year.

Since that time, Ma has reportedly “embraced supervision.” (Ah, there’s a euphemism for you.) And he rarely appears in public or makes public statements. The CCP appears to be cracking down in general on billionaires and academics. Interesting case in point: at the same time we were hearing denials of a nuclear accident of some kind at the China Taishan power plant, one of its leading nuclear scientists, Vice President of Harbin Engineering University Zhang Zhijian, reportedly “fell” from his building. No details were given.

Another billionaire, the chairman of a Chinese high-tech firm, got in hot water and was ordered to “keep a low profile” after publishing a historic poem as part of a media campaign. This poem was critical of an ancient emperor. In China, criticism of emperors is banned on social media, as it could be interpreted as criticism of their current leader-for-life, Xi Jinping.

(Wow, you thought censorship on American social media was bad! On the other hand, this story gives us a peek at just how bad it can get, and almost certainly WILL get if we don’t weaken the power of Big Tech.)

Another billionaire, this one in agriculture, lost control of his business after being arrested over a minor property dispute. He’s since been charged with “seeking quarrels and provoking trouble.”

So our speculation is that this kind of crackdown by the CCP might have had some impact on Dong’s daughter, considering her ties, and might even have something to do with the defection. Just a hypothesis. We’ll see if anyone else makes this connection.

I’ll leave you with the words being (falsely?) attributed to Dong from that seminar, as they relate to the way China is cracking down on business moguls and, ironically, might even describe what Dong himself has done by defecting: “In particular, some individuals are willing to be ‘internal traitors,’ secretly colluding with foreign spies and intelligence agencies and hostile forces to engage in anti-China activities. Individuals ‘act behind the scenes’ and send funds to hostile forces through illegal channels to support anti-China activities. These ‘traitors’ and behind-the-scenes gold masters’ have severely endangered the country’s political security. They will eventually be nailed to the pillar of shame in history.”

Translation: we need to keep this man, and his daughter, safe.

President Biden and DC Democrats seem to want to keep subsidizing unemployment forever, or at least through September 6th, but many states are sick of it. Sunday, nine more states (Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming) will join Iowa, Mississippi and Missouri in cutting off the extra $300 a week in pandemic unemployment benefits.

https://www.westernjournal.com/nine-states-end-pandemic-unemployment-bonuses-saturday/

With the pandemic ending and businesses reopening, 9.3 million jobs were created in April. But many employers say they can’t get people to apply because they’re currently paid more to stay home than to take an entry level job. The benefits are especially lavish in blue states. For instance, in Massachusetts, someone on unemployment can make up to $1,155 a week, or the equivalent of $60,060 a year for not working, plus state-paid food and medical support. Why accept a job and take a pay cut?

Biden insists that there’s no connection between these payments and continuing unemployment despite plenty of job openings, and Democrats claim there are still many people who can’t find a job and need the support. But we’ll soon know for sure, thanks to the laboratory of the states. By the end of July, more than half the nation (26 states) will have ended the bonus pay. Only one of those states has a Democrat Governor (Louisiana.)

By comparing the red and blue states, we’ll soon know whether unemployment remains higher in states that subsidize it. And if we see a sudden exodus of people moving from red to blue states, we can be pretty certain that’s the only reason.

Note to anyone seeking to extend unemployment: don’t move to California because even they’re tired of people taking money and not even looking for work.

https://redstate.com/jenniferoo/2021/06/18/california-employment-development-department-will-require-ui-claimants-to-search-for-work-n398937

Among the many campaign promises made by President Biden that are falling like the leaves in autumn is his claim that he would restore ethics and integrity to the White House. That’s working out about as well as Obama’s laughable claim of having “the most transparent Administration in history.”

Of course, there’s Hunter Biden, the gift that keeps on giving to authors of novels about international financial chicanery who need new plots…

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/jason-chaffetz-hunter-bidens-art-scam-e2-80-93-with-his-work-selling-for-24500k-we-need-to-know-whos-buying/ar-AAL9Uzp

…And the continuing questions about his dad’s alleged involvement in Hunter’s schemes.

https://www.westernjournal.com/evidence-now-fbi-hands-reveals-hunter-bidens-shameless-plans-exploit-world-chaos/

But even putting the prodigal son (and his uncle) aside, one of the top criteria for job placement in the White House appears to be nepotism.

https://www.westernjournal.com/disgusted-obama-ethics-official-tears-biden-admin-nepotism-scandal/

Biden’s staff includes so many privileged recent graduates with no experience but relatives in high places that Walter Shaub, Obama’s former director of the Office of Government Ethics (yes, there is one of those!), called it “pathetic” and ranted, “I’m disgusted!” Shaub previously blasted Trump for giving important jobs to relatives, like tasking son-in-law Jared Cushner with crafting Middle East peace deals (I’d say he did a darn good job that Biden’s now destroying, but that’s another topic.) But Shaub actually believed that Biden was going to prioritize strict ethics.

He concluded, “Do I sound bitter? HELL, YEAH, I’M BITTER! I’m the stupid moron who fell for his false promises. I wasn’t naive enough to think he’d be a transformative president. He told us he’d be plain vanilla. But I thought there was momentum behind his ethics promises. Boy, was I stupid.”

Well, that’s something I think we can all agree on. And I hate to break it to you, but if you thought Biden was going to be “plain vanilla” and not try to “transform America,” then you fell for another false promise.

And speaking of falling for false campaign promises, you didn’t really believe Biden was going to spend trillions upon trillions of dollars and only raise taxes on the ultra-rich, did you? If so, I’ve got some prime real estate in Siberia that I’d like to sell you.

https://www.westernjournal.com/american-families-joe-biden-disgusted-twisted-death-tax/

It reads like a stunning political spy thriller, but what we’re learning after China’s head of intelligence apparently defected to the West is proving to be more of a true crime story.

RedState.com took the news about the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) working with defector Dong Jingwei of China’s Ministry of State Security beyond the “rumor” stage, but it was still so wild that the appropriate initial response was skepticism. RedState’s sources, however, appear to be sound. And if this story is true, it makes Dong the highest-level defector in the history of the People’s Republic of China.

RedState has doubled down on their story, saying they've confirmed the name of this official and the nature of the work he had been doing. Reportedly, he defected from China in mid-February after flying from Hong Kong to the United States to visit his daughter, Dong Yang, who was attending a university in California. Once his plane had landed, he contacted the DIA and told them of his plans to defect and also of the information he had with him. According to publicly available records, since April 2018 he has been the head of the Ministry of State Security’s counterintelligence activities in China. Translation: he was China's #1 spy-catcher. It makes sense to think that if anyone would know how to defect without getting caught, it's this guy.

According to RedState’s sources, Dong “hid in plain sight” for about two weeks while waiting to go safely into DIA custody. Presumably, his daughter was taken into custody as well.

CCP officials reportedly have demanded that Dong be returned. Sources say that Secretary of State Andrew Blinken was not aware at the time that Dong was in America, and so he told the Chinese what he thought was true: that we didn’t have Dong. In fact, it seems that until the last three or four weeks, NO ONE outside the DIA knew Dong had defected. Until then, they were vetting the information he had passed to them.

RedState reports that Dong has provided the following information to the DIA. If you haven’t seen this list, prepare to be blown away:

--- Early pathogenic studies of the virus we now know as SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19).

--- Models of predicted COVID-19 spread and damage to the U.S. and the world. Perhaps this "Exhibit A" will be the most infuriating of all.

--- Financial records relating to the exact organizations and governments that funded research on SARS-CoV-2 and other biological warfare.

–- Names of U.S. citizens who provide intel to China. Let's see 'em.

–- Names of Chinese spies working in the U.S. and/or attending American universities. This promises to be a long list.

–- Financial records showing U.S. business people and public officials who have received money from the Chinese government. I assume that means "besides Hunter Biden."

–- Details of meetings U.S. government officials had, perhaps unwittingly, with Chinese spies and members of Russia’s SVR (External Intelligence Service).

–- Details of how the Chinese gained access to a CIA communications system, which led to the deaths of dozens of Chinese people who had been working with the CIA.

Oh, wait –- there’s more! According to RedState, Dong has also provided the DIA with copies of the information on Hunter Biden’s laptop, revealing all the scuzz the Chinese government has on Hunter, his nefarious personal habits and his business dealings with Chinese entities. His father’s, too. It was common sense to assume China had it all, and apparently they do.

In a revelation that should surprise no one, Dong reportedly told the DIA that at least a third of Chinese students attending American universities are intel assets, with many living under pseudonyms to hide the fact that they are children of high-ranking military and CCP leaders.

RedState says they have “high confidence” in their reporting because, in the days since their original report, others are starting to investigate some of the claims. Sources continue to tell RedState that “This defector has the rest of the intelligence community and the LEO [law enforcement officer] community scared sh**less.”

Here’s their full update.

https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2021/06/17/breaking-chinese-defector-confirmed-as-top-counterintelligence-official-n398374

Gordon Chang, FOX NEWS analyst and author of THE COMING COLLAPSE OF CHINA, takes this report very seriously indeed, telling NEWSMAX on Saturday that if the information Dong has about the Wuhan Institute of Virology is proven true, it could “even lead to the fall of the Communist Party.” There has been no official response from China, but according to Chang, Beijing appears to be in a panic.

“This is so explosive it could lead to a chain of events which would sever relations between China and the United States,” said Chang.

Some experts have denied the reports, however, and Chang said the SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST has reported that Dong is still in China and even gave a talk on Friday about catching foreign spies (Dong’s specialty). But Chang also said that those accounts do not seem credible.

And why did this Chinese defector deal exclusively with the Defense Intel Agency, rather than other agencies? Chang believes it’s because those other units of our government have been “penetrated by the Chinese Ministry of State” security agents (spies). He said it appears China “has penetrated most units of the U.S. government, indeed, state governments as well.”

This is consistent with what RedState has reported; namely, that “Dong has extremely embarrassing and damaging information about our intelligence community and government officials in the ‘terabytes of data’ he’s provided to the DIA.” Sure makes you wonder how many “Fang Fangs” are out there, and how many Eric Swalwells. Recall that Swalwell is a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Chang also believes that Dong’s role as chief spy-catcher would put him close to Chinese leader Xi Jinping. “This is really important,” Chang said, “because what this does [is] blow open the Chinese political system.” Xi could be blamed and overthrown in the blink of an eye. “This could cause the Communist Party to lose the stability that apparently people think it has,” Chang said. That’s why the CCP leadership is so enraged.

The full story of Chang’s interview with NEWSMAX is here.

https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/gordon-chang-chinese-spy-dong-jingwei-spy/2021/06/19/id/1025698/?ns_mail_uid=f9499f75-6002-4e3d-a92a-60873ae4921d&ns_mail_job=DM230171_06192021&s=acs&dkt_nbr=010504yivob3

Finally, Dan Bongino’s Friday podcast led off with this story, stressing the extreme significance of what the DIA might be learning from the defector. You can see it on Rumble, here.

https://rumble.com/viprxp-ep.-1545-did-a-spy-defector-from-china-prove-trump-right-the-dan-bongino-sh.html

Bongino points out that what Dong is offering about the origin and spread of the virus confirms much of what Trump has said for many months. Not wanting to prove Trump right is probably the main reason why full reports on this story will be few and far between, not to mention twisted beyond recognition in order to pass muster with social media. But we’ll bring them hot and fresh and factual, as we look forward to telling the real story.

Addendum: Sunday night, reporter Jennifer Van Laar, who broke the story of the Chinese defector in RedState.com, commented on the media strategy for dealing with it.

Van Laar offers a detailed, chronological and quite fascinating account in a “VIP” article on RedState.com.

https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2021/06/20/reactions-to-redstates-exclusive-reporting-on-chinese-defector-dong-jingwei-show-disturbing-pattern-n399583

I’ll summarize: Van Laar stands by her reporting and says that as the story has developed, “the reactions are an interesting and disturbing insight into how those with their own agendas attempt to shape the narrative and marginalize those who won’t go along with that narrative.” She says the “former spook community” (I love that characterization) “went from saying RedState’s reporting was completely untrue and used to attack Dr. Fauci, to admitting that parts of it could be true, to taking credit for the reporting.”

She describes the strategy: “First, ignore. Then, attack the source’s credibility. Then, leak information to take the story in a different direction. If none of that works, again attack the source’s credibility and attempt to introduce contradictory evidence. If that doesn’t work, claim ownership of the story and start shaping your own narrative.”

Van Laar will be appearing Tuesday on The Chris Salcedo Show on NEWSMAX to go over the latest developments, which, of course, we’ll bring to you here.

Saturday in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the driver of a pickup truck drove into a crowd during a Pride Month parade, killing one person and injuring another. He narrowly missed a convertible that was carrying Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. We extend our sympathies and prayers for the victims and their families.

Sadly, even though the event was supposed to be promoting tolerance, Mayor Dean Trantalis immediately leapt to an intolerant conclusion, telling local media, “This is a terrorist attack against the LGBT community. This is exactly what it is. Hardly an accident. It was deliberate. It was premeditated, and it was targeted against a specific person. Luckily, they missed that person, but unfortunately, they hit two other people."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ft-lauderdale-mayor-terrorist-attack-pride-dean-trantalis

That false impression quickly spread, sparking denunciations of Gov. DeSantis and other conservatives. But Trantalis backed down after experiencing a swift backlash. It was reported that if he’d just waited 15 minutes before making his false accusation, he would have seen that the driver being arrested was wearing a Fort Lauderdale Gay Men’s Chorus T-shirt. Both he and the victims were involved with the chorus. The driver was reportedly a 77-year-old man whose ailments prevented him from walking, so they let him drive the lead vehicle, and it suddenly accelerated. So it was not deliberate, premeditated or targeted. It was an accident.

It’s also a tragic reminder of the wise old saying, “Make sure your brain is in gear before engaging your mouth.”

Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who were facing felony charges for brandishing rifles to warn off protesters who were trespassing on their property and threatening them, agreed to plead guilty to much-lesser misdemeanor charges of fourth-degree assault and second-degree harassment, respectively. They have to pay fines of $750 and $2,000, and relinquish the two rifles, but they will serve no jail time.

https://www.westernjournal.com/mccloskeys-plead-guilty-come-swinging-fiery-statement-god/

Mark McCloskey took it as a victory and remained defiant, saying, “The prosecutor dropped every charge except for alleging that I purposely placed other people in imminent risk of physical injury, right, and I sure as heck did… That’s what the guns were there for and I’d do it again any time the mob approaches me…In other words, I stood out on the porch with my rifle and made them back up. And that’s what I’d do again. If that’s a crime in Missouri, by G** I did it, and I’d do it again.”

As the story notes, many people, including Gov. Mike Parson, don’t think it’s a just settlement, and you can add me to that. The McCloskeys did nothing wrong, and they shouldn’t have to pay a cent in fines, give up their guns or have anything on their records. They merely showed weapons (didn’t fire them or even point them at anyone) to protect themselves from threatening trespassers. They were well within their Second Amendment rights to do so. If anyone should have faced charges, it was the trespassers. But in blue cities, up is now down, left is right, and criminals are let go while citizens and cops are prosecuted. It’s the New Abnormal.

The story says that Gov. Parson is “evaluating the situation.” I don’t know what he can do, since they agreed to take the deal to end the legal harassment. But a good start would be to immediately expunge their misdemeanor criminal records.

Who Is The Real Threat?

June 20, 2021

Watch former FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi tell (of course) MSNBC that to fight “domestic terrorism,” the feds may have to go after people “around the former President” and even current members of Congress who supported Trump. He said federal law enforcement need to proactively “attack” Congress members who exhibit “cult-like leadership.” Apparently, if you criticize establishment politics and entrenched, corrupt, hyper-politicized, power-abusing bureaucrats, you are “recruiting people to violence.”

https://www.westernjournal.com/former-fbi-assistant-director-arrests-arent-enough-take-people-close-trump-sitting-congressmen-stop-domestic-terrorism/

Well, I criticize those things daily, but I’ve never encouraged anyone to commit violence. Quite the opposite, in fact. Meanwhile, I see people on the other side who are committing violence and terrorizing our cities daily, while Democrats in Congress defend and excuse them. Should the feds attack them? Or does freedom of speech only apply to leftist speech? Guess we know where Mr. Figliuzzi comes down on that question.

This is an eye-opening look into the mindset of those who are trying desperately to criminalize any disagreement with leftist politics and massive, unaccountable federal power. Anyone who expresses such views should never be allowed within a thousand yards of federal power.

That’s why the only good thing about his title of “former FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence” is the word “former.” Turn out in massive numbers to vote for Republicans so we can keep it that way.

Related: Stephen Kruiser of PJ Media has an excellent article on the Democrats’ attempts to convince everyone of their ludicrous fantasy that the biggest terrorist threat to America is patriotic, white Trump voters.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2021/06/17/enough-with-the-white-boy-domestic-terror-threat-fiction-n1454952

He also makes the very good point that what happened at the Capitol on January 6th wasn’t an “insurrection,” it was a riot. And if rioting is terrorism, then all the BLM and Antifa riots they’ve been excusing for the past year are also terrorism. Since both the number of leftwing riots and rioters vastly outnumber those of the Capitol riot, then aren’t Antifa and BLM a far bigger terrorist threat than Trump voters?

I love Kruiser’s summation: “The biggest threat to freedom right now is a government that’s being run by rabid, un-American ideologues who are using an isolated incident to wage a protracted war against anyone who disagrees with them. That drunk dude with the horns on his hat ain’t the one we need to be worrying about.”

This is something I hope to see happening a lot more often, and I hope it’s so successful that it inspires many more such actions: a group of Coca-Cola shareholders has sent a letter to the board, warning that their woke, racist “anti-racist” policies are putting the company and the shareholders at material risk of liability for unlawful racial discrimination.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/06/concerned-shareholders-take-action-against-cokes-racist-demands.php

The letter warns that if their concerns are not addressed within 30 business days, “the Stockholders will be forced to seek judicial relief to protect Coke and the Stockholders’ interests in the company from your continued breaches of your fiduciary duties.” Maybe that will remind the board of what their job really is.

And speaking of companies that risk bankruptcy for leftist virtue signaling, Victoria’s Secret has dived headfirst into the empty swimming pool of wokeness. Signaling guilt and shame for ever selling lingerie that was appealing to the “male gaze,” Victoria’s Secret has hired a new spokesperson – outspoken leftist, anti-Trump, lesbian soccer player Megan Rapinoe – who has a history of denouncing the company, everything it stands for and traditionally sexy feminine clothing in general. It’s also replacing its “Victoria’s Secret Angels” models with a group of woke icons, including a trans woman. That gives a new meaning to “Victoria’s Secret.”

The company’s execs claim this will help them “regain relevance” and rebrand for the future. If I had to predict what that new lingerie brand will be called, I’d guess “Chapter 11.”

https://www.dailywire.com/news/victorias-secret-replaces-angels-with-megan-rapinoe-other-gender-equity-campaigners

Thursday brought a mixed bag of decisions from the Supreme Court. On the plus side, in a surprising unanimous 9-0 decision, the SCOTUS ruled that Philadelphia cannot exclude a Catholic services organization from providing adoption services through its system because their religious beliefs bar them from arranging adoptions for same-sex couples. There are more details at the link. The decision was fairly narrow, and conservatives on the Court thought that there should have been more clarity to clean up the conflicts between previous related decisions and First Amendment rights.

https://redstate.com/joesquire/2021/06/18/the-roberts-court-punts-on-religious-liberty-again-n398562

However, for the third time, the SCOTUS rejected an attempt to get rid of Obamacare, this time filed by 18 states. In a 7-2 ruling, the Court said that the states “lack standing” to sue because they suffered no direct harm. “Lack of standing” seems to have become the Court’s go-to excuse for not examining controversial issues that need to be settled.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/reaganmccarthy/2021/06/17/scotus-n2591129

In a stinging dissent, Justice Alito scolded the Court for its creative efforts to keep pulling reasons out of the air to preserve Obamacare. He noted that if it costs the states $1, then they have standing to sue, but it costs them billions in Medicaid funds, yet they don’t have standing to sue? Alito wrote:

“No one can fail to be impressed by the lengths to which this Court has been willing to go to defend the ACA against all threats. A penalty is a tax. The United States is a State. And 18 States who bear costly burdens under the ACA cannot even get a foot in the door to raise a constitutional challenge. So a tax that does not tax is allowed to stand and support one of the biggest Government programs in our Nation’s history. Fans of judicial inventiveness will applaud once again. But I must respectfully dissent.”

I’ve decided that Obamacare is the Bill and Hillary Clinton of health care legislation. No matter how bad it is or how much trouble it causes, someone in a powerful position will always intervene to protect it, even if it requires twisting the law like a pretzel.

Good morning!

Blessings on you and your family, and from all the Huckabee staff! 

Today's newsletter includes:

  • Bible Verse of the Day
  • Still Defiant In St. Louis
  • A Mixed Bag Of Decisions From The Supreme Court
  • Entire Police Team Quits In Disgust
  • Woke Policies Put This Company At Material Risk Of Liability For Unlawful Racial Discrimination
  • Who Is The Real Threat?
  • Arson Is Bad

Thank you again for subscribing!  To read this newsletter on my website, go here.

Sincerely,

Mike Huckabee


DAILY BIBLE VERSE

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

 



Still Defiant In St. Louis

By Mike Huckabee

Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who were facing felony charges for brandishing rifles to warn off protesters who were trespassing on their property and threatening them, agreed to plead guilty to much-lesser misdemeanor charges of fourth-degree assault and second-degree harassment, respectively. They have to pay fines of $750 and $2,000, and relinquish the two rifles, but they will serve no jail time.

https://www.westernjournal.com/mccloskeys-plead-guilty-come-swinging-fiery-statement-god/

Mark McCloskey took it as a victory and remained defiant, saying, “The prosecutor dropped every charge except for alleging that I purposely placed other people in imminent risk of physical injury, right, and I sure as heck did… That’s what the guns were there for and I’d do it again any time the mob approaches me…In other words, I stood out on the porch with my rifle and made them back up. And that’s what I’d do again. If that’s a crime in Missouri, by G** I did it, and I’d do it again.”

As the story notes, many people, including Gov. Mike Parson, don’t think it’s a just settlement, and you can add me to that. The McCloskeys did nothing wrong, and they shouldn’t have to pay a cent in fines, give up their guns or have anything on their records. They merely showed weapons (didn’t fire them or even point them at anyone) to protect themselves from threatening trespassers. They were well within their Second Amendment rights to do so. If anyone should have faced charges, it was the trespassers. But in blue cities, up is now down, left is right, and criminals are let go while citizens and cops are prosecuted. It’s the New Abnormal.

The story says that Gov. Parson is “evaluating the situation.” I don’t know what he can do, since they agreed to take the deal to end the legal harassment. But a good start would be to immediately expunge their misdemeanor criminal records.


A Mixed Bag Of Decisions From The Supreme Court

By Mike Huckabee

Thursday brought a mixed bag of decisions from the Supreme Court. On the plus side, in a surprising unanimous 9-0 decision, the SCOTUS ruled that Philadelphia cannot exclude a Catholic services organization from providing adoption services through its system because their religious beliefs bar them from arranging adoptions for same-sex couples. There are more details at the link. The decision was fairly narrow, and conservatives on the Court thought that there should have been more clarity to clean up the conflicts between previous related decisions and First Amendment rights.

https://redstate.com/joesquire/2021/06/18/the-roberts-court-punts-on-religious-liberty-again-n398562

However, for the third time, the SCOTUS rejected an attempt to get rid of Obamacare, this time filed by 18 states. In a 7-2 ruling, the Court said that the states “lack standing” to sue because they suffered no direct harm. “Lack of standing” seems to have become the Court’s go-to excuse for not examining controversial issues that need to be settled.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/reaganmccarthy/2021/06/17/scotus-n2591129

In a stinging dissent, Justice Alito scolded the Court for its creative efforts to keep pulling reasons out of the air to preserve Obamacare. He noted that if it costs the states $1, then they have standing to sue, but it costs them billions in Medicaid funds, yet they don’t have standing to sue? Alito wrote:

“No one can fail to be impressed by the lengths to which this Court has been willing to go to defend the ACA against all threats. A penalty is a tax. The United States is a State. And 18 States who bear costly burdens under the ACA cannot even get a foot in the door to raise a constitutional challenge. So a tax that does not tax is allowed to stand and support one of the biggest Government programs in our Nation’s history. Fans of judicial inventiveness will applaud once again. But I must respectfully dissent.”

I’ve decided that Obamacare is the Bill and Hillary Clinton of health care legislation. No matter how bad it is or how much trouble it causes, someone in a powerful position will always intervene to protect it, even if it requires twisting the law like a pretzel.


Entire Police Team Quits In Disgust

By Mike Huckabee

You might want to keep the besieged, outnumbered, law-abiding citizens of Portland, Oregon, in your prayers, because the entire police rapid response team that deals with rioters has just quit in disgust.

https://www.westernjournal.com/portland-now-antifas-mercy-entire-riot-control-squad-resigns-disgust/

The police are fed up with the leftist DA and other city officials letting violent rioters run wild or be released without consequences while they prosecute police officers for doing their job. So all 50 volunteer members of the team that deals with disasters both natural and manmade (like Portland’s city government) resigned. They say they will go back to doing their regular duties only, but I wonder how long even that will last. I can’t imagine there’s any cop in Portland who doesn’t have his or her resume out to at least a dozen other cities by now.


Woke Policies Put This Company At Material Risk Of Liability For Unlawful Racial Discrimination

By Mike Huckabee

This is something I hope to see happening a lot more often, and I hope it’s so successful that it inspires many more such actions: a group of Coca-Cola shareholders has sent a letter to the board, warning that their woke, racist “anti-racist” policies are putting the company and the shareholders at material risk of liability for unlawful racial discrimination.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/06/concerned-shareholders-take-action-against-cokes-racist-demands.php

The letter warns that if their concerns are not addressed within 30 business days, “the Stockholders will be forced to seek judicial relief to protect Coke and the Stockholders’ interests in the company from your continued breaches of your fiduciary duties.” Maybe that will remind the board of what their job really is.

And speaking of companies that risk bankruptcy for leftist virtue signaling, Victoria’s Secret has dived headfirst into the empty swimming pool of wokeness. Signaling guilt and shame for ever selling lingerie that was appealing to the “male gaze,” Victoria’s Secret has hired a new spokesperson – outspoken leftist, anti-Trump, lesbian soccer player Megan Rapinoe – who has a history of denouncing the company, everything it stands for and traditionally sexy feminine clothing in general. It’s also replacing its “Victoria’s Secret Angels” models with a group of woke icons, including a trans woman. That gives a new meaning to “Victoria’s Secret.”

The company’s execs claim this will help them “regain relevance” and rebrand for the future. If I had to predict what that new lingerie brand will be called, I’d guess “Chapter 11.”

https://www.dailywire.com/news/victorias-secret-replaces-angels-with-megan-rapinoe-other-gender-equity-campaigners


Who Is The Real Threat?

By Mike Huckabee

Watch former FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi tell (of course) MSNBC that to fight “domestic terrorism,” the feds may have to go after people “around the former President” and even current members of Congress who supported Trump. He said federal law enforcement need to proactively “attack” Congress members who exhibit “cult-like leadership.” Apparently, if you criticize establishment politics and entrenched, corrupt, hyper-politicized, power-abusing bureaucrats, you are “recruiting people to violence.”

https://www.westernjournal.com/former-fbi-assistant-director-arrests-arent-enough-take-people-close-trump-sitting-congressmen-stop-domestic-terrorism/

Well, I criticize those things daily, but I’ve never encouraged anyone to commit violence. Quite the opposite, in fact. Meanwhile, I see people on the other side who are committing violence and terrorizing our cities daily, while Democrats in Congress defend and excuse them. Should the feds attack them? Or does freedom of speech only apply to leftist speech? Guess we know where Mr. Figliuzzi comes down on that question.

This is an eye-opening look into the mindset of those who are trying desperately to criminalize any disagreement with leftist politics and massive, unaccountable federal power. Anyone who expresses such views should never be allowed within a thousand yards of federal power.

That’s why the only good thing about his title of “former FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence” is the word “former.” Turn out in massive numbers to vote for Republicans so we can keep it that way.

Related: Stephen Kruiser of PJ Media has an excellent article on the Democrats’ attempts to convince everyone of their ludicrous fantasy that the biggest terrorist threat to America is patriotic, white Trump voters.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2021/06/17/enough-with-the-white-boy-domestic-terror-threat-fiction-n1454952

He also makes the very good point that what happened at the Capitol on January 6th wasn’t an “insurrection,” it was a riot. And if rioting is terrorism, then all the BLM and Antifa riots they’ve been excusing for the past year are also terrorism. Since both the number of leftwing riots and rioters vastly outnumber those of the Capitol riot, then aren’t Antifa and BLM a far bigger terrorist threat than Trump voters?

I love Kruiser’s summation: “The biggest threat to freedom right now is a government that’s being run by rabid, un-American ideologues who are using an isolated incident to wage a protracted war against anyone who disagrees with them. That drunk dude with the horns on his hat ain’t the one we need to be worrying about.”


Arson Is Bad

By Mike Huckabee

The left always eats its own, and here’s a sad example. Read the Kafkaesque nightmare that befell a liberal composer of choir music in Nashville whose career was destroyed by the cancel culture mob because, after the George Floyd rioters started committing vandalism and setting fires, he wrote an Instagram post saying that (brace yourselves): Arson is bad.

https://reason.com/2021/06/15/daniel-elder-cancel-culture-choral-composer-antifa-blm-gia/

Juneteenth

June 19, 2021

Happy Juneteenth! You might think that was yesterday because President Biden signed a bill on Thursday declaring it a national holiday and federal workers took off work on Friday. But it’s actually commemorating June 19, 1865. That’s the date when Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform them that the Civil War was over and to free the last slaves, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Texas was so far away from Washington that Lincoln’s order had yet to be enforced and slaves hadn’t been told about it.

Some of the bill’s critics argued that a holiday celebrating the end of slavery should have been on the date of the Proclamation, as Juneteenth is very specific to Texas, where it’s long been a holiday. You can read more about the history of Juneteenth at this link.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/juneteenth-history-oldest-commemoration-abolishment-slavery-us

Naturally, after signing the bill, which had heavy bipartisan support, Biden immediately pivoted to a partisan attack on Republicans (who, it should be noted, actually freed the slaves held by Democrats), again accusing them of trying to suppress the black vote with election reform laws like voter ID, which is favored by a majority of black voters. It’s not often that you see a man of his age leap so nimbly, from pandering to blacks to insulting their intelligence.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-juneteenth-national-holiday-bill-signing

Blogger Larry Correia had a very appropriate quote about the new holiday, given Biden’s exploitation of it to misrepresent GOP election integrity efforts: “I love Juneteenth being a national holiday, because it’s when we celebrate Republicans informing a bunch of black people that Democrats have been lying to and using them.”

At this link, J. Christian Adams has more on Juneteenth’s history and how only federal workers got Friday off for it.

https://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2021/06/18/happy-juneteenth-n1455591

This is added to 10 other federal worker holidays, plus Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas, all the time they took off during the pandemic, and the month of August when Washington practically shuts down.

Adams notes that one of the few months without a day off for federal workers is April. He suggests April 19th, the date in 1775 when “brave patriots at Lexington and Concord got sick and tired of a distant, far-off ruling class and decided to fight back.” That’s certainly worthy of a holiday, but he doubts the people in Washington today would want to remind Americans of it.

In a related story, it’s great to see parents in San Francisco fighting back against the leftist/immoral assault on their children, since San Francisco is ground zero of a movement that’s spreading across America under names like “Drag Queen Story Hour.” The media has lavished that movement with fawning publicity, and it sells itself as a local, independent grassroots movement to promote “tolerance.” But as the Federalist reports, it’s actually well-funded by a number of wealthy interests.

https://thefederalist.com/2021/06/17/san-francisco-leftists-are-funding-your-local-librarys-drag-queen-story-hour/

It’s also brought young children into close physical contact with at least three convicted sex criminals, two of whom are convicted pedophiles, and its events have been sponsored by a man who’s been charged with seven counts of possession of child pornography.

Another way that parents are fighting back against the LGBTQ+++ indoctrination of children is by turning off media outlets that are pushing Pride Month as if it were a paid sponsor. I told you about the inappropriate propaganda infesting the children’s channel Nickelodeon (right down to a cartoon beaver with bandages on its chest, apparently to signal that it had its breasts removed as part of its gender transition.) Well, apparently, while these media outlets have gotten “woke,” parents have also woken up to what’s being fed into their children’s heads, and they’re turning off the electronic babysitter/brainwashing machine.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/nickelodeon-ratings-crash-amid-lgbtq-push

There’s a saying about companies that prioritize pushing political messages over serving their customers: “Get woke, go broke.” Well, Nickelodeon’s ratings have broken through the basement, ripped up the basement floor, and dug a hole in the basement. In 2017, the channel averaged 1.3 million viewers a year. This month, amid their out-and-proud relentless promotion of “Pride Month,” viewership has plummeted to an average of 372,000 a week.

Parent company Viacom claims viewers are just moving to the new streaming platform Discovery+ to watch Nickelodeon there. If so, they’re likely doing it so their kids can watch older shows that aren’t full of sexually inappropriate propaganda. How long will that last once they discover that Nickelodeon is retrofitting the older shows to shoehorn in sexual messages, like declaring that a character on a popular show about infants is now a lesbian?

This is one of many reasons why our resident pop culture guru Pat Reeder advises people that if they want to see films and TV shows the way the creators intended, buy them on DVD and Blu-Ray. If you don't actually own them, then someone else controls what you'll see.

Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson sent a letter to President Biden co-signed by 13 other GOP lawmakers, calling on Biden to immediately take a cognitive test.

https://www.westernjournal.com/obamas-wh-doc-turned-gop-rep-demands-biden-take-cognitive-test-prove-mental-fitness/

Jackson has observed that Biden’s episodes of verbal confusion and memory loss are obvious and have grown noticeably worse, as his European trip just illustrated. His letter reads, “The American people should have absolute confidence in their President. They deserve to know that he or she can perform the duties of Head of State and Commander in Chief.”

While the media are ignoring the letter or dismissing it as merely partisan, Jackson’s previous position was as White House doctor for both Obama and Trump. Throughout Trump’s presidency, the media tried to convince us that he had mental issues based on the claims of leftist psychiatrists who’d never even met him. But now, they tell us to ignore the White House doctor under Obama/Biden who has firsthand knowledge of Biden’s mental acuity from five years ago and can see the deterioration.

Besides, it’s only a test. If his critics are wrong, then he’ll pass it, prove them wrong and settle all the questions. So why not do it?

You know, I suddenly realized that’s the same thing I said about having a transparent examination of the 2020 vote, and they’re fighting tooth and nail against that, too.

Chinese Defector

June 18, 2021

I told you about the claim by Redstate.com that the Defense Intelligence Agency had been working with a defector from China who held the highest level in the government of any Chinese defector ever. This defector reportedly was providing information on the origins of COVID-19 and other sensitive topics, and the DIA had kept this a secret even from other agencies such as the CIA and FBI out of concerns that they were infiltrated by Chinese spies.

Well, Redstate now claims that the defector has been identified as Dong Jingwei, a longtime official in China’s Ministry of State Security, responsible for counterintelligence efforts.

https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2021/06/17/breaking-chinese-defector-confirmed-as-top-counterintelligence-official-n398374

Dong has reportedly provided the DNI with electronic files containing massive amounts of sensitive information, the equivalent of millions of documents, on everything from China’s special weapons systems to the Chinese military’s operation of the Wuhan virus lab to the identities of Chinese spies and sources in the US.

Some official sources are poo-pooing the story, calling it a rumor or downplaying its importance if it is true. But according to Redstate, now that the name of the alleged defector has been published, the rest of the intelligence community is “scared (bleep)less.”

Read the entire article. This is either the most interesting work of spy fiction since Ian Fleming or it’s the biggest foreign intelligence bombshell in decades. I have a feeling we’ll find out which sooner rather than later. One clue will be to watch China and see how desperate they are to get Dong back to Beijing.


While the mainstream media either ignore or try their best to discredit the 2020 election audits, we’ve been looking around the country at what’s quietly going on. John Solomon and Daniel Payne report major developments in Georgia, with state officials seeking to remove Fulton County’s top election supervisors and county records indicating that over 100 batches of absentee ballots could be missing. The margin for Biden across the entire state was under 12,000 votes.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/georgia-audit-documents-show-unsecured-missing-ballot-batches-ballots

Solomon and Payne reviewed handwritten tally sheets for all the absentee ballots counted in Fulton County, along with a private report from a contractor, Seven Hills Strategy, hired by the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to document in real time the election process in the Atlanta area. This report “chronicled seven days of problems.”

To cite just one example, in a frantic note written the night before Election Day, the contractor wrote that “someone took the wrong suitcase but took only one. Seems to be a mystery who this person was –- Should have chain of custody paperwork!! That means a stranger just walked out with sensitive materials?”

A state judge has now ordered absentee ballots in Fulton County unsealed so a private audit of the actual papers may be conducted by attorney Bob Cheeley, who says the evidence he’s seen so far points to “election tabulation malpractice.”

“Experts differ” on whether this was fraud or gross incompetence. The secretary of state is saying he doesn’t think fraud occurred, at least not on a scale that would’ve affected the outcome. (In such a close election, this verdict seems premature and more like wishful thinking to me.) His contractor, he said, did not see evidence of fraud --- no, no, of course not --- but he DID see “continued mismanagement, miscommunication, unpreparedness, and sloppiness.”

Ah, sloppiness! We’ve heard that term before, used in defense of people in government who cut corners and just didn’t follow the rules. They didn’t MEAN to do it! They were just...sloppy.

The consensus at the state level is that the election officials in Fulton County should be removed. It’s so bad that some are debating whether the state itself should take the responsibility away from the county and run their elections like a conservatorship.

Read Solomon and Payne’s report and you’ll be shocked at the problems that have been found, involving “thousands” of absentee ballots. (This doesn’t even get into the potential problems with voting machines.) The election in Fulton County, Georgia, was apparently a big, hot mess.

And speaking of messes out of Georgia, a proposal for new election legislation endorsed by Stacey Abrams has been rejected by Republicans as “totally inappropriate.”

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/manchin-voting-bill-stacey-abrams-republicans

Joe Manchin had introduced it as a compromise after a very controversial Senate election bill –- counterpart of the equally terrible House bill --- generated richly deserved blowback. But what this “compromise” would do is change the make-up of the Federal Election Commission, currently three Democrats and three Republicans, to two Democrats and two Republicans plus one “nonpartisan” (ha) member appointed by the President. With Biden in office, that means three Democrats and two Republicans, meaning Democrats would control the FEC.

The bill also would take redistricting away from state legislatures and have it done by...computer. I am not kidding. Don’t you wonder who’d be writing the algorithms for that process? Read the story for more details. It also notes that Manchin is the one Democrat who remains opposed to eliminating the filibuster; let’s hope he sticks to that and doesn’t flip just to get his own bad bill passed.

Meanwhile, in Michigan, hundreds of people from around the state came to the steps of the Capitol bearing wheelbarrows full of affidavits –- 7,500 of them –- signed by Michigan residents calling for a forensic audit of the 2020 election in their state. Some of them sported T-shirts that read, “Patriots Want A Forensic Audit!” Kristina Karamo, Republican candidate for secretary of state, tried to deliver boxes of affidavits to the office of the current secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, but the security guard refused to let her into the building. And no one from Benson’s office would sign the form acknowledging receipt of them.

The story at 100 PERCENT FED UP has video of Karamo’s attempted delivery of the ballots.

https://100percentfedup.com/watch-michigans-dishonest-sec-of-state-jocelyn-benson-refuses-to-sign-for-7500-affidavits-from-citizens-demanding-a-forensic-audit-of-nov-election/

One nice touch: When Karamo gets to the door, she sees the notice that “ID is required to enter building.” The black female Republican noted facetiously, “That’s racist!” Love it.

Let’s go to Maricopa County, Arizona, where the forensic examination phase of that audit is going on, with the end of this month being the target for completion. CNN reported that ballots are being trucked to a lab in Montana for analysis and showed aerial video of the remote, private land it allegedly was on. “Is this the secure, private laboratory?” CNN’s Gary Tuchman asked. “Is Arizona voting data inside that cabin? We just don’t know –- but it could be.”

According to Ken Bennett, spokesman for the audit, the voting system data is being reviewed by subcontractor CyFIR. He says he doesn’t know where this lab is, which is causing CNN to report it as a big secret and to imply that the data might be non-secure and compromised in some way. They say CyFIR CEO Ben Cotton has taken data from Arizona to Montana. But Bennett speaks more precisely, saying Cotton has a COPY of the data created by Dominion from the hard drives and servers that Maricopa County used in the election. “The original data was left completely intact,” Bennett says.

https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/arizona-audit-data-taken-secret-lab-rural-montana-analysis

Finally, remember that many mail-in ballots bearing incomplete information had to be what they call “cured” by election workers? For example, a missing address would be “found” and filled in. This is a controversial practice that activist lawyers and courts worked to establish before this election. Well, apparently enough time has gone by that the workers who did this are bragging about how they helped Biden win. A piece in TIME Magazine reveals that Democrat activists from California traveled from their home state to Arizona and Georgia to help “cure” the ballots. And a piece in THE ATLANTIC profiles a California nonprofit called Unite Here, which sent Democrat activists across state lines to Arizona to do the same. Thanks, California!

The ATLANTIC piece is actually titled “How Unite Here Turned the Biggest Red State Blue,” and subtitled “Arizona was pivotal in the 2020 presidential election. Its shift was no accident.” You better believe it was no accident. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

“Largely under the radar...they had helped craft one of 2020’s most extraordinary political stories. They had developed a template for how, with the right kind of organizing and outreach, solidly red states around the country –- even those with a long history of voter suppression efforts –- could be turned blue.”

https://redstate.com/slee/2021/06/17/california-exported-activists-to-cure-ballots-in-arizona-georgia-in-days-following-election-n398491

It’s not the election workers’ job to “turn” a state one way or the other. I suspect we’ll find there was plenty of voter suppression in 2020, as every fraudulent vote cancels out a real one. The ultimate in “cancel culture.”

The Biden Administration’s latest attempt to demonize and criminalize political dissent is truly chilling. In their latest push against “domestic terrorism” (and remember, they think that means not Antifa or al-Qaeda but “white supremacists” and Trump voters), they want to encourage Americans who suspect a friend, co-worker or even family member of harboring “extremist” beliefs to report them to the government.

For all the nonsensical comparison of Trump to Hitler, this article makes the case that this move by Biden is genuinely reminiscent of the Nazi regime.

https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-admin-takes-card-nazi-germany-asks-americans-report-potentially-radicalized-friends-family/

It reminds us that there was only about one Gestapo officer for every 10,000 Germans, so they were reliant on a network of informers to keep Germans in line, out of fear that their friends or family members might turn them in.

Now, I generally don’t approve of making comparisons of current politicians to the Nazi era because it’s usually frivolous and demeans the victims of the horrific crimes of the Nazis. But it is hard to defend policies that seem to be taken right out of their handbook. So in the Biden Administration's defense, let me say that what they're trying to do is not exclusively reminiscent of the Nazis. It’s also very much like the East German Stasi. I hope that makes them feel better.

I also hope that the American people are smart enough not to fall for it and will inform the government agents that they can take their request to inform on their friends, co-workers and family members and put it where the sun don’t shine. And you can tell them I said so.

The Veneer Is Gone

June 18, 2021

I miss the good old days, when the media had a blatant liberal bias but they at least maintained enough of a veneer of professionalism to attempt to hide it. Over the past few decades, that veneer wore thinner and thinner under it finally disappeared entirely. They acted like rabid dogs when covering President Trump and now, like docile lap dogs licking the hand of President Biden.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/06/17/joe-biden-got-absolutely-rolled-by-putin-and-everyone-knows-it-n398517

Redstate.com has just a small sampling of the US media’s grossly fawning praise of Biden’s embarrassing Europe trip. To listen to such unbiased reporters as Joe Scarborough, this was the greatest, most inspiring, most successful Presidential trip abroad of the 21st century – or maybe ANY century!

Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld had the best line about that. He said it reminded him of how his parents used to cheer and shout for him whenever he was allowed to play one minute in a fifth grade basketball game and didn’t pee on himself.

Meanwhile, the media in other nations gave terrible reviews to Biden, but even worse reviews to his embarrassing US media sycophants. Here’s just one example, but there were many others across Europe.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/06/16/australian-media-mocks-cnns-glowing-coverage-of-bumbling-joe-biden-n1455097

Meanwhile, here are two pictures that sum up the reality of the visit better than a thousand gushing words from the US media. Note that when Putin met with Biden, Biden brought along notes on flashcards to help him. When Putin met with Trump, Putin brought along notes on flashcards.

https://www.westernjournal.com/photos-biden-brought-flashcards-meet-putin-putin-brought-flashcards-meet-trump/

You can certainly tell the Democrats are back in power with the announcement that the Biden Department of “Justice” will investigate...(no, not the violent communist radicals of Antifa...) the Trump Department of Justice.

https://www.westernjournal.com/bidens-doj-announces-opening-probe-trumps-doj/

They want to investigate the way the Trump DOJ investigated Congress members such as Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff who were suspected of leaking classified information to the media. You’d think that an actual Department of Justice would be more concerned with investigating the leaks of classified information. (Ironically, this relates to a partisan investigation of Trump that was found to be groundless, but that never stopped the Democrats from launching another partisan investigation and another and another…)

From the story:

“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the effort to track down leakers was ‘yet another egregious assault on our democracy waged by the former president.’ Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said they want (former Attorney General Bill) Barr and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appear before Congress to answer questions about the issue. ‘This appalling politicization of the Department of Justice by Donald Trump and his sycophants must be investigated immediately by both the DOJ Inspector General and Congress,’ they said in a statement.”

And if anyone knows about the appalling politicization of government agencies, it’s those two.

But as long as we’re digging into how the DOJ’s of past Administrations investigated alleged leakers of classified information, why stop with Trump’s alleged “egregious assault on our democracy”? How about the Obama DOJ that secretly obtained phone and email records from reporter James Rosen to try to identify his source for a story on North Korea, or that spied on the records from more than 20 phone lines of A.P. reporters to try to find out their source for a story from Yemen?

That sparked bipartisan outrage at the time over Obama’s “unprecedented war on journalism.” But while Obama later backtracked and promised a change in policy, at the time he said he would make “no apologies” for investigations into national security-related leaks. As Yahoo News reported in 2013, “The Obama administration has prosecuted twice as many leakers as all previous administrations combined.”

Reporters at least have the First Amendment freedom of the press to protect them. What special provisions in the law prevent the investigation of Congress members who are suspected of leaking classified information? I’ll pass along the answer to that as soon as Chuck or Nancy call me with it.

I remember when high school proms used to have themes like “We’ve Only Just Begun” or “Kiss Today Goodbye.” But in 2021, the theme for some high school proms seems to be “Hysterical Totalitarian Idiocy” (I hope that looks better in the yearbooks than it sounds.) If you thought the ban on dancing in the movie “Footloose” was silly, wait until you read about the draconian, COVID panic-inspired, CCP-style prom night in Exeter, New Hampshire.

https://www.westernjournal.com/high-school-marks-unvaccinated-students-prom-forces-identify/

What could be worse? How about a high school graduation ceremony where attendees were forced to endure a speech by a local radical school official who used the occasion to denounce America, capitalism, individualism and objectivity and promote racist “anti-racism,” social justice, “equity” and jihad. She also gave a shout-out to the class president, who'd led the Pledge of Allegiance by calling the US “one nation under Allah.”

https://www.dailywire.com/news/dem-tells-high-school-grads-theyre-entering-capitalism-white-supremacy-remember-jihad-reject-objectivity

Incidentally, this is the same school board member who was going to receive an award from a local Jewish group, but it was rescinded due to her tweets accusing Israel of being colonizers and an apartheid state, of killing Palestinians and of “desecrating the Holy Land.”:

https://www.dailywire.com/news/jewish-group-rescinds-award-to-politician-who-said-israel-desecrates-the-holy-land

Still wonder why so many Americans now call putting your kids into public school a form of child abuse?

While it’s easier for parents to fight back against sexualized media messages to their kids (turn off the TV and block the devices), it’s harder when the government and the schools are trying to force it onto children and threatening parents with arrest if they try to protect their kids from it.

In case you missed this, the Administration of “moderate uniter” Joe Biden has reversed Trump’s policies and is redefining Title IX sex discrimination laws to force transgender activism into American schools.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/06/16/biden-doe-flips-title-ix-on-its-head-to-force-transgender-orthodoxy-on-americas-schools-n1455137

And here is a cautionary tale of what kind of Orwellian nightmare these radical school officials can create for a family by crushing parental rights and brainwashing children.

https://nypost.com/2021/06/09/lunatic-laws-let-gender-radicals-deny-all-parental-rights/

Fortunately, that story had a happy ending: the father collected his “daughter,” promising to take “her” to a gender reassignment clinic…then instead, packed up his family and escaped to a saner state. His son is now happy, no longer suicidal, and no longer believes he’s a girl. But what happens if Biden’s Administration forces this lunacy onto all schools? Where will families escape to, then?

A number of news and opinion forums, including our own, picked up on this week's story by REVOLVER NEWS about the FBI’s role in the January 6 “insurrection” on Capitol Hill. We and a few others called for questions to be answered, but most in the mainstream media misreported the story in an effort to dismiss it.

(In case you didn’t see our first report, it’s in the June 16 Morning Edition, “Hard Questions Remain about January 6 and the FBI.”)

Some commentators were intrigued. Bestselling author and “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams, in his “Coffee With Scott Adams” podcast, saw Tucker Carlson’s segment with the reporter from REVOLVER NEWS on Tuesday and briefly summarized that. He called it “a weird coincidence” that a number of domestic terror attacks had involved FBI assets or informants. “The suggestion is,” he said, “maybe they were doing more than just watching ‘em, Maybe they’re participating a little bit too much. Maybe they’re even prodding people to do something that they wouldn’t necessarily have done, or maybe not done as soon.”

Adams addressed Carlson’s main point of contention; namely, that there were unindicted co-conspirators involved in the January 6 “insurrection” who, curiously, have not been indicted. One likely reason for this, of course, is that they are informants or have some previous relationship with law enforcement. Adams also mentioned what we’d reported about the over 10,000 hours of security video that is still being withheld from public view.

“Maybe one of the reasons is that we’d see something they don’t want us to see,” Adams said. I don’t know.”

He said he had a hard time believing that someone from the FBI could talk someone into doing an actual terror attack. At the same time, he’s amused by the characterization of this security breach as an “insurrection,” saying it might also be called “a demonstration of free speech that went a little too far.”

“Somewhere in between is probably the truth,” he said. And that seems right to me. It definitely was a demonstration of free speech, and it definitely went too far. But then this question arises: at the time the Trump supporters were organizing it –- with or without help from the FBI –- did they anticipate at all that it would go THAT far and be painted as an act of terror? Certainly they had no idea that an unarmed woman might end up dead. (We can’t say the same for the FBI, unfortunately, if indeed they were a driving force.)

“But I think you’d have to put that in the ‘speculation’ category,” Adams continued. Yes, and that’s exactly what REVOLVER did. Adams hasn’t bought into the FBI’s involvement at this point, but he acknowledged that “there are legitimate questions. And those questions do lean in that direction. There’s no doubt about that.” He allowed for the possibility of another explanation, and he noted that the “pattern” of bad FBI behavior might not be as consistent as it seems in the story. Just because we haven’t seen the answers, he said, doesn’t necessarily mean the hypothesis of FBI involvement is correct.

He said Tucker’s segment, and the REVOLVER story that inspired it, did a credible job of laying out the circumstantial evidence for this and is “good work.”

“Don’t get too far ahead of the fact,” Adams cautioned, “but this is a good frame [as in, a well-structured argument]. We should understand this. The fact that it looks so damning --- that’s all you need to look into it a little further. But I’m not quite on the conspiracy side of this yet.”

Tucker Carlson opened his Wednesday night show with a brief follow-up report on Tuesday’s “insurrection” story. He pointed out that no event in media history has ever been used to greater partisan political effect: “Because of January 6, our attorney general told us this week, we’ve got to change our country forever.” He commented that before REVOLVER NEWS published their report on Monday, “we had no idea that at least 20 organizers and participants in the events at the Capitol have not been indicted, despite the nationwide dragnet for people who were there.”

The government obviously knows who they are. Why aren’t they being charged with crimes? The suggestion made by REVOLVER, and supported by their detailed analysis of another act of domestic terrorism, the attempted kidnaping three months before of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, is that they had, in Tucker’s words, “some connection to the government.” It appears that they were in contact with the FBI beforehand.

We don’t have proof that the FBI spurred on the "insurrection," but, again, the circumstantial evidence is compelling, and we know the FBI is fully capable of creating a scandal themselves, with, gosh, nothing more than a flimsy, fictional Russian “dossier.” And as Tucker said on Tuesday, “It’s hard to think of a bigger potential scandal than this one.”

He noted that clips of his original report have circulated on social media --- “the Tech monopolies that helped get Joe Biden elected” --- which still work closely with the Biden administration to control the flow of information you’re allowed to see. “They tried to make me go away,” he said. In fact, Twitter actually inserted itself by pretending to be the arbiter of truth and “explaining” what was “wrong” with his report: “Federal law does not permit cooperating witnesses or informants to be charged with conspiracy,” Twitter lectured, “despite a baseless suggestion by Tucker Carlson that some co-conspirators of the January 5 attack on the U.S. Capitol were not charged because they were undercover FBI agents.”

“Baseless”? Well, Tucker pointed out that in trying to dismiss his report, they actually helped confirm it by suggesting that people who weren’t charged were cooperating witnesses or informants.

We’ll take Tucker’s refutation of Twitter even further: Cooperating witnesses who don’t get indicted are typically lower-level actors who are testifying to help the FBI bring down the “big fish.” In this case, from what we can tell, the unindicted co-conspirators ARE the “big fish,” while the little fish are the ones being aggressively prosecuted. In the Whitmer case, the REVOLVER report shows quite plainly that the people involved in the attempted kidnaping of Gov. Whitmer but who were not indicted were the ones in leadership roles. And that’s just not how “cooperation with the FBI” works within a normal investigation. It’s the little fish that get thrown back, not the big ones.

I know Twitter is just trying to help –- with the Democrats’ narrative, that is –- but they need to just stay out.

We scanned other media reports of the REVOLVER story and Tucker’s Tuesday night show and saw a pattern. They chose to inaccurately characterize this as an out-and-out accusation of the FBI and then go after that. Typical “straw man” argument. I’ll venture to speak for everyone who’s curious about the FBI’s role on January 6: All we want at this point is to be able to ask some questions, and, if we ask really, really nicely, maybe to see the security footage that’s still being withheld.

The Show Is Over

June 18, 2021

The best thing that can be said about President Biden’s G7 summit and his meeting with Vladimir Putin is that it’s finally over, so no more damage can be done. Maybe the whole thing was just a planned attempt to make the border look like less of a disaster in comparison. Here’s a round-up of how his trip went, and prepare to get dizzy from shaking your head in disbelief.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/06/17/bidens-final-whine-to-the-press-in-geneva-n398107

And yes: Biden actually gave Putin a list of 16 pieces of America’s critical infrastructure that Russia had better not target. Which gives rise to two questions:

1. Does that mean it’s okay if the Russians take down any other piece of American infrastructure?

2. Why does Putin bother paying spies when our own President will hand him a list of our most vital and vulnerable pieces of infrastructure for free?

How did we go from having a President who wrote “The Art of the Deal” to having one who gives away the entire farm before he even opens his mouth?

Biden finished his trip by whining that the press is too negative and never asks a positive question. This about a press corps that ignores all his scandals and disasters while asking about his favorite ice cream flavors. CNN even tried to put a positive spin on his meltdown at their own reporter!

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/06/16/cnn-rewrites-reality-on-biden-losing-it-at-their-reporter-n397870

Can you imagine him having to stand up to the daily hostile barrage that Trump got from the press? He would literally melt like the Nazis at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark!”

Must-See Video

June 18, 2021

Leftist wokesters love to tell other people to “check your privilege,” but if you want to see the poster boy for privilege, check out this guy.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/woke-san-francisco-stealing-signed-petitions

Some San Francisco parents are fed up with the far-left school board destroying their kids’ educations, so they were collecting signatures on petitions to recall three board members. An Asian-American dad caught an obvious leftist wokester red-handed as he stole a clipboard full of signatures and threw it under a car. The thief, who obviously harbors the common belief of leftist Millennials that their views are the only correct ones and that they can get away with anything with zero consequences, tried to leave, but the dad got in his face and wouldn’t let him.

He demanded that the punk be searched, and lo and behold, he had more stolen petitions under his shirt. The wokester insisted that since he gave them back, he could just leave. But the dad didn’t back down and kept in his face, yelling, “Call 911!” and demanding to know why he stole those petitions.

Just listen to how this guy arrogantly oozes “privilege” as he insists that since he gave back what he tried to steal, he has a right to leave, and he’ll press charges against anyone who touches him. He’s lucky he didn’t try that in Texas.

He did eventually leave, but the whole thing was caught on video and the dad reported him to the police. Let’s hope he’s equally tenacious in demanding that, for once in San Francisco, a privileged leftist is actually held accountable for stomping on other people’s rights. Especially since, as the story notes, under California law, stealing a signed petition is a crime punishable by a fine of up to $1000 and up to six months in jail. Let him try brandishing his shield of leftist privilege in there.

Hilarious

June 18, 2021

Rep. Eric Swalwell filed a ridiculous nuisance lawsuit against President Trump, his son Don Jr., Rudy Giuliani and Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks, claiming that they incited violent rioters to attack the Capitol on January 6th. Since then, Swalwell has repeatedly claimed that Brooks is hiding from process servers to avoid his subpoena.

This has led to some funny tweets from Brooks, pointing out that he’s shared the House floor with Swalwell over a hundred times since January. He’s posted photos of himself “hiding out” in public places, including one at his granddaughter’s birthday party where he’s wearing a sign on his cap reading, “I am not Mo.”

https://www.westernjournal.com/arrest-warrant-issued-swalwell-minion-followed-gop-reps-wife-home/

But the story turned serious when Swalwell actually sent an aide to serve a subpoena, and the man trespassed on Brooks’ property and chased his frightened wife into their house. Now, she’s filed a lawsuit and the Brooks family has made an arrest complaint. Swalwell’s camp tried to deny the claim, but it was all captured on security video. Brooks says he is putting anyone who would threaten his family “on notice that we will pursue illegal actions to the fullest extent of the law.”

So to sum up: because Swalwell tried to score publicity points by filing a bogus lawsuit falsely accusing Brooks of threatening his security, Swalwell's aide is now facing charges and a real lawsuit for actually threatening Brooks’ security.

On my TBN TV show recently, I had a story about how Australia’s oldest man credited his longevity to eating chicken brains, and I joked that they were about as small as Eric Swalwell’s brain. I might have to take that back. After reading this story, it doesn’t seem like a joke anymore. It just seems like an insult to chickens.

Props To Roger Waters

June 18, 2021

I don’t often agree with the politics of Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, who is known for ranting against Trump and pushing a boycott of Israel. But when someone’s right, I give him props for it. And boy, is he right about Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. (Warning: rock star-level profanity at the link.)

https://www.dailywire.com/news/f-you-no-fing-way-pink-floyd-co-founder-rejects-instagrams-request-to-use-his-song

Waters got a request from Facebook-owned Instagram to use his song “Another Brick in the Wall” in a commercial. His response: “(Bleep) you! No (bleeping) way!” At a press event to promote the release of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Waters said they want to use his song “to make Facebook and Instagram even bigger and more powerful than it already is so that it can continue to censor all of us in this room, and prevent this story about Julian Assange getting out to the general public, so the general public could go, ‘What? What?’” (Ironically, that songs’ lyrics include “We don’t need no education,” so it would be perfect for a social media site that censors voices who shatter its preferred narratives.)

He went on to ask how this “little (bleep)” Zuckerberg, who started off by creating a platform where college guys ranked women by their looks, got any power…“and yet, here he is, one of the most powerful idiots in the world.” Waters said he at least has a little power over who uses his songs, and he will not be a party to “this insidious movement of them to take over absolutely everything.”

I’m not that big a Pink Floyd fan, but I suddenly feel an urge to put on “Dark Side of the Moon.”

Communion

June 18, 2021

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops met Wednesday to discuss rules on whether Catholic politicians such as President Biden or Speaker Pelosi, who defy the church’s beliefs on issues such as abortion, should receive Holy Communion. Church leaders are under heavy pressure from the media to ignore their sacred beliefs for political expediency. But they might want to consider what their parishioners think about that.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/bishops-beware-74-say-no-communion-for-biden

The group CatholicVote surveyed regular churchgoers to ask if politicians who don’t follow church teachings should receive Communion. Seventy-four percent said such politicians shouldn’t present themselves to priests for Communion. And 83% said Catholic politicians create confusion and discord among believers when they advocate for things the church considers gravely immoral, such as abortion.

The poll didn’t establish whether Catholics think priests should refuse Communion to these politicians. But it should tell the Bishops that while the secular media may howl if they do, most Catholics in their congregations still think God’s laws apply to everyone.