BREAKING: CRC Exposes Left-Wing Dark Money Network

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As presidential candidates promise to refuse so-called “dark money” and Members of Congress decry the role of money in politics, a Special Report from CRC dispels one of the biggest myths in political discourse: the Left doesn’t use “dark money.”

CRC’s report by investigative researcher Hayden Ludwig, Big Money in Dark Shadows: Arabella Advisors’ Half-billion-dollar “Dark Money” Network, profiles four nonprofit organizations, all controlled by senior leaders at Arabella Advisors, a for-profit consultancy.

Read the full report here and find the executive summary of Big Money in Dark Shadows below.

Executive Summary

The political Left often criticizes—and the mainstream media frequently report on—the network of center-right nonprofits funded by billionaire entrepreneurs Charles and David Koch. But few politicos know of a left-wing leviathan in Washington, D.C., with a reach rivaling that of the Koch network.

This study by the Capital Research Center documents a shadowy web into which nearly $600 million flowed in 2017, the most recent year for which tax returns are available. Operating under the aegis of “philanthropy,” this network is housed in and staffed by a for-profit, privately held consultancy called Arabella Advisors, LLC.* Arabella manages four nonprofit entities—the New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Windward Fund, and Hopewell Fund—each of which shares an address and interlocking officers with Arabella.

The Arabella Advisors network includes over 340 different entities/projects.

Philanthropic advising is lucrative for Arabella, in part because its clients are so wealthy: it claims its donors’ assets are worth more than $100 billion. Between 2007 and 2017, Arabella’s four nonprofit Funds paid a combined $76 million in management fees to Arabella Advisors. Some of the nation’s largest grantmaking institutions, including the Rockefeller, Packard, and Kellogg Foundations are donors to the funds managed by Arabella. It remains unclear why such large and powerful institutions seek outside philanthropic consulting, but presumably a significant part of Arabella’s appeal lies in its ability to obscure large financial transactions.

The line between philanthropy and political advocacy at Arabella is blurry indeed. Most of the projects hosted by the four Funds and financed by Arabella’s donors advocate for controversial positions on social issues, for the expansion of government—or both. Yet thanks to the unique financial arrangements of the network and the lack of donor disclosure, it is impossible to trace which organization pays for the various campaigns and political movements spawned by Arabella’s Funds.

According to the nonprofit organizations’ tax returns, between 2013 and 2017, the Arabella network received a staggering $1.6 billion in contributions, which it has used to advance its donors’ agendas through dozens of “front” groups and “astroturf” initiatives. The Arabella network of funds is also growing rapidly: from 2013 to 2017, the network’s revenues grew by an incredible 392 percent. Arabella’s network often plays host to highly influential groups on the Left. For example, the Democracy Alliance, a network of donors co-founded by billionaire George Soros, has used the New Venture Fund and Sixteen Thirty Fund to host at least eight projects that don’t disclose their original funders. While financial information for the 2018 election year has not been disclosed, the Arabella network will likely show continued steep revenue growth.

Revenues of the nonprofit entities managed by Arabella Advisors: New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Windward Fund, and Hopewell Fund. These organizations collected a combined $1.6 billion in revenue from 2013-2017. Between 2016 and 2017, revenues jumped 41 percent.

The mainstream media rarely mention any part of the Arabella empire, but in 2018 a Politico report on the Sixteen Thirty Fund—which is exempt under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code—described that portion of the empire as a “liberal secret-money network” in which nonprofit groups spend millions of dollars to shape elections and policy “even while criticizing ‘dark money’ and its effects on politics. . . . They have aired 6,885 broadcast TV ads [during the 2018 election campaign], according to Advertising Analytics, a TV tracking firm—more than the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and almost as many as [the Koch-supported] Americans for Prosperity, two of the five biggest nonprofit political advertisers focused on the House and Senate in the first half of this year.”

Despite the vast scope of Arabella’s influence, its “dark money” network goes largely ignored by media outlets. In the last year, mainstream outlets published 47 stories about Arabella Advisors or its four funding vehicles—most mentioning the network only in passing. In contrast, the Koch network appeared 189 times in the same outlets, and the coverage included much more thorough reporting than anything written on Arabella.**

The size and scope of the Arabella network of funds demonstrates that far more “dark money” exists on the left side of the political spectrum than has been previously admitted. Before left-of-center politicians and activists demand laws to increase government disclosure of donors who fund campaigns and public policy advocacy, they should consider voluntarily disclosing their own donors.

RELATED ARTICLE: Blood Money: How Qatar Bought Off the Entire DC Media Establishment

RELATED VIDEO: Blood Money.

NOTES:

* “Arabella Advisors, LLC” is organized in Virginia and was originally named “Arabella Philanthropic Investment Advisors, LLC.” Despite the name change, as of April 1, 2019, the Certificate of Authority to do business in the District of Columbia is still under the original name. In addition, according to the online records of the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, Arabella Advisors, LLC (under either name) does not have a general business license to conduct business in the District of Columbia, as is required by D.C. Code §47-2851.03d(a).

**  A LexisNexis search of the terms “Arabella Advisors,” “New Venture Fund,” “Sixteen Thirty Fund,” “Hopewell Fund,” and “Windward Fund” in major media outlets showed nine results when refined for duplicated content. Using LexisNexis to search “Koch” within three words of “network” of the same media outlets showed 189 stories with no obvious duplicate entries. Both searches were limited in time span from March 22, 2018, to March 22, 2019.

† This is the number of individual projects/campaigns CRC has been able to identify.

The New Venture Fund lists the number of its various projects here.

Unless otherwise noted, all revenue, expenditure, and growth figures come from Form 990’s filed with the IRS by the nonprofit organizations from 2013 to 2017.

Read the full report here.

ICE Field Operation Liberated Hundreds of Jobs — Interior enforcement of immigration laws helps American workers.

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On April 3, 2019, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) posted a news release: ICE executes federal criminal search warrant in North Texas which announced the administrative arrest of more than 280 aliens who were found to be working illegally at CVE Technology Group Inc. and four of CVE’s staffing companies.

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) is the division of ICE that conducted this highly effective field investigation which constitutes an element of the interior enforcement mission of our immigration laws.

The news release included this excerpt:

HSI is the federal law enforcement agency responsible for upholding the laws established by the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which requires employers to verify the identity and work eligibility of individuals they hire.

These laws help protect jobs for U.S. citizens and lawful U.S. residents, eliminate unfair competitive advantages for companies that unlawfully hire an illegal workforce, and strengthen public safety and national security.

Unauthorized workers often use stolen identities of legal U.S. workers, which can profoundly damage for years the identity-theft victim’s credit, medical records and other aspects of their everyday life.

HSI’s worksite enforcement investigators help combat worker exploitation, illegal wages, child labor and other illegal practices. Work site enforcement investigations often involve additional criminal activity, such as alien smuggling, human trafficking, money laundering, document fraud, worker exploitation and/or substandard wage and working conditions.

Immigration anarchists frequently justify their opposition to the enforcement of our immigration laws by making emotional appeals about how illegal immigration is all about desperate people who simply want to be able to live better lives. They often even raise the oxymoronic notion of enabling illegal aliens to achieve “the American dream.”

Indeed, the DREAM Act was actually an acronym for “Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act.”

Compassion, however, is never a consideration for hapless American and lawful immigrant workers who lose their jobs to illegal aliens or suffer wage suppression because of the massive influx of illegal alien workers.

The rhetoric about how immigrants (actually illegal aliens) do the work Americans won’t do leaves out the second half of that sentence, that Americans won’t do those jobs for substandard wages under dangerous substandard conditions.

It is infuriating that the “American Dream” has become ever more elusive for Americans and lawful immigrants, particularly among America’s minority communities, while political con artists have the chutzpah to invoke the imagery of the “American Dream” to create the DREAM Act.

When the DREAM Act scam was properly voted down by Congress, President Obama created the sequel to the DREAM Act, DACA: Deferred Action Childhood Arrival, by Obama’s capricious executive caveat.

Employers who intentionally hire illegal aliens do so not out of compassion but a desire to exploit vulnerable workers, paying them substandard wages under conditions that are often so substandard as to be illegally dangerous.

There is nothing compassionate about exploitation!

Furthermore, as the ICE news release reported, many aliens who work illegally not only violate our immigration laws and take the jobs Americans need, but frequently engage in identity theft and commit other crimes.

Anyone who has ever fallen victim to identity theft can attest to how profoundly this crime has deleteriously impacted their lives.

Illegal immigration is anything but a “victimless crime.”

Economists are always concerned about unemployment rates and with the number of jobs that are created or lost by the American economy but omit the critical issues of whether American workers are gaining or losing jobs and how their wages are increasing or stagnating.

Political candidates on all levels of government frequently claim that if elected they would help new companies to create more jobs. Creating new jobs can be a risky and time-consuming proposition.

However, just as it is said that “A penny saved is a penny earned,” I would argue that a job that is liberated is no different from a job that is created. Effective enforcement of our immigration laws can result in jobs being liberated — that is to say, freed up by removing aliens who are working illegally thereby immediately providing Americans and lawful immigrants with those jobs.

Investigations into the willful employment of illegal aliens is known as “Worksite Investigations” and can help to put Americans to work and enable them to support themselves and their families.

To put this specific case into proper perspective, the HSI agents who participated in this field investigation liberated at least 280 jobs, making them immediately available for American and lawful immigrant workers.

Radical Democrats who have created “Sanctuary Cities” and demonize immigration law enforcement officers are now calling for the removal of any criminal penalties provided in the Immigration and Nationality Act for aliens who enter the United States without inspection, even though Senator Schumer has proposed legislation that would have made trespassing on critical infrastructure and national landmarks a federal crime with a five-year prison sentence to deter trespassing.

Cheap labor is anything but cheap, as I noted in my recent article, “Open Borders Facilitate America’s Race To The Bottom.”

Not only is there no compassion in exploitation of foreign workers, there is certainly no compassion in acting against the interests of American workers and their families.

Today more foreign workers enter the United States each year than the number of new jobs that are created. America’s generous immigration policies permit more than one million lawful immigrants to enter the United States each year. Additionally a human tsunami of illegal aliens enter the United States, as exemplified by the crisis on our southern border. Finally, hundreds of thousands of aliens who are lawfully admitted into the United States as non-immigrants violate the terms of the admission, not only by remaining in the United States after their authorized period of admission has expired, but by otherwise violating their terms of admission, frequently involving their illegal employment in the United States.

The Immigration and Nationality Act, as it now exists, would provide strong tools to combat illegal employment of aliens in the United States. However, what is lacking is an adequate number of ICE agents to actually enforce these important laws, resulting in Immigration Failures By Design.

Sanctuary Cities further encourage illegal immigration and hobble efforts to enforce our nation’s immigration laws.

Today there are roughly 6,000 ICE agents for the entire United States of America and more than half of their time is not dedicated to the enforcement of our immigration laws but customs laws and other non-immigration laws.

So, while mandatory E-Verify would be helpful to end the employment of illegal aliens, without an adequate number of ICE agents to conduct field investigations, unscrupulous employers will easily game the system by hiring illegal aliens “off the books” or otherwise defraud the immigration system.

Advocates for “Immigration Reform” are determined to undermine any efforts or resources to enforce our immigration laws and/or secure our borders.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in FrontPage Magazine and is republished with permission.

PODCAST: Julian Assange There Are No Coincidences

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Julian Assange was arrested last Thursday [April 11, 2019] in London and faces a charge in the United States of conspiring to hack into a Pentagon computer network in 2010. He has been holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in Britain to avoid capture as the U.S. unseals the hacking conspiracy Indictment.

Coincidence or Part of the Plan?

So do you think it is by accident, by mere coincidence that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested? I believe not. It is part of the plan as the de-classification has begun. The investigators are being investigated. The deep state is in panic mode. Julian Assange is being sought after for the alleged conspiring with Bradley (Chelsea) Manning in the hacking of government computers. Some consider Assange to be guilty of espionage and many others, including Ron Paul, consider Assange to be a hero. I am in the hero camp.

We have begun to witness many events rapidly unfolding since the Comey collusion delusion hoax has proven to be a failed treasonous coupe d’ etat attempt against this great and duly elected President Donald Trump. One such event, is the arrest of Julian Assange, which will prove to be a monumental event. Why? Because once under oath in the United States, Assange will reveal and confirm what we have known all along. Assange has the goods. Assange has the e-mails, the source files, the evidence and he will reveal all we need to know under oath.

Will we hear under oath and review such documents surrounding uranium one? Russia and the dems? The revelation of the e-mails? Will we come to learn just who put the hit on Seth Rich? Seems to me Assange being returned to the U.S courts is in line with what the President is doing as a multi-faceted de-class mission. Even if Assange is somehow found guilty (he may not be), in the court of law, as I understand it, the sentence for this act could be five years. If this is the outcome, I would suspect that President Trump will pardon him. Again, time will tell. Stay tuned. It’s just begun.

RELATED ARTICLES:

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The Poison of Main Stream Media Propaganda

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If people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand that difference, and choose their news sources accordingly. Thomas Sowell

The media has brainwashed the electorate to expect the government to do something. The best economic policy of any government is to do nothing but reduce the size of the government, reduce the size of the laws, and reduce the size of regulations. Marc Faber

There is no greater tyranny, than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.  Montesquieu

Maxine Waters was last year’s cheerleader for publicly confronting and harassing Trump administration members.  Now we’ve degenerated even further into the foul-mouthed language against our President from Muslim Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, and the anti-Semitic diatribes from Muslim Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.  There is no respect for the office.  The last two years were disgusting enough with Pelosi and Schumer, now it has sunk into the depths of depravity.  “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”  I Peter 5:8 perfectly describes this evil.

The socialist (communist) Democratic Party and their propaganda arm, the lapdogs in the main stream media (MSM), have pushed their bias, lies and distorted views of anything Trump to the level of violence.

We can thank the 1964 NYTs v. Sullivan decision which removed libel and slander from the province of state law and state courts.  Supreme Court Justice William Brennan set out the rule that reshaped libel law with his majority opinion. A public official could recover in a libel action only if and when a court found that the libelous statement about the official was made with “actual malice”—that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.  As long as the press has an “absence of malice,” public officials are barred from recovering damages for the publication of false statements about them.

And just how does one now prove actual malice?  They can’t, and thus reputations of public figures are destroyed or promoted at will by the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party, our MSM, the experts in brainwashing.

Perhaps Benjamin Franklin’s famous adage needs an update.  “The only thing certain in life is death and taxes” …and lies from the media.

Attacks on Politicos

The propaganda via the MSM has also affected Americans who fully believe media’s duplicity and deception.  There are many examples.  Former Director Kirsten Nielsen of the Department of Homeland Security was accosted and driven out of a Mexican Restaurant where she and her party had chosen to dine.

Back in June of 2018, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and other diners in her party were asked to leave by the owner of The Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia.  They immediately left.  Sarah and her husband went home, but the rest of the family went across the street to another restaurant, where the owner of the Red Hen, Stephanie Wilkinson, followed them and tried to get them tossed from that restaurant as well.  As of September of 2018, the entire town is still struggling to recover its image as a welcoming community. The whole town faced a backlash after The Red Hen refused to serve Sanders and her family.  Cordiality is now a thing of the past.

Even Senator Mitch McConnell and his wife, Transportation Secretary, Elaine Chao were attacked by a mob.

And Vice President Pence was lectured from the Broadway stage as he sat in the audience watching the play, Hamilton.

This is what both media and Democrats like Maxine Waters are promoting.  Congresswoman Waters needs to lose her next election to Republican Omar Navarro.

Propaganda Spreads Nationwide

We all saw the expressions of hatred for Trump via Kathy Griffin and even the Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar wherein a Trump looking Caesar is murdered.  We even saw pictures of school teachers, in front of their classes, pretending to shoot a holograph of our President.  There has been far more and far worse.  Imagine the outrage and banishment of anyone who would have tried that with Barack Hussein Obama.

This evil has spread to Americans who now believe it is politically and publicly condoned to attack anyone they disagree with, especially those with a MAGA hat or a Trump t-shirt.

A Texas teen at a fast food Whataburger Restaurant had his MAGA hat grabbed by the server and a drink thrown in his face.  Yes, an adult did this to a youngster just because he had on a MAGA hat.  As he threw the drink, he screamed at the teen, “The President you ain’t supporting.”

Just recently a 74-year-old Jewish man wearing a MAGA hat was having coffee in a Starbucks and a crazed socialist Democrat lackey starting screaming that he was a NAZI and asking others to join in.  Rebecca Mankey, took a picture of Victor inside Starbucks and posted it to her Facebook page (which is now deactivated), with a tirade, calling on others to confront Victor if they see him.  Read the full story here.

This is what the Democratic socialists (communists) and their propaganda arm in the main stream media have given us.  Propriety, civility, public decorum, common courtesy and human dignity have been discarded by the brainwashed fools who listen to the propaganda arm of the Democratic socialists.

Media Propaganda Hits Home

Several months ago, a dear friend of 45 years, who happens to be a black American gal, called me regarding Donald Trump and racism.  We lived catty corner from each other years back when our children were young, and we constantly talked, ran to each other’s homes, and even helped decorate our homes together.  Her oldest daughter attended Catholic school, and I sewed her plaid outfits for her.

Over the years we kept in touch despite the moves, and went on cruises together with our hubbies, talked about our pets, our children and our faith in God.  And when we hurt, we called each other even in the middle of the night.  She and her husband were highly educated; both of them made over six figure incomes when they were working.

After her husband passed suddenly a good dozen years ago, my friend has been in our home numerous times and once even brought one of her friends with her.  We have had years of fun and friendship together.  I cannot express how much I love this sweet Christian gal, who sings like an angel and can dance up a boogie-woogie storm.

Yet, in these 45 or more years I have never discussed politics with her, and she never with me, until Trump. She has called me twice and claimed Trump was a racist.

Why? Because when the neo-Nazis and the white supremacists got in a battle with each other in Charlottesville, VA in August of 2017 over a Confederate monument, the media lied about what the President said, and my friend’s excuse for saying he’s a racist is because she believes the lie.  This is her only excuse to call President Trump a racist.

I tried to explain the truth to her.  I gave her many examples and even mentioned to her that as a Christian with four children of her own, how could she vote for anyone who wasn’t pro-life.  This over 45 year very close friendship may have come to an end because of the propaganda of the MSM and there is little I can do to dissuade her.

Running for President Made Trump a Racist

President Trump was never called a racist and bigot until he ran as the 2016 Republican presidential candidate.  Before then, he was well liked by many liberal celebrities from Oprah Winfrey to Michael Jackson. Trump was known as a bombastic businessman, but he always had a pretty diverse circle of friends. Even on his show, The Apprentice, the contestants and celebrities were from all backgrounds, genders and ethnicities.

In the 1990s, Donald Trump worked with the Rainbow-PUSH coalition to help bring more black Americans and minorities into corporate America. Jesse Jackson was so impressed that, in 1999, he praised Trump for a lifetime of helping the African American community. That’s right, a lifetime, not just one day, or one hour…

In 1986, Trump was awarded the Ellis Island award for contributing to bettering the conditions of inner-city black youths.  He is standing alongside Muhammed Ali, and Rosa Parks.

I also explained to my dear friend that over 30 years ago, Donald Trump upset the applecart of racism in the elite clubs of Palm Beach, Florida.  He fought until the old “gentlemen’s agreement” went the way of the horse and carriage and all clubs in the area opened their doors to both Jewish and black folks as he did when he opened Mar-a-Lago.  They fought him, but he persevered and won against their racist policies.

Lynne Patton, a lovely black gal who has worked for the Trumps for a dozen years, now heads Region II of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which oversees New York and New Jersey.  Her boss is Dr. Ben Carson, Secretary of HUD.  Lynne originally worked for Eric Trump’s Foundation and was even the wedding planner for Eric’s wedding.  She even cast two of Trump’s Apprentice programs.

She, and others I’ve spoken to have told me point blank that Trump is the least racist person they’ve ever known.  Lynne has openly stated that as a daughter of a Birmingham, Alabama father, she would never work for someone who was a racist.  When I told my dear friend this, she said she no longer liked Ben Carson.

The true statistics of non-whites hired by the Trump organization in all departments including upper management shows an abundance of blacks, Hispanics, Asians and other people of color.  What counts with Trump is ability and loyalty, not your color, your faith or your ethnic background.

Obviously, Diamond and Silk adore our President and are seen on Fox News at least once a week.  They were even at several of Trump’s campaign rallies.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, the things I told my friend did not resonate with her.  She believes the propaganda spewed by the media to destroy Trump and his supporters is absolute truth.  She has been brainwashed by the lies of the MSM…lies they’re allowed to spout on a daily basis because of the 1964 Supreme Court decision in NYTs v. Sullivan.

I’m still shocked that after knowing me for 45 years that she would think that I could possibly vote for anyone who was a racist.  I’m not sure if she was trying to convince me to not support Trump or if she thought I had some racist tendencies.  As heartbroken as I was after her last call, I phoned another friend, a gracious black gentleman who is married to a beautiful white woman and they totally understood and comforted me.

The media and the Democratic Party have completely destroyed our once most cordial and genteel culture.  We have become a nation filled with hatred and violence against those who do not buy into the Marxist worldview.  Daily, they spread their poison.

What the left hates about Donald Trump is the same thing they hate about America, that the typical American still loves God, family and country.

RELATED ARTICLE: Who’s Worse—Julian Assange or the New York Times and Washington Post?

VIDEO EXPOSE: Vicious Anti-Semitism at University of North Carolina and Duke University

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United With Israel in a column titled “SHOCKING: Rampant Anti-Semitism at US College’s ‘Gaza’ Conference” wrote:

Ami Horowitz exposes how a thin veneer of anti-Israel sentiment hides an ocean of open anti-Semitism at a recent conference on the Gaza conflict.

Filmmaker Ami Horowitz made some disturbing discoveries at a Gaza conference on the conflict in Gaza organized by the University of North Carolina and Duke University.

From the speakers to the entertainment, Ami quickly discovers anti-Israel sentiment is no more than a flimsy disguise for open anti-Semitism.

The fact that hate like this is acceptable at an American university in 2019 is absolutely horrifying.

The Daily Wire published this video titled “Ami on the Move: Open Anti-Semitism At UNC And Duke Conference” on its YouTube channel:

RELATED ARTICLE: One third of Americans do not believe six million Jews were murdered in Holocaust

ACLU Attacks Florida Legislature’s Effort to Ban Sanctuary Cities

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Florida Senator Joe Gruters (R-District 23) has sponsored Senate Bill 168 to ban sanctuary cities in the Sunshine State. SB 168 reads,

Federal Immigration Enforcement; Prohibiting sanctuary policies; requiring state entities, local governmental entities, and law enforcement agencies to use best efforts to support the enforcement of federal immigration law; authorizing a law enforcement agency to transport an alien unlawfully present in the United States under certain circumstances; prohibiting discrimination on specified grounds, etc.

The bill is moving forward in the Florida legislature. Governor Ron DeSantis is pushing the legislature to get the bill to his desk for signing.

There is an effort by the ACLU to demonize those who support the bill, including Senator Gruters. In an email to constituents Senator Gruters wrote:

The ACLU is on the attack against my efforts to ban sanctuary cities & counties (click to read tweet) and many have asked me to comment on their rhetoric. (Scroll down to read an article covering their attack).

My take: At best, the ACLU simply doesn’t get it. At worst, they are disingenuously engaging in fear tactics in an effort to defeat my legislation banning sanctuary cities.

Let me be clear… Florida is always open to law abiding people – no matter their country of origin or skin color – and once my legislation passes, the only thing that will change in our state is that we will be closed to criminal illegal aliens!

Also – casually tossing around or alluding to me, or anyone else who supports cracking down on criminal illegal aliens, as being “racist” isn’t just getting old, it’s giving cover to real racists.

The people see right through the ACLU’s crazy rhetoric and it’s not going to stop me from working my tail off to ban sanctuary cities in Florida!

-Joe

ARTICLE: ACLU Issues Florida Travel Advisory for ‘Immigrants and People of Color’

The same old canard of racism is being thrown around once again to protect MS13 gang members, human trafficking, drug dealers and those in Florida who are here illegally.

Illegal aliens harm Floridians in many ways. It is estimated that Florida annually spends $5 billion to educate, incarcerate and medicate illegal aliens. That is $5 billion dollars that could be returned to legal citizens of the Sunshine State.

According to News-Press contributor Christopher Crowley,

Illegal immigration is a serious problem facing the United States and Florida. Illegal immigrants take jobs from lower-skilled American workers as well as depress overall wages. In 2017, the Center for Immigration Studies reported a disproportionate number of illegal immigrants committed federal crimes. Data regarding illegal immigrants in Florida State Courts simply does not exist. However, as a former state prosecutor and current criminal trial attorney for twenty years in Southwest, Florida, I personally witnessed thousands of illegal aliens appear in felony Court on a host of serious criminal charges.

Watch this One America News Network video titled “The Cost of Illegal Immigration.”

The Democrats and the ACLU are no longer helping Americans and Floridians. They are enabling law breakers.

RELATED VIDEO: Eliseo Medina Speaks on Immigrants for Progressive Votes.

Documents Detailing Google’s ‘News Blacklist’ Show Manual Manipulation Of Special Search Result

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Google does manipulate its search results manually, contrary to the company’s official denials, documents obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller indicate.

Two official policies dubbed the “misrepresentation policy” and the “good neighbor policy” inform the company’s “XPA news blacklist,” which is maintained by Google’s Trust & Safety team. “T&S will be in charge of updating the blacklist as when there is a demand,” reads one of the documents shared with The Daily Caller.

“The deceptive_news domain blacklist is going to be used by many search features to filter problematic sites that violate the good neighbor and misrepresentation policies,” the policy document says.

That document reads that it was, “approved by gomes@, nayak@, haahr@ as of 8/13/2018.” Ben Gomes is Google’s head of search, who reports directly to CEO Sundar Pichai. Pandu Nayak is a Google Fellow, and Paul Haahr is a software engineer, whose bio on Google’s internal network Moma indicates that he is also involved in, “fringe ranking: not showing fake news, hate speech, conspiracy theories, or science/medical/history denial unless we’re sure that’s what the user wants.”

“The purpose of the blacklist will be to bar the sites from surfacing in any Search feature or news product. It will not cause a demotion in the organic search results or de-index them altogether,” reads the policy document obtained by The Daily Caller. What that means is that targeted sites will not be removed from the “ten blue links” portion of search results, but the blacklist applies to most of the other search features, like “top news,” “videos” or the various sidebars that are returned as search results.

In a section of the memo entitled “Eligibility for GNP [Good Neighbor Policy] enforcement,” the types of search results impacted by the policy are described:

“If your product shows any of the following, Misrep and GNP would apply to your PA.

  • Shows content from users and news publishers (percieved 3P voice). Ex: UGC, News corpus, etc.
  • Outputs single answers (perceived to come from the open web). Ex: Web answers, Video answers, etc.
  • Shows content owned, licensed, or edited by Google (perceived to come directly from Google). Ex: Knowledge panels, News summaries, Oneboxes, Munin carousels, etc.”

The “ten blue links” may not be impacted by the blacklist, but virtually every other kind of Google search result is. While hard numbers are not available for how much traffic is directed through the ten links versus the other search blocks, since the latter appear so high on the results page, the impact could be significant.

“Focus on the user,” said a source at Google who described the program to The Daily Caller. “Users need to trust any content that Google shows them, whether it’s the ten blue links or other special search results.”

Sundar Pichai testified before the House Judiciary Committee on December 11 of last year. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) asked why a search for the term “idiot” returned a photo of President Trump. In response, Pichai said “This is working at scale, we don’t manually intervene on any particular search result.”

A memo about the deceptive news blacklist was also obtained by the Daily Caller, showing its last edit as December 3, 2018, a week before Pichai’s congressional testimony This document, which describes the process by which a site can be blacklisted for deceptive news, clearly shows that there is a manual component:

“The beginning of the workflow starts when a website is placed on a watchlist which is used for monitoring of sites to determine if they violate the Good Neighbor Policy. This watchlist is maintained and stored by Ares with access restricted to policy & enforcement specialists working on the Good Neighbor Policy. Access to the listing can also be shared at the discretion of pcounsel and legal investigations on a need to know basis to enforce or enrich the policy violations. The investigation of the watchlist is done in the tool Athena, the Ares manual review tool, and intakes signals from Search, Webspan, and Ares in order to complete reviews. … Once a domain is determined to be violating the misrepresentation policy or the Good Neighbor Policy, such patterns are then added to deceptive_news_blacklist_domains.txt by the Trust & Safety team.”

The document indicates that there is, among other things, a “manual review tool” involved in maintaining the blacklist.

On the blacklist are a number of conservative sites, including Gateway Pundit, Matt Walsh’s blog, Gary North’s blog “teapartyeconomist.com,” Caroline Glick’s website, Conservative Tribune, a property of The Western Journal, and the website of the American Spectator.

“You can’t trust the human judgment of Google’s Trust and Safety team,” said the source at Google with knowledge of their practices.

Requests for comment from Google’s press team have gone unreturned as of publication time.

COLUMN BY

J. Arthur Bloom

Deputy Editor of The Daily Caller. Follow J. Arthur Bloom on Twitter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission.

The TEA Party is Back with ‘Stop Socialism Choose Freedom’ Rallies on April 15th!

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President Trump has our economy booming. Unemployment claims are at an unprecedented 50 year low. There are more jobs available than there are workers to fill them.

And yet, every Democrat presidential candidate is on a mad dash to socialism. If a Democrat is elected president in 2020, we will be thrust back to the depressing days of Obama’s failed economy; record high numbers of Americans on food stamps, unemployment and disability. Democrats are like drug dealers seeking to insidiously addict Americans to government dependency solely to control their lives, behavior and voting loyalty.

From the beginning of the Tea Party movement, I traveled the country on numerous national Tea Party bus tours, speaking and performing my song, “American Tea Party Anthem” at over 500 Tea Party rallies nationwide.

Reflecting back to Obama’s horrible economy, I fondly remember the five dollar lady. After my performance on stage at a rally in Texas, I was approached by a humble woman. She thanked me for what our team of patriots was doing for our country. She explained that Obama’s anti-business policies cost her husband, a trucker, his job. With tears in her eyes, she grabbed my hand with both her hands, giving me a crumpled up five dollar bill for gas for our tour bus. I instinctively knew that five dollars was a huge contribution from her. The five dollar lady drove home the importance of our mission and responsibility to push back against Obama’s plan to transform America into a socialist nation.

On April 15th, Stop Socialism Choose Freedom Rallies are scheduled across America; 300 thus far with more added daily. Yes, the Tea Party is back. Please join us.

Actually, the Tea Party never went away. We matured, working behind the scenes to elect conservatives, becoming less visible. I became Chairman of the Conservative Campaign Committee, traveling the country helping to elect conservatives in House and Senate races. 

With their every attempt to remove Trump from office failing, the evil coalition of Democrats, fake news and the deep state have become totally deranged. They seek to create a race war and violence on Trump supporters while arrogantly breaking laws. No sacrifice is too large or scheme too low if it will remove Trump from of the White House.

Democrats’ extreme lawless resistance requires the Tea Party to become highly visible again. The Tea Party is the righteous legal-resistance to Democrats’ deranged, violent and illegal-resistance.

I am excited to announce that 34% of those who attended Trump’s latest rally in Michigan were registered Democrats. Trump is also winning blacks, Hispanics and millennials. 

This means despite fake news media’s 24/7 lies, deceptions and distortions about Trump, more Americans are beginning to discern that Trump is good for America. Lets pull formerly duped Americans into our Tea Party fold to rally behind our president.

Please allow me to address Democrats’ and fake news media’s despicable hate-generating lie that says the Tea Party and Trump are racist. I am a proud black American who attended over 500 Tea Party rallies nationwide. I was showered with patriot love and appreciation. Trump has an excellent record of hiring blacks. Blacks are experiencing unprecedented prosperity under Trump; historic low unemployment. 

Brother and sister Americans who love our country, lets join together to save America by keeping Trump in the White House. Please sign on to participate in the April 15th, Stop Socialism Choose Freedom Rallies. 

Thirty-two year old Todd Beamer was an American passenger aboard United Airlines Flight 93 which was hijacked as part of the Islamic terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Beamer lead a band of courageous fellow passengers in an attempt to regain control of the aircraft from the hijackers. During the struggle, control was lost of the aircraft. It crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, saving the hijackers’ intended target which prevented the murder of more Americans. Upon the passengers launching their attack, Beamer said, “Let’s roll.”

Yes, the Tea Party is back! Quoting heroic American Todd Beamer, “Let’s roll.”

RELATED ARTICLE: Tea Party Backs ‘Stop Socialism, Choose Freedom’ Rallies on Tax Day

VIDEO: Unmasking the Corruption Behind San Francisco’s Cycle of Homelessness

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“Talking to the people that I’ve talked to, I realized that there is a petri dish of ideologies that a lot of people have, and they run the spectrum from complete anarchy to complete socialism. And because I don’t think it’s sustainable, one thing is going to happen: It’s just going to collapse on itself.”

From the filth on the streets to the filth in city hall, Colion Noir pulls the mask off the city of San Francisco, exposing the real reasons behind a homelessness epidemic that’s only getting worse.

“It’s startling how much degeneracy and homelessness and open drug use exist in what is supposed to be a shining beacon of a city… Overwhelmingly, I just could not help but get this feeling that there’s a lot of enabling going on.”

Liberal policies in San Francisco have created a parasitic population of vagrants who thrive off the system, which, in turn, fills the pocket books and bolsters the power of the elites living within the city.

EDITORS NOTE: These NRA-ILA videos with commentary are republished with permission.

The Senate’s Nuclear War over Confirmations

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President Trump may be halfway through his first term, but he still has jobs to fill. Unfortunately for him, hiring hasn’t exactly been the easiest thing in a Senate full of Democrats desperately trying to run out the clock on his presidency.

It’s not a new problem, but it’s certainly an exacerbating one. Presidents throughout modern history have had to deal with the minority party’s shenanigans to confirm everyone from U.S. ambassadors to executive branch bureaucrats. As usual, though, Donald Trump seems to bring out the worst in liberals, who’ve been engaged in record-setting obstruction to stop the White House from getting its personnel in place. “If we don’t stop this behavior now,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned, “it will become the norm.”

Apart from the lightning-fast pace of judicial nominees, Senate Republicans have had a devil of a time getting lower-rung nominees through Senator Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) party. Even after a cloture vote, Democrats have been forcing another 30 hours of debate on the chamber for every nominee — not because it affected the outcome, but because it made the process as painful as possible for Republicans. By prolonging the vote, Democrats had the satisfaction of watching the GOP business grind to a halt.

Senators James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) were tired of the games and wanted to cut down the debate to just two hours, especially since the chamber would have already voted on whether or not to proceed with a name. “Just imagine if Democrats’ behavior over the past two years becomes the norm,” Senator John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters. “Presidents could be waiting years to adequately staff their administrations, and the Senate would be perpetually tied up on unnecessary cloture votes, leaving less and less ti[m]e to actually do the business of governing.”

What’s been especially frustrating, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) pointed out, is that these delays have nothing to do with the nominees themselves. They’re just a protest vote against the president. “Over the past two years, some in this body have decided that they will oppose any nominee suggested by President Trump,” he argued.

On Wednesday, McConnell used what some call the “nuclear option” to change the Senate precedent. By a vote of 51-48, Republicans agreed to pick up the pace on Trump’s hires on everyone but cabinet, Supreme Court, and circuit court nominees. From now on, Democrats will only be able to slow things down for two extra hours — not 30. But not every Republican was a fan of the idea, as Senators Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Susan Collins (R-Maine.) made quite clear. The Senate, Lee argued, needs “to serve its deliberative function in our constitutional system… The current rules can work for the American people; they simply require us to do the same.”

For all of the worries that this will come back to bite Republicans, McConnell seemed well aware of the risks. Still, he said, this is about making the environment better for everyone. “… [A]bsent a change, these [delaying] tactics seem guaranteed to become standard practice for Senate minorities on both sides. I don’t think any of us want that in the future.”

Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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EDITORS NOTE: This FRC column is republished with permission.

Florida Is Ground Zero In Fight Against Sanctuary Cities

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Banning sanctuary cities has a very real chance of passing in Florida this year — and that’s creating an emotion-driven battle with Democrats and the open-borders lobby.

The sanctuary bill sponsored by Sarasota Republican Sen. Joe Gruters — who is also Chairman of the Republican Party of Florida — has become the most contentious issue of the year in the seemingly always-contentious Florida Legislature.

While such legislation has not gone anywhere in past sessions, it is fast-tracked this year with the Republican leadership structure all onboard. Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose popularity has swelled since his narrow election in November, is a major supporter of President Trump’s immigration and border security policies while former Gov. Rick Scott’s support on the issue was somewhat tepid.

So legislators in the GOP-controlled Legislature are pushing legislation that would clearly define what constitutes sanctuary policies — one of the problems plaguing the issue — and would prohibit any state or local governments from adopting such policies, formally or informally.

Of course the importance of Florida in national elections as the largest swing state in the nation is well-known. But it can also be a bellwether state as far as what is acceptable to the broader American electorate. With its huge population of immigrated Midwesterners, Southerners and Northeasterners, no state is more representative of America than Florida.

If a strong sanctuary city ban can be passed in Florida, then it may have the politically broad support that it seems to have in the polls. And that makes it a winner in 2020 for Republicans.

All of which is bringing out the long knives of the Democrat Left.

First came the press conferences with the most sympathetic representatives opposing a ban on sanctuary cities — young adults who were brought illegally as young children and are now allowed to stay here legally through DACA…but their parents are not. These people tell the stories of how hard it was growing up and not being able to travel freely or do some of the other things that legal American children could do because their families were not supposed to be here — although they are allowed to do all those things now. (Speakers included Florida State University students, so not suffering too badly.) Gratitude is not usually much a part of these dog-and-pony shows.

Second, the slime machine known as the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is slowly but steadily being discredited even in parts of the media, is still used by too many gullible or biased reporters as a legitimate source. And so the SPLC launched an attack on the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Gruters, by trying to tie him to what they describe as a hate group — the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR.

Here’s how Zac Anderson, the political reporter for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune put it, acting as a gullible tool for the SPLC as he has in the past against Republicans:

“Several people associated with the Federation for American Immigration Reform — an organization branded by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “hate group” — provided input to Sarasota state Sen. Joe Gruters and his staff as they worked to advance so-called “sanctuary city” immigration enforcement legislation.

An email obtained by the Herald-Tribune shows that David Jaroslav, the state and local legislative manager for FAIR, worked with Floridians for Immigration Enforcement to offer advice for Gruters’ staff on how to the defend the sanctuary bill against critics. Jaroslav emailed comments to Floridians for Immigration Enforcement President Kenneth Morrow Jr., who passed the comments on to Gruters’ staff.”

Notice the tenuousness of the connections. A person or people connected to FAIR (not a hate group) sent Gruter’s staff emails on how to defend against critics. But here’s the headline: “Members of alleged hate group linked to Sarasota legislator’s immigration bill.” Well that sounds a whole lot worse than was actually backed up in the article, which itself is a sham because it rests on the SPLC’s increasingly discredited hate list.

Of course, the branding of FAIR as a hate group when their policies are not hateful and their web site is very specifically opposed to any form of discrimination, is absurd. The SPLC takes two or three comments of the founder from 25-40 years ago, without context, and labels the group hateful to this day — exactly like they would never do with the far more extensive hateful and blatantly racist writings of, say, the founder of Planned Parenthood.

There continues to be this symbiotic relationship between the SPLC and willing dupes in the media. The SPLC has used both the Trump presidency to promote the misinformation that hate crimes are on the rise, and also success in media coverage hammering conservatives, as leverage for record amounts of fundraising — doubling funding since 2015. This, even while Politico, the Atlantic and others are increasingly questioning the SPLC’s legitimacy.

The bill’s definition of sanctuary cities is important. The primary reason there are officially no sanctuary cities or counties in Florida is because there is no agreed upon definition of what constitutes a sanctuary policy. But there are some communities who do not particularly cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials when the agency issues an immigration detainer asking police to hold someone who is suspected of being in the country illegally, along with other cooperative issues.

Expect more dirt and media complicity in the fight for the rule of law, and of order, in Florida — reflecting the rest of the country. And the front line of that fight is sanctuary cities.

RELATED ARTICLE: Poll: 67% Of Likely Voters Say Illegal Immigration Is A Serious Problem, Most Believe Democrats Don’t Want To Stop It 

EDITORS NOTE: This Revolutionary Act column is republished with permission.

Antonio Gramsci: the Godfather of Cultural Marxism

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There’s little debate that modern-day American universities, public education, mainstream media, Hollywood, and political advocacy groups are dominated by leftists. This is no accident, but part of a deliberate strategy to pave the way for communist revolution developed more than eight decades ago by an Italian political theorist named Antonio Gramsci.

Described as one of the world’s most important and influential Marxist theorists since Marx himself, if you are not familiar with Gramsci, you should be.

The Italian communist (1891 – 1937) is credited with the blueprint that has served as the foundation for the Cultural Marxist movement in modern America.

Later dubbed by 1960s German student activist Rudi Dutschke as “the long march through the institutions,” Gramsci wrote in the 1930s of a “war of position” for socialists and communists to subvert Western culture from the inside in an attempt to compel it to redefine itself.

Gramsci used war metaphors to distinguish between a political “war of position”—which he compared to trench warfare—and the “war of movement (or maneuver),” which would be a sudden full-frontal assault resulting in complete social upheaval.

In the 1998 book The Antonio Gramsci Reader, edited by David Forgacs, Gramsci’s development of a new form of strategy for ushering in the socialist revolution is made clear.

Gramsci argued that the Bolshevik Russian revolution of 1917 worked because the conditions were ripe for such a sudden upheaval. He described the Russian revolution as an example of a “war of movement” due to its sudden and complete overthrow of the existing governing structure of society. Gramsci reasoned that in Russia in 1917, “the state was everything, civil society was primordial and gelatinous.”

As such, a direct attack on the current rulers could be effective because there existed no other significant structure or institutions of political influence that needed to be overcome.

In Western societies, by contrast, Gramsci observed that the state is “only an outer ditch” behind which lies a robust and sturdy civil society.

Gramsci believed that the conditions in Russia in 1917 that made revolution possible would not materialize in more advanced capitalist countries in the West. The strategy must be different and must include a mass democratic movement, an ideological struggle.

His advocacy of a war of position instead of a war of movement was not a rebuke of revolution itself, just a differing tactic—a tactic that required the infiltration of influential organizations that make up civil society. Gramsci likened these organizations to the “trenches” in which the war of position would need to be fought.

The massive structures of the modern democracies, both as state organizations, and as complexes of associations in civil society, constitute for the art of politics as it were the “trenches” and the permanent fortifications of the front in the war of position: they render merely “partial” the element of maneuver which before used the “the whole” of war, etc.

Gramsci argued that a “frontal attack” on established institutions like governments in Western societies may face significant resistance and thus need greater preparation—with the main groundwork being the development of a collective will among the people and a takeover of leadership among civil society and key political positions.

It is important to bear in mind that Gramsci’s ultimate goal is still socialism and overthrow of the capitalist order. His contribution was to outline a different strategy for this to occur.

As described by Forgacs, “War of movement is a frontal assault on the state whereas war of position is conducted mainly on the terrain of civil society.”

Gramsci likened political “warfare” to military warfare, with his war of movement akin to the frontal assault of a rapid military attack upon the opening of a breach in the enemy’s defenses to attain a rapid and definitive victory.

In contrast, Gramsci likened war of position to trench warfare, settling in for a long-term struggle with strategic smaller victories to gain more territory bit by bit. The war of position is also characterized by an abundance of supplies to replenish the troops and “a great mass of men under arms.”

Gramsci argued that a war of position is necessary for advanced capitalist societies where civil society has become a “very complex structure” that is resistant to “incursions,” such as economic depressions, that would otherwise weaken the current power structure in terms of ideological support. In other words, civil society provided a support system for the current political structure and those in power who could help it withstand otherwise negative shocks like economic recessions.

Gramsci believed that in advanced capitalistic Western societies, the prevailing ideological support system for a capitalistic economic structure and bourgeois values would shield the current ruling class from any organized opposition.

As a result, he believed it essential to study in depth “which elements of civil society correspond to the defensive systems in a war of position.”

Gramsci defined civil society as the “ensemble of organisms commonly called ‘private.’”

More directly, he described civil society as that sphere of social activities and institutions not directly part of the government. Primary examples included political parties, trade unions, church organizations, and other popular voluntary associations.

Gramsci noted that dominant social groups in civil society organized consent and hegemony—they assumed a leadership position by the consent of members. Their leadership role includes fostering an ideological consensus among their members. Gramsci envisioned that these groups would organize their opposition to the existing social order.

Gramsci, however, viewed civil society in Western societies to be a strong defensive system for the current State, which in turn existed to protect the interest of the capitalist class.

“In the West, there was a proper relation between state and civil society, and when the state trembled a sturdy structure of civil society was at once revealed. The state was only an outer ditch, behind which there stood a powerful system of fortresses and earthworks,” he wrote. In short, in times when the state itself may have shown weakness to overthrow from opposing ideological forces, the institutions of civil society provided political reinforcement for the existing order.

In his view, a new collective will is required to advance this war of position for the revolution. To him, it is vital to evaluate what can stand in the way of this will, i.e. certain influential social groups with the prevailing capitalist ideologies that could impede this progress.

Gramsci spoke of organizations including churches, charities, the media, schools, universities and “economic corporate” power as organizations that needed to be invaded by socialist thinkers.

The new dictatorship of the proletariat in the West, according to Gramsci, could only arise out of an active consensus of the working masses—led by those critical civil society organizations generating an ideological hegemony.

As Gramsci described it, hegemony means “cultural, moral and ideological” leadership over allied and subordinate groups. The intellectuals, once ensconced, should attain leadership roles over these groups’ members by consent. They would achieve direction over the movement by persuasion rather than domination or coercion.

The goal of the war of position is to shape a new collective will of the masses in order to weaken the defenses that civil society provides to the current capitalist state.

Gramsci further emphasized the role of a political party to assume leadership and philosophical direction of all these civil society alliances. Additionally, and critically, one of the main goals of the party would be to place foot soldiers in the revolutionary war of position in actual state institutions, as well, such as legal institutions, police, councils, and influential bureaucracies. There needs to be established a foundation of socialists upon which to run the apparatus of the state once its overthrow was complete, Gramsci argued.

As Gramsci described it, a war of position involves a “passive revolution” of sorts; transitioning from the dominant bourgeois order to one of socialism without any violent social upheaval.

For social transition to occur, the “necessary conditions” in society must have “already been incubated,” according to Gramsci. Here he is referring to a new collective will among the masses that coincides with having the right people in strategic positions among civil society and state bureaucracies.

Gramsci pointed to the example of the Italian fascism of his time as an example of passive revolution. As he noted, economic fascism “consists in the fact that the economic structure is transformed in a ‘reformist’ way from an individualistic to a planned economy (command economy).” This “intermediate economy” could serve as the starting point for the next transition to total state control of the means of production, a transition that could occur “without radical and destructive cataclysms of an exterminating kind.”

Economic fascism takes a step toward collectivization of the means of production without seizing them from the capitalists, Gramsci argued. Fascism serves to “accentuate the ‘plan of production’ element” of the economic structure, making it easier to transition to complete collectivization. This shift helped to facilitate widespread acceptance of the notion of greater centralized control over production without actually wresting control over the means of production from the capitalists or eliminating profit. Yet.

Once all these conditions are in place—i.e. a new collective will, ideological control over institutions of civil society, revolutionaries in strategic positions in the state—the time would be right for the final and conclusive “war of movement.”

This full-frontal war of movement to overthrow the existing state and social order will be assured to not only be successful but also permanent. For according to Gramsci, “in politics, the ‘war of position’, once won, is decisive definitively.”

The Left’s “long march through the institutions” is a deliberate attempt to create conditions right for the final overthrow of our private property society. Their success would spell disaster.

COLUMN BY

Bradley Thomas

Bradley Thomas is creator of the website Erasethestate.com and is a libertarian activist and writer with nearly 15 years experience researching and writing on political philosophy and economics. Follow him on Twitter: ErasetheState @erasestate.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission.

55 Years of Carte Blanche Lies by the Main Stream Media

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Governments are composed of human beings, and all of the frailties that humans possess are absorbed into these governments and become active within these governments. Hatred, anger, jealousy, fear, greed, distrust and the whole host of afflictions that humans must bear, lurk just beneath the surface of civility displayed by government. – John McAfee

For the poison of hatred seated near the heart doubles the burden for the one who suffers the disease; he is burdened with his own sorrow, and groans on seeing another’s happiness. – Aeschylus

As soon as the 2016 election results came in, many on the left exploded in anger, smashing windows, setting fires, calling for Trump to be assassinated, and labeling his supporters bigots and sexists who should be murdered. Protesters burned Trump in effigy, and passed around a stuffed figure of Trump in a noose.

And then came the Russia Collusion Investigation, thanks to Rod Rosenstein’s appointment of Robert Mueller whose thirty-year modus operandi has destroyed countless lives. Link

Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, the nation’s former so-called spy master, James Clapper, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper, “If it weren’t for President Obama, we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set up a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today, including Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation. President Obama is responsible for that. It was he who tasked us to do that intelligence community assessment in the first place.”

There you have it, and despite the Russia collusion investigation being over, targeting President Trump for elimination will never be over.  We know all the players and we want them prosecuted for their corruption, but it’s highly unlikely they will ever be held accountable.

A stench has been emanating from the J. Edgar Hoover Building (FBI headquarters) for decades, but in the last 10 years the decay has become evident.  The brazen plot against President Trump by the Obama-era FBI and DOJ was enabled by a complicit media.

Defamation Law

The odor of corruption has long been noxious and truth is not forthcoming from media.  Why?  Because the 1964 Supreme Court decision in NYTs v. Sullivan gave media a “first amendment” right to lie with impunity about any public figure they wished to destroy or promote thus protecting them from most libel suits.

A public official could recover in a libel action only if and when a court found that the libelous statement about the official was made with “actual malice”—that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.  As long as the press has an “absence of malice,” public officials are barred from recovering damages for the publication of false statements about them.

Defamation law, the ability to sue someone for false attacks on your reputation, was governed by state law until 1964.  The landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S. Ct. 710, 11 L. Ed. 2d 686 (1964), extended the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech to libel cases brought by public officials. The Supreme Court sought to encourage “public debate” by changing the rules involving libel that had previously been the province of state law and state courts.

In the case of police Commissioner Sullivan, the State of Alabama found for him against NYTs libel and awarded him $500k which was upheld by the Alabama Supreme Court in 1962.  However, the very liberal Warren Court took up the case filed by the NYTs against Sullivan.

The unanimous Warren Supreme Court decision in New York Times Company v. Sullivan was argued on January 6-7, 1964 and decided on March 9, 1964.  It has proven to be one of the very worst decisions ever made by the supreme court.

Calls to Overturn NYTs v. Sullivan

Justice Clarence Thomas recently called for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the landmark 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan ruling. Thomas wrote that the New York Times ruling and follow-up cases “were policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law.”

President Donald Trump has called for overhauling the country’s libel laws to make it easier to sue.  He first mentioned the NYTs v. Sullivan case in 2016 when he campaigned in Alabama where the case originated.  He had previously asked why the media was allowed to lie and that is when I wrote my original article on this horrendous ruling.

Now L. Lin Wood, attorney for Covington High School student, Nicholas Sandmann has expounded on this horrible decision and how the ruling enables media to ruin reputations. Nick became the latest focus of false and defamatory accusations published and broadcast across the nation and the world.

Attorney Wood made it very clear on a recent Mark Levin program when he stated he was a believer in the first amendment but that it has no strings and no real value when there is no accountability for wrongdoing.  He explained that with the Nicholas Sandmann case, it was false speech by both social and main stream media (MSM) that threatened, attacked and vilified a minor child.

Watch the twelve-minute Mark Levin interview of Lin Wood’s discussion regarding the NYTs v. Sullivan decision and how it has affected all of society negatively.

VIDEO HERE:

55 Years of Media Deterioration

Attorney Wood was right when he mentioned the deterioration in the media, and over 55 years it has grown exponentially worse.  Mr. Wood said he has watched the media since the  Richard Jewell case, and it is horribly unhealthy.  He said, “There’s nothing valuable to our public discourse for people to simply go out and tell rumors, lies, make accusations with no sources and to be able to use the media and the First Amendment to, in effect, advance his or her or some corporation’s own agendas. That’s what happened to Nicholas. There’s a lot of agendas at work.”

Attorney Wood explained that the large corporations who own the media outlets have no objectivity and no fairness to them and are extensions of political parties who wish to influence the public instead of informing the public.  It used to be for media, “Get it first, but get it right.”  They’ve thrown out get it right and even get it first.  He says that if we don’t get accountability, the deterioration will continue.

The Russia Collusion Narrative

Efforts by high-ranking officials in the CIA, FBI, Department of Justice (DOJ), and State Department to portray President Donald Trump as having colluded with Russia were the culmination of years of bias and politicization under the Obama administration. The weaponization of the intelligence community and other government agencies created an environment that allowed for obstruction in the investigation into Hillary Clinton and the relentless pursuit of a manufactured collusion narrative against Trump.  Link

A willing and complicit media spread unsubstantiated leaks as facts in an effort to promote the Russia-collusion narrative. Worse yet was the “epic disconnect between the Robert Mueller described by the MSM and Officialdom as a model of public propriety and the Robert Mueller documented by independent researchers.  Rep. Louie Gohmert wrote a 15,500-word monograph exposing Mueller, and Louisiana State Senator John Milkovich wrote an entire book on Mueller.

The Spygate scandal also raises a bigger question: Was the 2016 election a one-time aberration, or was it symptomatic of decades of institutional political and media corruption?

Conclusion

Special Counsel Robert Mueller was given no restrictions regarding the collusion investigation from his appointee, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.  In fact, Rosenstein testified that he told Mueller he could investigate any crimes he uncovered in the Russia collusion investigation.

“Rod is a survivor,” dirty cop James Comey once said privately of Rosenstein, not meaning it as a compliment. Rosenstein’s survival helped Special Counsel Robert Mueller do his job absent interference. Every day Rosenstein didn’t resign bought the special counsel more time for character assassination against the President and his supporters. He needs to be fired for a host of reasons

.

The day Rosenstein is actually forced out will be a very good day.  Unfortunately, it won’t be soon enough. Attorney General William Barr has asked Rosenstein to remain despite the fact that as Deputy AG he allowed Mueller to carry out his modus operandi of intimidation and destruction without any oversight.

The group at the FBI that doggedly pursued the false collusion story is the same group that let Hillary Clinton slide on deleting official emails, creating an illegal computer server and destroying evidence of her wrongdoing with cover ups by the complicit democratic controlled media.  It’s also the same group who in 2009 allowed her to sell 20 percent of our uranium to Russia with the help of FBI Director Mueller, while the Clinton Foundation raked in $145 million via Rosatom.

The clear double standard of the liberal media and their role as propagandists is in full view.  This is why the 1964 Warren Court NYTs decision must be overturned.

In the next article, we’ll discuss those who were targeted by Mueller, the Democrat Party and the media and have paid extremely high prices for supporting an outsider for President.

Socialism Is The Opium Of The People

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“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”  Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right 1843.

What is Marxism?

Socialism is based upon the ideas put forth by Karl Marx and Joseph Engels in the books The Communist Manifesto and Das Capital. Their idea was to make, by state mandate, everyone equal. The Utopian ideal of a classless society with the state controlling all means of production, either directly or indirectly. In America and Europe this is known as: socialism, Democratic Socialism, Marxism and Communism.

Here is a short analysis of Marxism narrated by Paul Kengor, Professor of Political Science at Grove City College for Prager University:

In The Terror of Existence: From Ecclesiastes to Theatre of the Absurd Kenneth Francis wrote:

Many years before the Year Zero slaughter of millions began in the mid-1970s in Cambodia, a well-mannered, polite Mr [Pol] Pot left Cambodia and went to Paris to study radio technology. While there, he was deeply influenced by Sartre and Marxism. According to historian Paul Johnson, it was Sartre’s ideas that that had inspired Pot’s murderous foot soldiers, the Khmer Rouge.

[ … ]

The Marxist regime [of Pol Pot], between 1975 and 1979, was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians through execution, disease and starvation.

Karl Marx never saw his ideas fully implemented in Nazi Germany, the former Soviet Union, Communist China, Communist North Korea, Cambodia, Cuba and now in Venezuela.

What is Socialism?

In For the New Intellectual, 43, Ayn Rand defined socialism as, “[T]he doctrine that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that his life and his work do not belong to him, but belong to society, that the only justification of his existence is his service to society, and that society may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good.”

In “Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World,” Philosophy: Who Needs It, 68, Ayn Rand wrote,

“There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism—by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.”

Socialism is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless socialist society, and the soul of the soulless bureaucrat.

The Big Lie

Socialism is based upon a big lie. As Joseph Goebbels wrote,

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

The big lie must be told and re-told and re-told until people begin to believe it. The biggest lie is that religion is the opiate of the people.

The truth is that socialism in all of its forms becomes the opiate of the people. That is until the people learn the “political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie.”

The Big Lie in America

We have seen the Russian collusion/obstruction of justice “big lies” played out over 2 years. America became a theatre of the absurd, played over and over again on MSNBC, CNN, and in the pages of the New York Times.

The big lie is in full view with the Green New Deal and its full intent to take over America politically, economically and militarily. The Democratic Party is now committed to the big lie. A lie that they must keep alive in order to gain power.

I conclude with this quote from Ayn Rand,

“The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.”

Each uncontested absurdity starts with a big lie.

Voltaire said, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

Tina Tchen Takes Center Stage again, this Time in the Jussie Smollet Hoax on America Case

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I have to admit I had never heard of Tina Tchen until this past week when we learned she had been brought in to try to clean up (cover up?) the misdeeds at the largest hate group in the country—the Southern Poverty Law Center.  (See my story here)

So my ears perked up when I heard her name again, this time because of her involvement in helping to get charges dropped against the very privileged Jussie Smollett.

Frankly, it is special deals for special people that conservative voters won’t forget in 2020.

First thing this morning I hit the computer to see if anyone was pointing out Tina Tchen’s rising star among the Democrat elite and sure enough the intrepid Michelle Malkin posted a great piece overnight!

Crony State: Obamas’ Chicago Fixer Tina Tchen

Here is a some of what Malkin said today at Townhall (emphasis is mine),

How did hate crime huckster Jussie Smollett get away with it? All crooked roads in Chicago lead back to the Obamas.

On Tuesday, as part of a sealed deal, the Illinois state attorney’s office dismissed 16 felony charges brought by a grand jury against the Trump-hating actor, who blamed phantom white MAGA supporters for a brutal racist “assault” that left him with a teensy-weensy scratch under his eye. The day before the “attack,” Smollett’s two bodybuilding friends were caught on surveillance tape buying costumery (red hat, ski masks, bandanas, sunglasses and gloves) that just happened to match Smollett’s descriptions of what his still-fugitive assailants were wearing.

But I guess there’s no use crying over spilled bleach.

Continue here to read more about the case and a litany of Jussie’s connections to the Obama machine.  Then this,

Given Jurnee Smollett-Bell’s [Jussie’s sister] hand-holding friendship with Tchen, Tchen’s intimacy with the Obamas, and Michelle Obama’s chumminess with Jussie Smollett (she hosted him at a musical event at the White House in 2016 and danced with him on stage at a College Signing Day Event in 2018), it is not unreasonable to wonder how much direct knowledge the Obamas themselves may have had about Tchen’s role as Smollett’s fixer.

[….]

Tchen has made quite the career out of exploiting her Obama connections, including cushy spots on VICE’s Diversity and Inclusion Board, Uber’s #MeToo advisory board, and the Grammys’ task force for inclusion and diversity. But those plum jobs and her role in Smollett’s Folly all pale in comparison to her newest gig: playing watchdog over the crumbling Southern Poverty Law Center.

After decades of manufacturing “hate” against peaceful, law-abiding conservatives, sharia opponents, Christian activists and immigration enforcement hawks, the junk mail order house that grifter Morris Dees built is in chaos amid long-brewing strife over internal gender and racial discrimination — not to mention a slew of outside defamation lawsuits. Fresh off assisting one celebrity hate crime huckster, Tchen will now be doing damage control for the granddaddy of all racial hoax rackets.

Go here to read the whole thing, it will be well worth your while!

What should you do?  Keep an eye on Tchen (make her’s a household name!) because first and foremost she will be working to hide every bit of dirty linen at the Southern Poverty Law Center. My recommendation is to find a story every day about the SPLC’s hypocrisy and internal chaos and post the story to your social media networks!

Oh and be sure Michelle Malkin’s piece today is disseminated widely! 

RELATED ARTICLES:

In Smollett Case, Justice Sacrificed on the Altar of Politics and Race

Why We Don’t Trust Our Institutions?

EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column is republished with permission.