An Ominous Pattern Is Emerging In Our Country, And It Should Scare All Of Us!

This week, from a published plea deal with prosecutors from the Southern District of New York (SDNY), we learned that American Media, Inc. (AMI), the National Enquirer‘s parent company, admitted to “making a contribution and expenditure. . . to the campaign of a candidate for President of the United States.”  In exchange for this admission, the SDNY agreed not to prosecute AMI for any crimes related to this contribution with the exception of any criminal tax violations that may have arisen.  Although the admission allows AMI to avoid prosecution for its campaign contribution, a neutral review of the facts laid out in the addendum to the September 30th plea deal calls to question whether a contribution to any campaign even occurred.

According to the plea deal arrangement published by SDNY, AMI made a contribution to the Trump campaign when it paid $150,000 to Playboy model Karen McDougal in order to procure the rights to her story regarding her extra-marital affair with Donald Trump.  Prosecutors claim that the money paid to McDougal by AMI represented a campaign contribution because it was made with the intent of influencing the results of the election and in coordination with Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, and unnamed “members or agents of the Trump campaign.”

The payment was allegedly made to McDougal after AMI CEO David Pecker received assurances from Cohen that he would reimburse Pecker for the transaction, and after Cohen created a shell corporation housing the money to be used to reimburse Pecker and AMI. However, despite the execution of the deal between McDougal and AMI, Pecker later called Cohen to tell him “that the deal was off and that Cohen should tear up the assignment agreement.”  The addendum does not explain why Pecker called off the deal with Cohen, but it does say that AMI subsequently published articles and pictures of McDougal on many of its magazines “to keep the model from commenting publicly about her story and her agreement with AMI.” Consequently, neither Cohen, Trump, nor the Trump campaign ever gave the money to AMI (the parent company of the National Enquirer).

Under these circumstances it is debatable whether the actions by Pecker were contributions to the Trump campaign or a business transaction voluntarily undertaken by Pecker and independent of any political campaign.  Moreover, even if there was a deal with Cohen, pending the identification of the “members and agents of the campaign” and their participation in the transaction, it appears Cohen was acting as Trump’s personal attorney and not as an agent of the campaign.

And finally, being that AMI never consummated the deal with Cohen, doesn’t that obviate whatever association AMI may have had with Cohen and therefore the campaign?  Regardless, it certainly seems unpalatable that a campaign finance statute would be written so broadly as to capture any activity that any person undertook in support of a candidate in the absence of any participation on the part of the campaign.  Such a statute would be impossible to enforce and an open affront to the protections enshrined in the Constitution of the United States.

So if AMI never consummated a deal with Cohen or the Trump campaign, was it really a campaign contribution?  And if it was not, then why would AMI make a deal with prosecutors in exchange for immunity?

The answer is simple: economic and legal expediency.

Pecker knows that a legal defense of this matter would likely run in the scores of thousands of dollars regardless of whether or not he prevails.  Additionally, although this transaction may be defendable, there’s no telling what other things prosecutors may turn up about AMI independent of the Trump dealings that may place it in real legal turmoil.  So in the end, it pays for AMI, which has no unbreakable interest in Trump, to just agree to the deal and tell prosecutors whatever they know.  After all, the admission of an illegal campaign contribution on the part of the National Enquirer will neither hurt its public standing nor its sales. AMI gets its immunity, and the prosecutors get a cooperative witness with which to pursue its case against the President.  And the world moves on.

Indeed, if the AMI matter had taken place in isolation there would be little impetus for a story here.  But consider the events involving Jerome Corsi.

Mr. Corsi is a journalist and an author notable for his book Obama Nation.  Corsi was approached by Special Counsel Bob Mueller regarding his alleged interactions with Candidate Trump Adviser Roger Stone and Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange.  These contacts resulted from Corsi’s investigations of the Wikileaks July 22, 2016, publication of Hillary Clinton’s emails where he noted the absence of a batch of emails between Clinton and her former campaign manager, John Podesta.  According to the later-filed complaint by Corsi’s lawyers, that observation led Corsi to contact Assange regarding Assange’s possible possession of the Podesta emails and their potential publication.

As a result of this contact, Mueller suspected Corsi of possibly aiding Russia in colluding with the Trump campaign through Assange.  According to Corsi’s complaint, Mueller and his team then attempted to coerce Corsi into admitting that he was colluding with the Russians on behalf of Candidate Trump. In this case, however, Corsi refused to admit engaging in activity in which he was not involved and fought back by filing a lawsuit against Mueller.

But the Corsi and AMI affairs are not the only two examples of potential prosecutorial coercion in the Trump affair.  General Michael Flynn is a soldier and public servant with an impeccable reputation dating back over thirty years.  In 2017, Flynn served as President Trump’s first National Security Advisor.  In December 2016, Flynn had two conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. On January 24, 2017, four days into his tenure as NSA, FBI agents approached Flynn regarding those contacts.  Among the FBI agents conducting the interview was Peter Strzock, the same agent who was later disgraced because of personal texts where he openly expressed his intense bias against President Donald Trump.

Apparently, during that interview, General Flynn was asked whether he had ever spoken to Kislyak.  Flynn denied such a conversation.  When confronted about this discrepancy, Flynn said that he did not initially recall the contacts.  And in point of fact, Flynn had reason to not be as defensive and careful as he would have been had he known the prosecutorial peril under which he had been placed.  First, even though the law specifically prohibits knowingly and willfully lying to the FBI, Flynn was never placed under oath nor told that anything he said could and would be held against him; a basic tenet of prosecutorial conduct and fair play.  Second, when Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe approached Flynn via a telephone conversation, he billed the interview as being for the purpose of pursuing information regarding media coverage of the leaked memos.  Even more damning was McCabe’s reassurances to Flynn that the latter did not need his attorney to be present.  This latter fact is perhaps the most implicative of a concerted entrapment on the part of the FBI even before one considers that then FBI Director James Comey recently observed that that he knowingly broke protocol in this case because the Trump administration was a mere three days into its tenure and “disorganized.”

Based on these coercive and unethical, and likely unconstitutional circumstances, Flynn would be threatened with prosecution unless he admitted to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Kislyak and cooperated with the Mueller investigation of President Trump.  After losing his house to the overwhelming legal bills and seeing his son similarly threatened by prosecutors, Flynn acquiesced.  The case is presently under judicial review for possible prosecutorial malfeasance.  A decision on this matter is expected this Tuesday as part of Flynn’s sentencing hearing.

Then there’s President Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, admittedly a category onto himself.  Mr. Cohen was recently sentenced to three years imprisonment on charges of campaign finance violations stemming from payments he made to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her from speaking regarding her affair with Trump prior to his becoming President.  Once again, the legal premise under which prosecutors sought to indict Cohen was controversial.  There is significant disagreement over whether Cohen was engaging in campaign activities when he made the arrangements with Stormy Daniels.  His actions, although shady, could have reasonably been found to have taken place on behalf of Donald J. Trump’s personal capacity and outside the purview of Trump’s presidential campaign.  But once again coercive prosecutorial activities come into play, and Cohen worked out a deal so to not have to defend himself in court.

In the end, Cohen was sentenced to three years in jail, largely based on his less than total candor with prosecutors. However, still unresolved is the question of whether his actions were truly illegal.  Regardless, prosecutors now can use a possibly erroneous admission of guilt as another brick in their efforts to take down a sitting president.

And just this week, we learned that Dennis Nathan Cain’s home was raided by the FBI, a protected whistleblower regarding the troubled Clinton Foundation’s Uranium One dealings; a raid that may in fact be illegal.

And now we are witnessing the next phase of coercive and politically motivated prosecutions/persecutions; the use of governmental authority to intimidate targeted political rivals and their associates. In a tweet aimed at Donald Trump, Jr., incoming congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez threatened the president’s son with a subpoena for the offense of criticizing her in public.  Her comments have appropriately raised the possibility of an ethics investigation on an elected public official who has yet to take power.

In the meantime, newly elected New York State Attorney Letitia James, a state official and one with no prior contact with Trump or the Trump investigations has already made it her priority to investigate the President, his family, and his associates.  She has been quoted as saying, “We will use every area of the law to investigate Trump and his business transactions and that of his family as well.” She says this despite the fact that no scintilla of evidence has been specifically brought to her regarding potential state crimes performed by any of the individuals or entities within the ambit of the broad net which she casts; a clear sign of politically based targeting of American citizens and reminiscent of the targeted attacks undertaken by the IRS against conservative groups under the Obama administration.

The implications of these activities are immensely troubling.  The tendencies towards the abuse of power and prosecutorial misconduct that these cases demonstrate represent clear affronts to our democratic system of government and a testament to the dreadful state of affairs our into which our nation will devolve should they not be checked.

There’s no question that any tendency towards politically based prosecutorial misconduct must be shut down.  The problem is that doing so may place any resistor or whistleblower at legal and personal risk and simply for calling it out. And that is the greatest danger of all.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Federalist Pages. It is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Heather Mount on Unsplash.

Do you know what we celebrate on Saturday, Dec 15th, 2018?

Our Bill of Rights or the UN’s human rights?


On December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights became a fundamental part of the Constitution of the United States. Some two years beforehand, the representatives of the 13 colonies gathered together, but they were nervous because they well knew from the history of England and Europe that Kings and Parliaments arbitrarily could take away the people’s freedoms.

For this reason they insisted that some basic rights and freedoms be written into the Constitution so that no future government could ever take them away or oppress the citizens of the land: thus the Bill of Rights was written consisting of ten crucial amendments to the glorious Constitution.

On December 15, 2018 we celebrate the 227th anniversary of these important amendments that have proved so essential to the American political tradition. But the very Constitution is now threatened from within the United States. Our public education system is riddled with teachers, tenured professors and administrators who question its validity in these first decades of the 21st century.

Children come home telling their parents that, “in class today we learned about the Bill of Rights and what parts to change or cut out.” We hear from these same children that their teachers say it’s too old or it was written long ago in 1789 and that a new one would fit today’s world much better. Or that the teachers say the whole Constitution has really old ideas in it and its holding us back from being progressive.

Tragically our schools and colleges have become Socialist Conveyor belts churning out cookie-cutter little socialists who know little if anything of American history or the reasons why the Founding Fathers wrote the Bill of Rights in the first place. Let’s take the First Amendment and its first right, namely – Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.

In other words, the government cannot create an official religion or church or make citizens attend it. The memories of the horrific religious wars in England and throughout Europe were what motivated this part of the First Amendment. In England and Europe, religious wars were endemic. Each Christian nation’s army calling upon the same Lord and Savior to give it victory. The ‘Thirty Years War’ from 1618 to 1648 led to unspeakable horrors of man’s inhumanity to man and all in the name of which Church would be preeminent.

The Founding Fathers in America knew of such horrors. Their ancestors had fled to America’s shores to escape from it. They wanted to make sure that in America there would never be such misery and division.

Included in the First Amendment is the Free Exercise clause which prevents the government from interfering with how people worship. These unchangeable words of immense wisdom provide us with safety from oppression, but foolish folks today would abandon it to create a new dystopian world in the name of illusory progressivism.

The First Amendment protects freedom of speech and freedom of the press. We should be able to say what we want and publish or broadcast our ideas. But we all know that such enshrined rights are being circumscribed by the same progressive oppression known as political correctness – a sinister assault upon the First Amendment and a direct attack upon what the Founding Fathers wanted, which was to be sure that people were not punished or ostracized for what they said.

So called progressives (a cute name for latter day socialists and communists) would gladly dump the rights of freedom of religion, speech and the press as enshrined in the First Amendment. Instead, they would willingly embrace the grotesque human rights hypocrisy that the globalist United Nations foists upon the world.

The relentless attacks by these same progressives, many of whom now infest the increasingly leftwing Democrat Party, know that it is the Second Amendment which is their prime target because it keeps the entire Constitution and the Bill of Rights alive. Indeed, all rights are dependent on a strong Second Amendment.

” … the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” These are the words that progressives would tear up as they take away our guns and leave us defenseless against a tyrannical government.

The United States had joined the travesty of the UN Human Rights Council in 2009 during former President Barack Hussein Obama’s first term. This occurred after the Council was established to replace the widely discredited earlier UN Commission on Human Rights. But this new Human Rights Council is fundamentally flawed from the outset for it fails to incorporate any meaningful criteria for membership and instead is led by – and subject to – control and manipulation by the very human rights abusers, such as Iran, that the Council was meant to expel and censure.

Taking the moral high ground, the U.S. recently removed itself from that shameful disgrace, which the morally compromised United Nations foisted upon the world.

There can be no comparison between the towering vision of the Bill of Rights with the hypocrisy of the United Nations Human Rights Council, the UN General Assembly, or of that other oppressive organization: The European Union.

Fortunately the U.S, Australia, Israel and most East European nations have justifiably rejected the UN’s Migration Pact, which is the latest assault by globalists on a national citizen’s right. The UN is not seeking colonization, but conquest. The citizens of nations who accept the pact will be slaves. The rights of “UN citizens” will supersede those of citizens in their own home countries.

In conclusion we hear so often the insidious talk by progressives about “reasonable gun control laws.” Americans should be terrified of that word, “CONTROL.” After all, it was the favorite word used by Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin and increasingly we now hear it used by the globalists in the UN and in the EU.

So this Saturday, please remember why we celebrate this 227th anniversary of our treasured Bill of Rights and why we must rally together to protect and support it.

RELATED ARTICLE: Oregon Is Vaporizing Free-speech Rights for Small-business Owners

EDITORS NOTE: © Victor Sharpe. The featured photo is by Anthony Garand on Unsplash.

Despite Recent Incidents, Airbnb’s Gender Ideology Puts Women at Risk

Airbnb is facing some media backlash after the deaths of several people who used their services to find rental accommodations. Via USA TODAY:

But in recent weeks, a couple of deaths have raised questions about the safety of Airbnb rentals.

Last week, a security guard at a villa in Costa Rica was arrested for the murder of a Florida woman who traveled there to celebrate her 36th birthday. Carla Stefaniak’s body was found in the woods near her Airbnb rental with a blunt force wound to her head. Bismarck Espinosa Martinez, 32, has been arrested for the attack.

Last month, a New Orleans couple died from carbon monoxide poisoning in an Airbnb rental in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. Authorities have said that Edward Winders and Barbara Moller apparently inhaled gas emitted by a faulty heater in their rental.

Defenders of Airbnb correctly point out that the company has millions of listings, and that there is always risk in travel — whether it’s through Airbnb or a traditional hotel. However, the above incidents draw attention to a dangerous Airbnb policy which puts women’s safety at risk.

Per Airbnb’s policies:

Gender Identity

Airbnb does not assign a gender identity to our users. We consider the gender of an individual to be what they identify and/or designate on their user profile.

  • Airbnb hosts may not

    • Decline to rent to a guest based on gender unless the host shares living spaces (for example, bathroom, kitchen, or common areas) with the guest.

    • Impose any different terms or conditions based on gender unless the host shares living spaces with the guest.

    • Post any listing or make any statement that discourages or indicates a preference for or against any guest on account of gender, unless the host shares living spaces with the guest.

Airbnb’s policy literally states that women who use Airbnb must allow men who say they are women — regardless of the realities of biology or the actual feelings of said man — to stay at their homes if living quarters are separate. Of course, such a barrier won’t do much to stop a determined predator.

This abandonment of safety in favor of political correctness is part and parcel of Airbnb’s left-wing agenda. 2ndVote’s research shows that Airbnb has fully bought into the gender-confusion principle by joining business groups which want to force business owners and their customers to abandon biological realities when it comes to bathrooms and other private facilities.

2ndVote cares deeply about the safety and security of women, especially survivors of sexual assault. Make sure Airbnb knows of your displeasure with their discriminatory and harmful policy by not using Airbnb for your Christmas travels.

Many of our better Christmas alternatives have online retail options and all the items in our 2018 Christmas Gift Guide are linked to vetted online retailers. 

RELATED ARTICLE: Airbnb Boycotted And Sued For Discrimination Following Israel Settlement Ban


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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. The featured image is from Shutterstock.

Identity Politics Poses a Genuine Threat to America. Here’s Why

Is identity politics reaching a breaking point?


Is there an answer to the problem of identity politics in America? For some, the “solution” is direct.

“We need to take on the oppression narrative,” conservative commentator Heather Mac Donald said at a Heritage Foundation gathering on Capitol Hill.

Americans need to “rebut” the idea “that every difference in American society today is the result by definition of discrimination,” Mac Donald said during the event Monday, called “Identity Politics Is a Threat to Society. Is There Anything We Can Do About It at This Point?

Without challenging this overarching narrative, the Manhattan Institute fellow said, “there is going to be no end to identity politics.”

The rise of identity politics has become a phenomenon not just in America, but in the West in general.

In many ways, debates over identity are defining and shaping the politics of our time and pose a unique challenge in particular to the United States, a vast, multi-ethnic country with potential identity fault lines that far exceed the more homogenous societies of the world.

Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, and Mike Franc, director of D.C. programs at the Hoover Institution, brought together a diverse set of thinkers to hash out why identity politics is on the rise and how to address it.

Besides Mac Donald, they included John Fonte, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute; Peter Berkowitz, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution; Michael Lind, a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin; and Andrew Sullivan, a writer for New York magazine.

Each highlighted the problem.

Hudson’s Fonte outlined what has become the framework for identity politics on the left.

“Multiculturalism, the diversity project, and critical theory” are the three major cornerstones of this creed, Fonte said.

In a 2013 article in National Review, Fonte described the “diversity project” as: “[T]he ongoing effort to use federal power to impose proportional representation along race, gender, and ethnic lines in all aspects of American life.”

Multiculturalism comes in a hard version and a soft version, he said.

The soft version celebrates ethnic subcultures, examples being St. Patrick’s Day and Cinco de Mayo.

The hard version, Fonte said, has damaged society. He concisely summed up its tenets:

The United States is a multicultural society in which different cultures—African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, and women—have their own values, histories, and identities separate from and sometimes in opposition to dominant Anglo, white, male culture.

This creed divides America into many peoples and has become the dominant ethos taught in American schools.

The diversity project’s demand for statistical equality for groups, or “group proportionalism,” as Fonte calls it, is another integral element of identity politics. But taken to its logical extent, the diversity project is incompatible with a free society, he said.

There is simply no way to create perfect, equal representation of all groups in all fields, the Hudson Institute scholar said. Any attempt to do so would require state coercion on a massive scale.

Finally, Fonte said, critical theory—which explains the difference in group outcomes by classifying groups as privileged or marginalized—further undermines free society because it directly opposes the concept of “liberal, democratic jurisprudence.” Individual justice is subordinated to social justice—the oppressors and the oppressed.

These concepts fundamentally undermine our republic, Fonte said, and while he had no answer to solve the threat, he said a return to patriotism and national identity was a better way forward.

Hoover’s Berkowitz reiterated the obsession of identity politics with “race, class, and gender.”

These classifications become the essence of who a person is, and subordinate individual differences and individual justice.

“Group rights are distributed on the basis of the discrimination or oppression that the group to which you belong has suffered,” Berkowitz said.

Thus, he said, victimhood becomes a “virtue” and a moral status symbol demonstrating that one deserves greater political power.

Distinctions exist between the postmodernist ideologies of the 1980s and 1990s and the early 21st century, he said. A key feature defining the identity politics of today is that it has moved on from the relativism of earlier eras and become dogmatic in its certainties.

Identity politics adherents on the left, for example, are now certain in their assessment that the West—including America—is racist and sexist.

Dissent from this narrative is taken as “an act of violence, an expression of racism and hatred,” Berkowitz said.

These ideas not only have become dominant on college campuses, he said, but are a threat to the fundamental nature of liberal societies. They cannot coexist with concepts like free speech, due process, and limited government.

American universities won’t counteract the identity politics creed, Berkowitz said, and so Americans who oppose it need to find outside solutions if they want to preserve their free society.

Berkowitz, who has written extensively about restoring the value of liberal education, said such solutions may come through alternative paths to education at the K-12 level—homeschooling and charter schools—as well as more programs to provide alternative curricula to parents and young people.

Lind spoke about how identity politics is becoming a flashpoint for the most fundamental divides not only in the U.S., but throughout the West.

Half of America—mostly in the rural regions and exurbs—accepts and lives out the concept of the “melting pot,” while the other half—in urban environments—embraces and lives with predominant multiculturalism, Lind said.

This city vs. country divide sets this era apart from earlier ones where region was more of a factor.

For most of American history, the concept of the melting pot has worked, but Lind said he is pessimistic for its future because of demography.

“The native fertility rate in Western societies is below replacement … we need to have replacement immigration of some kind in order to prevent the population from just collapsing,” Lind said.

However, the continually low birth rates in these societies will put pressure on them to increase immigration, he said, and so feed the constant political base for multiculturalism.

Mac Donald, also a contributor to City Journal, said people of “courage” need to confront the ideology of identity politics directly for the sake of the nation’s future.

She summed up what she said is the crux of the debate and the oppression narrative:

The main driver is race—women are sort of a fast second place—but the main driver of all this is the lingering racial disparities, and we both need to close them and be honest about what’s driving them.

I would say family breakdown is the biggest driver and other behavioral disparities and culture [are also drivers]. Those need to be closed because if not, the oppression narrative is going to be with us to our enormous misfortune.

Sullivan said that while identity politics has existed in the past—notably in the 1990s—it’s “different now.”

People debated the concepts of identity politics in earlier eras, and often vehemently opposed them, but now identity politics has taken over “all teaching in the humanities” and has been fully embraced by an entire generation of “the elite,” the writer said.

Sullivan, an early supporter of same-sex marriage and President Barack Obama, said that it’s “staggering” how the ideas of identity politics have been universally accepted by the young elite, without question.

These ideas have spread beyond the college campus, Sullivan wrote earlier this year, and entered the mainstream of debate in America.

“It is staggering how people under the age of 30 buy all of this, have never even regarded it as questionable, that it’s become completely routine to believe these things,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan attributed this, in part, to parenting.

Parents tried so hard to create safe spaces for their children, he said, that the children were simply unable to handle disagreement or anything that made them feel unsafe.

Sullivan also said social media fuels surface-level hot takes and “virtue signalling,” rather than deeper thought.

What’s remarkable, he said, is that identity victimhood politics comes at a time when many of these groups are thriving more than ever before in history.

“We should talk about the successes that have occurred without this stuff,” Sullivan said. “In fact, I sometimes wonder whether this stuff is a function of having succeeded, because you’re terrified you’re going to lose the struggle you always lived with and you have nothing to do with your life.”

COLUMN BY

Portrait of Jarrett Stepman

Jarrett Stepman

Jarrett Stepman is an editor and commentary writer for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Twitter: @JarrettStepman.

RELATED ARTICLE: Ivy League Study Finds Liberals ‘Patronize’ Minorities, Conservatives Don’t 


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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Monica Melton on Unsplash.

Trump Meeting with Pelosi and Schumer a Sign of Pending Disasters for Democrats.

It looked like a family gathering for a holiday meal. What ostensibly began as a peaceful meeting for a friendly conversation quickly devolved into a classic, round-the-table political fight about the wall and who would pay for it.  In the end, everyone left angry, but no one got to eat any of the food.

It was a classic Donald Trump move and one that continues to serve him well.  Find the issues his base wants to see solved and take the fight directly to the people. Yesterday was no exception when Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer appeared for a meeting before the press at the White House.

As things usually go in the finely choreographed world of Washington politics, Schumer and Pelosi sat around a table with Vice President Mike Pence and President Trump for what normally would have been a time for photographs and softball questions from the press.

Instead, the President delivered a full-fledged argument on border security and wall funding.  Trump, once again demanded that the wall be funded to the tune of $5 billion while Schumer and Pelosi insisted that no more than $1.7 billion should be allocated to the project by way of a continuing resolution.

The conversation devolved when President Trump observed the difficult position in which Pelosi found herself as she tried to secure the votes necessary to get her elected Speaker of the House.  This prompted Pelosi to chastise the President for suggesting that she did not have the overwhelming support of House Democrats. In the meantime Schumer kept accusing the President of wanting to shut down the government.  The President finally concluded the meeting by resoundingly accepting the responsibility of shutting down the government if his demands for wall funding were not met.

In the end, it was the most fascinating political exchange ever with drama rivaling those seen in the best reality shows and replete with an ending reminiscent of a “You’re Fired” episode.  It was so entertaining, in fact, that it has earned a “Feature Video” status in our Library page.

To be sure, the exchange was the first of many heated confrontations to surely take place over the next two years.  But there are other insights to be gained from this meeting.

First, you can rest assured that President Trump will shut down the government when Schumer and Pelosi fail to bring him the necessary votes to fund the wall in an amount he believes is necessary.  Second, for all those Democrats who thought they would be seeing a more subdued Donald J. Trump as a result of the gains they made in the House of Representatives, they should reconsider that impression.

And finally, like Pelosi and Schumer did Tuesday, the Democrats are going to appear paltry and petty when they continue to resist the President over an extra $3.3 billion for a wall in a budget numbering in the trillions of dollars.  As a matter of fact, Pelosi and Schumer may have just handed President Trump his own “Reagan-youth-and-inexperience” moment.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Pentagon Confirms: DOD Could Fund Border Wall

Why Our Country Needs the Wall, and Now

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Federalist Pages.

The Socialist, the Jihadi, and the Tooth Fairy

What do socialists and jihadis have in common? They both still believe in the tooth fairy. This is not funny.

Like most groups, socialists and jihadis are divided into leaders and followers. First, we will discuss the leaders.

Socialist leaders promise social justice and income equality to their followers in this life. Jihadi leaders promise 72 virgins to their suicide bombers in the next life. Leadership promises specifically address the particular desires of their adherents – the leaders aren’t stupid – they are manipulative and extremely successful at luring their believers with false promises.

The leadership disingenuously focuses on the promised benefits to their followers while the actual benefits to themselves are ignored. Any cursory study of history exposes the deceitfulness of the leadership’s promises and shows how reality benefits the ruling elite at the expense of the people. So, why do socialists and jihadis still believe their leaders? Because like children they still believe in the tooth fairy. I will explain.

The people of Cuba, Venezuela, Guatemala, and Honduras believed the promises of social justice and income equality made by their scheming socialist leaders. The people were lied to and are now living the equality of suffering and scarcity that socialism actually provides. Socialism necessarily fails because there is no incentive to be productive and eventually you run out of other people’s money.

The ruling elite in socialist countries suffer no such deprivation and the jihadi leadership worldwide remains alive and well – only their duped sycophants end up dead.

The population invasion at our southern border threatens the economic security and homeland security of the United States. Unregulated unvetted mass immigration will bankrupt our welfare system and simultaneously allow criminals and jihadis to enter the country – both create massive chaos.

The border wall is a defense against illegal entry into the United States. So, why would any politician reject it?

Leftist politicians who support socialism reject the border wall because they want a flood of illegal immigrants in the country to vote Democrat and keep them in power. Leftist politicians reject voter ID and any investigation into voter fraud that could expose illegal voting and/or deny voting rights to their followers – they sacrifice national security for their own job security. Their latest scheme is ballot harvesting.

Ballot harvesting is when organized workers or volunteers pick up absentee ballots and drop them off at a polling place or election office. There is absolutely nothing to safeguard the integrity of the ballots or to insure that all votes are delivered. Ballot harvesting is a powerful election-stealing tool that should be eliminated in favor of mailing in sealed signed ballots. If a voter cannot manage the mailing then that voter’s ballot will not count – period.

Voters are not children and need not be treated like children. Ballot harvesting is equivalent to breaking the chain of evidence in a criminal investigation and is an invitation for ballot tampering which adds to the lack of confidence in the integrity of elections. The left welcomes the chaos that public loss of confidence in elections necessarily brings.

Jihadi leaders promising 72 virgins to their devotees also rely on the chaos that jihadi violence brings. Chaos is the fulcrum of seismic social change. Watching Nancy Pelosi’s laughable performance during her 12.11.18 meeting with President Trump and Chuck Schumer was very enlightening. No wonder Pelosi did not want to have the meeting videotaped live! She was unable to deliver her revisionist version of the meeting to the media for worldwide distribution.

In her own words Pelosi condescendingly describes the meeting, “I was trying to be the Mom, but it goes to show you: You get in a tinkle contest with a skunk, you get tinkle all over you.” WOW! A tinkle contest? Trying to be the Mom?

Nancy Pelosi is one of the most vile scheming corrupt career politicians in Washington. Her manipulative and condescending attempt to “teach” the President of the United States and the viewing audience about proper procedure for funding the Wall was grotesque. Pelosi spoke in her bizarre Mommy teaching voice slowly explaining that Republicans must propose legislation in the House. REALLY?

President Donald Trump is an adult not a child. Politely ignoring Pelosi’s patronizing Mommy voice, the President stated clearly that funding the Wall is a national emergency. POTUS exposed Pelosi’s manipulation saying that following Pelosi’s instructions would necessarily defeat the measure. “If we thought we would get it passed in the Senate, Nancy, we would do it immediately,” Trump declared, adding, “It doesn’t matter, though, because you can’t get it passed in the Senate because we need ten Democrats’ vote.”

So, Pelosi is tutoring the President in the Pelosi politics of deceit – pretending that you are actually legislating something the people need when you know it cannot possibly pass. Pelosi’s political artifice only works on her infantilized supporters – they actually believe her just like children believe in the tooth fairy!

The infantilization of American society toward collectivism and away from individualism through leftist educational indoctrination, media propaganda, and political correctness has left a generation of Americans vulnerable to the false promises of their leaders. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer still want you to believe in the tooth fairy.

Socialists and jihadis fervently believe in the righteousness of their cause because, like children, they believe what their leaders tell them. Like children they still believe in the tooth fairy. Here is the problem – President Donald Trump does not believe in the tooth fairy.

President Trump is an unapologetic America-first adult who speaks honestly, plainly, and clearly to the American people about the existential threat at the border. Without a border we have no country. EXACTLY!

Globalists like Nancy Pelosi and her minions including Obama, Clinton, Schumer, Soros, Zuckerberg, and Bezos etc etc actually WANT TO ELIMINATE the borders between countries and create a New World Order. The greedy political globalist leaders want the power to control the world’s population that the New World Order will provide. The greedy corporate globalist leaders want to further enrich themselves with the unrestricted internationalized marketplace that the New World Order will provide.

So, what is in it for their followers?? Absolutely nothing but scarcity and servitude. The socialists and the jihadis are the useful idiots in the globalist grand campaign to internationalize the sovereign countries of the world into their New World Order.

President Donald Trump is telling America it is time to grow up – there is no tooth fairy to GIVE you money or GIVE you 72 virgins. The socialist and jihadi leaders and their followers are being played by the globalist elite to do the dirty work of creating the social chaos necessary to bring down the United States of America and the premier existential enemy of globalism’s New World Order – America first President Donald J. Trump.

Don’t let them get away with it – grow up – there is no tooth fairy.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Goudsmit Pundicity. The featured photo is by Anthony Tran on Unsplash.

Our Politics Are About To Get Much, Much Worse

Last week, prosecutors for the Southern District of New York and Special Counsel Robert Mueller delivered their sentencing recommendations regarding former counsel for President Donald Trump, Michael Cohen. As previously reported by The Federalist Pages, their memos provided no significant evidence against the President.

Specifically, and to the most direct point, the sentencing recommendations did not add any information regarding claims of Russian collusion on the part of President Trump, which is the original directive to the Mueller investigation, nor do they suggest that there was any sign of obstruction of justice on the part of the President. But they abound in politics.

What the memo did mention for the first time is an allegation of possible campaign finance violations on the part of then-candidate Trump. This focus represents a whole new direction for investigators, one that was not previously contemplated. The charge of campaign financing violations, based on money paid to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, is based on the claim that Cohen was directed to make the payments that would eventually reach the two women by the President himself.

This renewed investigative direction has sent the pundits of politics ablaze regarding potential prosecutorial scenarios for President Trump. Never mind that the bar for successful prosecution is very high, or that the allegation is presently only based on statements made by Cohen (amongst the most discredited and conflicted witnesses imaginable), or even that then-candidate Trump likely had a legally defensible position for having engaged in the agreements with Daniels and McDougal during his campaign without a requirement that the money be channeled through his campaign accounts.

Those issues are immaterial because what is truly at stake is the opportunity to take down a sitting president hated and feared by Democrats, the press and the establishment.

The Democrats, who are on the eve of taking control of the House of Representatives, have made it their goal to make Trump their greatest nemesis. Like the relentless quest for the Holy Grail, Democrats would take no greater joy during the next two years than to 1) stop every one of Trump’s agenda items; and 2) get him out of power. If they can exploit any opportunity to embarrass the President and demonize him, they will. It’s all pure politics.

As evidence for this point, we have Congressman Adam Schiff, the likely incoming House Intelligence Chairman, who almost giddily said on Face The Nation, there’s a real possibility that “on the day Donald Trump leaves office, the Justice Department may indict him.”

This is more than a mere concern on Schiff’s part; it is an agenda item.

In the face of these developments and associated chants, the road before the nation becomes distinctly clear. First, the Democrats in the House of Representatives will do everything in their power to obstruct anything of importance that President Trump wishes to accomplish. For them, Trump is an illegitimate President, one that had no right to defeat Hillary Clinton in the first place.

Second, to this day, they cannot come to grips with the harsh reality that President Trump won not because of Russian collusion, but rather because he ran a great campaign concentrating on seeking electoral college votes and because Hillary Clinton was the worst candidate the Democrats could have proffered.

Third, and even more demoralizing to Democrats, is that President Trump has accomplished more in two years than Obama accomplish in two terms. From his conservative appointments to the courts, to the scaling down of taxes, to the overt demonstration of the futility and oppressiveness of the Paris Climate Accord, to the takedown of ISIS and the jump start of the economy, Democrats have been unable to deal with Trump’s effectiveness and the furtherance of the national stability his agenda has provided.

These realities coupled with the virtual dissolution of the Russian collusion allegations have left the Democrats desperate for a talking point and no greater talking point exists than the involvement of the President in an extra-marital, immoral sex scandal with legal overtones — whether they are real or not. That’s good politics for Democrats.

All this leaves us with a recipe for a totally fruitless and unproductive two-year cycle save for the promotion of greater discord among Americans and the continuance and amplification of fractioning among countrymen.

And that is going to make for a very long and painful haul to the 2020 elections for everyone.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Revolutionary Act. The featured photo is by Brian Wertheim on Unsplash.

The Racism the Left Ignores

How appropriate would it be for a major publicly held American company to hire a person with a history of having publicly made the following statements and many others like them? In the interest of brevity, I shall list only four:

“The world could get by just fine with zero black people.”

“It’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old black men.”

“Dumbass f—ing black people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants.”

“Are black people genetically predisposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically only being fit to live underground like groveling bilious goblins?”

I think most Americans would find such blatant racism despicable and would condemn any company that knowingly hired such a person. Leftists of every stripe would be in an uproar, demanding the dismissal of such an employee. College students and their professors would picket any company that hired such a person.

I could be wrong about this, so I’d truly like any employer who’d hire such a person to come forward.

Most Americans would see such statements as racist, but consider this: Suppose we slightly changed the wording of each statement, replacing the word “black” with “white.” For example, “The world could get by just fine with zero white people.”

Would you consider that statement to be just as racist? I would hope you’d answer in the affirmative. They’re all racist statements.

The full scoop on those statements can be found in an excellent essay by William Voegeli, “Racism, Revised,” in the fall edition of the Claremont Review of Books.

The racist statements about white people were made by Sarah Jeong, one of the newest members of The New York Times’ editorial board. Jeong attended the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard Law School. She decided to become a journalist specializing in technology and the internet. She has an active Twitter account with over 97,000 followers.

One person excused Jeong’s tweets by saying they “were not racist” but merely “jokes about white people.”

Leftists have been taught utter nonsense by their college professors. The most insidious lesson taught is who can and who cannot be a racist.

Jeong was born in South Korea in 1988 and became a U.S. citizen in 2017, so she is a minority. According to the thinking of academia’s intellectual elite, a minority person cannot be a racist. The reason is that minorities don’t have the political, economic, and institutional power to adversely affect the lives of whites.

Such reasoning is beyond stupid. Here’s a test. Is the following statement racist?

“Jews are money-hungry hustlers.”

Before you answer, must you first find out the race of the person making the statement? Would you suggest that it’s not a racist statement if the speaker is black, but it is if he’s white?

Voegeli says that calling someone “racist” is one of the most severe accusations that can be made against a person, but at the same time, is among the vaguest. Years ago, one had to don a hood and robe to be a certified racist.

Today, it’s much easier. Tucker Carlson of Fox News questioned whether diversity is all that it’s cracked up to be. He asked, “How, precisely, is diversity our strength? Can you think, for example, of other institutions, such as … marriage or military units, in which the less people have in common the more cohesive they are?”

The Washington Post’s media critic declared that it was racist for Carlson to cast doubt on the proposition that diversity is good.

Voegeli’s article is rich with many other examples of how lots of Americans are losing their minds in matters of race. Muhammad Ali had it right when he said, “Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.”

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Walter E. Williams

Walter E. Williams

Walter E. Williams is a columnist for The Daily Signal and a professor of economics at George Mason University. Twitter: .

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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. Photo: Brendan McDermid/Reuters /Newscom.

Google China’s New Motto: ‘Zuǒpiēzi’ [Doing The Left Thing]

Google’s CEO Pichai Sundararajan, a.k.a Sundar Pichai, after meeting with senior Chinese officials has decided to change its corporate logo and motto for Gǔgē zhōngguó (Google China).

A Google China spokesperson, a gender neutral title, in an interview with Xinhua News Agency (New China News) stated:

We are proud to be working with the Chinese government to enhance our Google China search engine version 1983. We will now be able to track every Chinese citizen and monitor their Bù jié de xiǎngfǎ (unclean thoughts, a.k.a. crime think).

We can now predict when an incident of Fànzuì sīxiǎng (crime think) is about to occur. When Google China discovers that someone, a gender neutral term, is not thinking the way the state desires they will be immediately arrested and sent to a Hǎo sīxiǎng xùnliàn yíng (Good Think Camp).

Trigger words like freedom (and its synonyms ability, opportunity, right, free rein, laissez faire), liberty (and its synonyms independence, opportunity, prerogative, self-determination, self-government), profit and capitalism have been designated as key indicators of crime think.

We will work with the Chinese government to prevent anything that allows anyone, a gender neutral term, to right think (a.k.a. good think).

Left think rules!

An unnamed CNN source, a gender neutral term, indicates that the states of California, New York and Congresswoman elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are looking at implementing a version of Google China, known as Google Minus or G – (version 1984). According to CNN:

Google Minus (G -) version 1984 is dedicated to deleting every instance of Crime Think in America. By ending Crime Think proponents believe that they can finally put an end to thinking itself before the 2020 presidential election cycle.

Our financial reporter Red Square states, “The hottest investment you can make today is the new Google subdivision called Google Minus, dedicated to deleting every instance of CrimeThink on your screens and hard copy until only GoodThink remains.”

We wish Google Minus Èyùn!

EDITORS NOTE: This political satire originally appeared in Pravda USA (a.k.a. TNYT). The featured image is by Red Square from The Peoples Cube.

One Indisputable Takeaway From Comey Performance: Thank God Trump Won

Insidious: Working or spreading harmfully in a subtle or stealthy manner.

Mr. Gowdy. Why is the appearance of bias as insidious as actual bias?

Mr. Comey. The appearance of bias is as important. I don’t know exactly what the word “insidious” means, so I’m not saying that one.

On Friday, Former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation James Comey met in a closed meeting with members of Congress to discuss Hillary Clinton’s email investigation and Comey’s handling thereof.

Comey’s initial response to being interviewed was to avoid a closed hearing, apparently preferring an open setting. After realizing that he was not in a legal position to demand conditions upon the conduct of the hearing, he negotiated a deal whereby he would appear for the closed-door hearing provided that a full transcript of the hearing was released to the public.

That may have been a mistake on Comey’s part.

It is apparent that Comey’s plan regarding this meeting, a link to whose transcript may be found at The Federalist Page’s Library, was to be as evasive as possible, a plan that was supported by the assigned counsel from the Department of Justice.

It seems the key tactic of Comey’s approach was to feign ignorance at the questions he was asked. As a result, he claimed he did not have knowledge or awareness of some of the most elemental aspects of the Clinton email investigation and of his duties and responsibilities as FBI Director.

For example, when Comey was asked whether FBI investigator, Peter Strzok, expressed his bias against then Candidate Donald Trump, Comey said he was not aware of any such bias. As a matter of fact, after much interrogatory wrangling with Congressman Trey Gowdy, Comey finally admitted that he likely would not have allowed Strzok to continue on the case if he had known of the investigator’s intense bias.

When asked whether a text by Strzok claiming that Hillary Clinton was going to win the presidency 100 million to zero was demonstrative of bias, Comey said he could not answer that question because he did not know what Strzok’s intent was when he delivered that text. Additionally, he maintained that he did not know whether he would have fired Strzok over his actions during the Clinton email investigation and his overt display of bias.

After continuing to be fended off by Comey’s feigned ignorance, Gowdy finally asked, “Why is the appearance of bias as insidious as actual bias?  Comey responded, “I don’t know exactly what the word ‘insidious’ means, so I’m not saying that one.”

Claiming ignorance can, under certain circumstances, be a very effective legal defense strategy. But if one is going to claim a lack of knowledge, particularly a lawyer, he best be honest about his ignorance because he is bound to be candid with the tribunal, particular (if such a higher requirement is even possible) if the attorney is under oath.

James Comey is an attorney. So, let’s take him at his word. If he truly did not know that Strzok had this intense, ingrained  bias in favor of Hillary Clinton and against Donald Trump, and if he still does not know how he would have acted in the face of such overt bias, then he is a gross incompetent who should have never held any position of responsibility within the FBI.

And if James Comey actually does not know the meaning of the word “insidious” as a lawyer, an author, and as the former Director of the FBI, then he is also just plain stupid.

In light of this continued display of stupidity, evasiveness, and corruption, the American people are left with only one conclusion.

Thank God President Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Revolutionary Act. It is republished with permission.

My Talk On Citizenship Redux

This is an updated version of a column I wrote some time ago. There’s a book recommendation at the end which would make a great holiday gift for a young person in High School or College.

I was recently asked to give a lecture on “Citizenship” at a local Masonic Lodge. Drawing from a couple of my past columns, I assembled the following short talk:

My biggest concern regarding citizenship pertains to how we teach history and civics in this country. In some High Schools, “American History” runs from World War II to the present. This means students are not learning such things as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the Civil War, the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark, Prohibition, the League of Nations, and much more. In other words, they only discuss the last 77 years, and not the events leading up to the founding of our country and the turmoils we had to endure. As an aside “World History” is now just World War I to the present. So much for the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Marco Polo, the Magna Carta, Ferdinand Magellan, Alexander the Great, et al. I presume they had no bearing on our civilization.

Such ignorance of our history caused famed historian David McCullough to observe,

“We are raising a generation that is historically illiterate and have a very sketchy, thin knowledge of the system on which our entire civilization is based on. It is regrettable and dangerous.”

We are also not educating youth properly in terms of “Civics”; understanding our responsibilities as citizens, such as voting, serving on a jury, how legislation is enacted, or what is included in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. No wonder young people do not grasp the significance of such things as the Electoral College, the structure of our government, or what their rights are.

Naivety and ignorance leads to apathy at the ballot box. In the 2016 elections, only 57.9% of the citizens voted (over 90 million didn’t vote at all). This is a pitiful figure when you compare it to other democracies like Australia, India, and the Scandinavian countries. Surprisingly, this was the highest voting percentage in the United States since 1968 (60.8%). The highest in recent history was in 1960 (63.1%) for the Kennedy/Nixon election. Even though Millennials (ages 18-35) are now the largest potential voting block, they continue to have the lowest voter turnout of any age group.

It is sad when legal immigrants understand the workings of the government and history better than native born Americans. Maybe all citizens should take the same oath naturalized citizens do. Since 1778, immigrants coming to this country have had to pass a test and take an oath swearing their allegiance to the United States. The current oath is as follows:

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

Not surprising, immigrants coming through this program tend to appreciate this country and are more loyal than native born Americans. Another cause for this could be because there is less emphasis on teaching American government and history in the schools than in years past. As such, the importance of being a citizen has not been impressed upon our youth.

So, as a proposal, how about administering a modified version of the immigration oath to all native born Americans, perhaps on July 4th? Better yet, how about Constitution/Citizenship Day on September 17th? All that is necessary is to simply modify the first sentence of the Immigration Oath; to wit:

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

Parents could give the oath to their children, thereby turning it into a family tradition; civic organizations and local governments could administer it in public group settings, or perhaps some other venue. Maybe even the media could get involved and administer it over the airwaves or Internet. It should be administered in some solemn way with a right hand raised and the left hand placed on either a copy of the U.S. Constitution or perhaps a holy book such as a Bible, Torah, or Koran.

The oath is certainly not the same as the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, this is instead a reaffirmation of our commitment to our country and would help promote citizenship and voting. Maybe this is something that should be given routinely as opposed to just one time; to remind people of their allegiance to this country. I cannot help but believe this simple gesture would have nothing but beneficial effects.

One last observation, during this past year, the talking heads on television recommended avoiding any talk of politics at the dinner table, particularly during Thanksgiving, Christmas and other holidays. I disagree. We do not do enough talking at the table in a calm and reasonable manner. Instead of leaving citizenship to the school educators and the media, parents should spend more time discussing it around the dinner table, not in a dictatorial manner, but in a frank and open discussion. I believe our youth would better understand the virtue of the Electoral College if it came from their parents as opposed to an entertainer or athlete.

Maybe then, youth will appreciate the need for “Citizenship.”

P.S. – Here are some reading resources that should be useful:

“Elementary Catechism of the Constitution of the United States” (1828) by Arthur J. Stansbury – for many years, school children learned this catechism. It is just as relevant today as it was nearly 200 years ago. It is available free of charge as a PDF file on the Internet.

Also on the Internet, the U.S. Citizenship and Naturalization Service has a page describing “Constitution Day and Citizenship Day,” along with links to other free resources.

My favorite book for young people is, “The 5000 Year Leap: A Miracle that Changed the World” by W. Cleon Skousen. It sells for about $16-$18 and is available from Barnes and Noble, and Amazon. This makes an excellent holiday gift suitable for students in High School and College. In my humble opinion, all young people should be given a copy of this book as it describes the mechanics of our government. Think of it as a crash course in Civics. Enjoy!

Remember, education is the key to our political future.

Originally published: March 8, 2017

Keep the Faith!

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. The modified featured photo is by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash. All trademarks both marked and unmarked belong to their respective companies.

Wall I Want for Christmas…

When President Trump meets with Minority Leaders Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) tomorrow [December 11th], it won’t be to exchange Christmas cookies. With two weeks left on the government’s spending clock, the only thing Congress wants to wrap up is a deal on leftover appropriations bills.

At this point in negotiations, though, Democrats might be hitting a wall. A $5 billion one.

Lately, the threat of a government shutdown is about as synonymous with December as figgy pudding. But this time around, liberals are in a staring contest with a president who doesn’t blink. Donald Trump wants a border wall, and if that means giving federal employees a little extra time off at Christmas, so be it. Unlike other politicians, who might quake in their boots at the thought of turning out a few lights, this White House isn’t sweating it. If anything, they welcome the opportunity for a fight over promises and principles.

“This would be a very good time to do a shutdown,” Trump has insisted. In a conversation with Politico, he made it quite clear that he was “willing to do anything” to deliver on his border wall promise. And besides, playing hardball on a campaign pledge he made to voters is exactly the sort of thing his supporters have come to expect — and admire. “I don’t do anything… just for political gain,” the president said. “People look at the border, they look at the rush to the police, they look at the rock throwers and really hurting three people, three very brave Border Patrol folks — I think that it’s a tremendous issue, but much more importantly, is really needed. So we have to have border security.” As far as he’s concerned, a shutdown over an issue this vital would be a “total winner.”

Based on history, he may be right.

Back in 2013, the last real shutdown of any consequence, Americans may have blamed the GOP for closing the door on some government departments, but “by next year’s midterms,” the Washington Post points out, Republicans actually gained power. They “expanded their majority in the House and took over the Senate.” If voters held it against the GOP for going to the mat to defund Obamacare, the Post says, they “didn’t hold it against them for long.”

Part of that may be because no one is still falling for the big shutdown myth — that Great Harm that Will Come to All People. While thousands of federal workers are furloughed, they almost always get paid later. By now, most Americans realize that “just because the government ‘shuts down’ doesn’t mean everything grinds to a halt.” As the Associated Press’s Andrew Taylor pointed out at the height of the 2011 panic, the government will never really shut down. “Social Security checks would still go out. Troops would remain at their posts… And virtually every essential government agency, like the FBI, the Border Patrol and the Coast Guard, would remain open.” The only real casualty is usually the National Park Service.

To the GOP’s credit, they already did the heavy lifting on five of the most expensive spending proposals — Defense, Labor-HHS, Education, Energy, and Veterans Affairs. That means more than 70 percent of the government’s discretionary funding is sorted out and signed into law. Of the seven remaining bills on the table, it’s mainly Homeland Security’s that’s causing all of the heartburn. As both sides will tell you, Congress has basically worked out most of its funding. Even Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said there were “very few” outstanding issues left. If leaders could come to some sort of agreement on the border wall, he thinks, the House and Senate could “wrap this up in no time.” If they can’t, it’ll be a long 14 days before Christmas.


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


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We Hear You: How to ‘Wield the Most Effective Weapon Against Tyranny’

Editor’s note: We begin selections from the mailbag this week with a letter from a reader in Georgia that gets at why The Daily Signal exists. See for yourself. Be sure to write us at letters@dailysignal.com.—Ken McIntyre

Dear Daily Signal: Thanks to The Daily Signal and The Heritage Foundation for presenting articles such as Rob Bluey’s podcast interview with Sebastian Gorka on the threats, both foreign and domestic, to our great country (“Sebastian Gorka on the Biggest Threat Facing America and What Trump Is Doing About It”).

I have supported and will continue to support The Heritage Foundation in its efforts to wield the most effective weapon against tyranny—a well-informed electorate through education and protection of basic freedoms of speech, expression, and the press.

My dad landed on Red Beach on the Pacific atoll of Iwo Jima as a 19-year-old Marine in February 1945. Though he was wounded twice and survived for 30 days of combat before being medically evacuated, he never talked about his experience until his later days, when he realized the importance of sharing.

One day as we sat in the yard swing trying to stay comfortable in the stifling heat of a west central Georgia summer, just out of the blue, he felt compelled to share something with his 25-year-old son that I will never forget. No, it wasn’t specifically about his combat experience. It was about modern-day warfare, the combat we find ourselves locked in today.

He said: “Son, the very freedoms I risked my life to defend will slowly disappear in your lifetime.” I had no clue why he said that and what he meant by what he said. He said it most emphatically and with a tone of regret.

My dad was not the type you questioned or asked to repeat things. Even though it completely went over my head, I did not dare ask him to explain. I am 70 now and we lost dad at 88 in 2013. Yet I still hear those fateful words. Now, 50 years later, I see very clearly what he was trying to warn me about as I was engaged to be married.

Though I now see clearly the motive of his warning, he left me the tools to resist, to persevere, to triumph over the tyranny that would steal freedom from my heritage: “Pray, work hard, work honest, never give up the fight, never give in to evil. Remember that truth and good will prevail in the end.”

Thanks, Dad.—Phillip Lee White, Warm Springs, Ga.

Dear Daily Signal: Sebastian Gorka, speaking with Rob Bluey on your podcast, is absolutely correct: China is plotting to take down the U.S. economy by replacing the dollar as the international currency of trade with its own.

As part of this, the Chinese are attempting to steal technology from others to accelerate their way to worldwide hegemony. Thank God we now have a president who loves this country and is unafraid to push back against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

However, we have an equally sinister enemy within this country—the radical left. They too seek to destroy the country so they can rebuild (transform) it to enable their tyrannical control.

The extreme hatred spouted by their leadership has driven their base insane and allowed them to be taken over by evil. Yes, evil. It is why they promote and engage in violent behavior without regard to the damage they cause to either people or property.

Our government will deal with China, but the rest of us are going to have to be the tip of the spear in the battle against leftist tyranny. Our primary weapon should be the power of the ballot to drive leftists and their cohorts in the Washington establishment, which does contain Republicans, out of power.

I found it amazing that Sen. Lindsey Graham came out of his shell after the death of Sen. John McCain and during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings taught the GOP what it means to have a spine.

I for one have been getting tired of all of the milquetoasts in the GOP who appear to fear their shadows. We desperately need a few good men and women to lead the battle.—Randy Leyendecker, Kerrville, Texas

***

China and other nations may pose problems for the U.S. from time to time, as will random acts of terrorism, but we can deal with these. The real threat to America will come from within, from our own people who want to “fundamentally transform America” into something it never was and was never meant to be.

The appeal of “free stuff” is a powerful attractant. It comes from some people who come from poor or low-income families who are envious of what others have.

It also comes from some people who have been given everything they needed and wanted who believe they are entitled to things they don’t earn and now face the prospect of having to earn the things they see other people have that they want. (Oh, the horror!)

Real life scares them, and frightened people will grab on to promises of salvation (socialism) like a drowning man will grasp at a straw.

This is the real “clear and present danger” to our republic and our way of life. Socialism doesn’t bring the equality of prosperity to everyone, only the equality of misery.—Drew Page

***

Gorka says of a recent poll: “They find 42 percent of millennials would like to live in a socialist or communist America.”

Well, let’s give them the opportunity to do so, in another country. Perhaps they could observe firsthand the way I did, through military service. This has got to be the result of our failed education system and its extreme liberal bias.—Herman Mueller

Standing Firm Amid the Blows of Gender Politics

Dear Daily Signal: God bless Isabella Chow for standing for righteousness, as Rachel del Guidice reports (“Why This California College Student Is Choosing to Stand Up for Her Beliefs on Gender”). If they kick you out of your seat as a senator, Isabella, consider yourself blessed.

You shouldn’t keep casting pearls before swine. They don’t know what to do with them.—Jim Dandi

***

The left officially has become the largest hate group in U.S. history. There is no debate on this.

The “left” comprises about 25 percent of the population, and all people who do not support their (often radical) views are harassed, intimidated, and excluded.

They have become the very hate groups that they claim to have always disdained. So now we will get to see what it felt like for the Jews in Germany and for blacks in the U.S., as they confronted hate. Progressives are the new Nazis and KKK.—Anthony Alafero

***

Isabella Chow is very brave. I thank her for taking a stand for Christianity. I am sure it has cost her a great deal. Her courage is inspiring.—Helen Hunt, Columbia, Miss.

***

I am always puzzled by the decision of Christian young people and their parents to attend liberal indoctrination centers posing as institutions of higher learning.

That their core beliefs and worldview will be viciously attacked is a given constantly, until they agree to surrender them and embrace the degradation of the mob. So many better alternatives for real learning will build up faith in God and equip one for a life of service to him.—Michael Waters

***

Isabella Chow, you are an inspiration! You hang in there, and I will be praying for you.—Tonya Acre Merrill

Calling Out the Progressive Agenda

Dear Daily Signal: It is amazing that most leftists cannot explain what socialistic and democratic forms of government are, as Jarrett Stepman’s commentary suggests, nor do they realize the long-term effects of those systems (“Progressives Want to Burn Down Any Institution That Doesn’t Favor Them at the Moment”).

In conjunction with that, leftists do not understand America’s constitutional republican form of government, why it was created, how it works, the protections it offers the entire populace, and how it enhances philanthropy while supporting capitalism.

However, like any organization, it can be corrupted—when those at the higher and highest levels of our government stop working for its citizenry (the foundational mandate of our Constitution), and instead work to support their personal motives. Religion and politics should be kept out of government.

The executive branch leads. The legislative branch creates laws. The judicial branch judges, according to the Constitution. Together they govern of, for, and by the will of the people—not vice versa.—Dan Dean

***

Jarrett Stepman, you are amazing. Your journalistic viewpoints are always spot on.

The left are idiots. Sorry to be so blunt, but it’s true. They are crybabies and brats who act out every time they don’t get their own way. Why anyone pays any attention to Joy Behar or Whoopi Goldberg at all is beyond my ability to comprehend.—Tonya Acre Merrill

***

Since this is not your America, lefties, then you are welcome to leave it. I prefer the old days of law and order, which your kind is attempting to change. Don’t like the rules? Please, go find yourselves a better place to be and leave my country alone!—Donald Leegh, Augusta, Ga.

***

The left is a treasonous movement. The Democrats became a treasonous organization when they fell under the sway of a movement that rejects our system of government, its laws, and its elections.

Now their treason is coming to a head. They are engaged in a struggle for power against the government. That’s not protest. It’s not activism. The old treason of the ’60s has come of age. A civil war has begun.

This is a primal conflict between a totalitarian system and a democratic system. Its outcome will determine whether we will be a free nation or a nation of slaves.—Wes Potts

***

The sign “This is not our America” is unfortunately correct. In that light, I think that they, and all other progressives, should leave. May I suggest Wakanda? Just go to Kenya and walk west. I’m sure you’ll find it.—John Palmer

***

Just move to a country where illegal immigrants come from, leftists. Or Venezuela is up and running; go there. Leave your citizenship behind. We don’t want you back.—Suzy Jules

Defending the Peace Cross 

Dear Daily Signal: Despite the words from residents who’ve joined the suit against the Peace Cross, as Troy Worden reports, the word “offensive” is not listed in the lawsuit at all (“What Veterans Say About Effort at Supreme Court to Remove Peace Cross War Memorial”).

The issue is maintenance and upkeep of a religious symbol on public property using taxpayer dollars in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This has nothing to do with rewriting history, forgetting the past, or dishonoring veterans.

The American Humanist Association has stated that they are in favor of a memorial to honor vets as long as it doesn’t involve religious imagery. Quoting veterans is disingenuous and particularly ironic when they invoke the First Amendment.

Next time quote lawyers and constitutional scholars, people who are qualified to discuss the First Amendment and the Establishment Clause therein, for that’s the main argument against this memorial.—James Webb

***

I’d like to point out to the Supreme Court a 1892 case known as Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, which I learned about in the book “The Rebirth of America,” edited by Nancy Leigh DeMoss and published by the Arthur S. DeMoss Foundation.

The court decided then that we were emphatically a Christian-based nation. Therefore, removing this 120-year-old cross monument in Bladensburg, Maryland, would be a destruction of our historical values.

The attorneys in defense of that World War I memorial would be wise to review this book, specifically the chapter titled “One Nation Under God.” It is full of quotes by Founding Fathers and others who envisioned a nation not run by religion, but one that held the Christian faith in deep respect.—Dail F. Melton, Braselton, Ga.

***

Public property is what it says; it belongs to the republic, to everyone. Monuments should not be threatened by the someones who just want to be noticed as crusaders for something they and a few others want to force on the majority.—Henry Vance, Waynesboro, Va.

***

Look at the courthouse where the Supreme Court makes its decisions. There is a lot of symbolism there for Christianity. We have forgotten why this country was founded as people come here to live, even with different value systems.

We as a culture need to remind children of their gift of living in this county. Please let us protect our culture so that we may maintain our freedoms and worship the Lord thy God.—Barbara A. Drabek, Fort Myers, Fla.

***

Nothing in our Constitution mentions God or the Bible or Jesus Christ.

There is only one clause in our Constitution that is similar to what is written in the Bible (Article IV, Section 2). Everything else in our Constitution is not at all like anything in the Bible, and some of it directly contradicts what is in the Bible.—Alan Turner

***

Even though atheists are an increasing percentage of the population, they shouldn’t be allowed to impose their views on the rest of us.

According to a recent World Values Survey, 4.4 percent of Americans self-identified as atheists. So why should this small segment of the population have a right to take away religious symbols, when 70 percent of the population claim to hold to some form of Christianity?—Wes Potts

Democrats’ King of Election Recounts

Dear Daily Signal: Having Democratic lawyer Marc Elias anywhere near the vote gathering and counting centers is akin to allowing the fox to live in the hen house (“6 Big Election Hits by Marc Elias, Democrats’ Recount King”).

Where is the Republican lawyer who knows how to fight bare-knuckle style? We must get in the gutter where the Democrats have always stolen elections, to keep Elias and similar slimeballs at bay.—Terry Dwyer

***

One illegal vote will disenfranchise a single legal vote. Disenfranchise! One of the favorite words of Democrats everywhere.

Here’s my take: Either Democrats are too stupid to know how to vote correctly or they’re too stupid to know how to properly take custody of ballots once they are posted or received. Which is it?

If you’re this stupid, you shouldn’t be allowed to vote. If you take a test and can’t color in the box properly, your answer doesn’t count. Neither should your vote.—David Lisk

***

It has become perfectly normal since the 1990s that elections are lost and then manipulated so a recount is necessary, so the winner (almost always a conservative) becomes the loser.

This year alone, within a week, election fraud or vote manipulation has been cited in very similar circumstances in Florida, Georgia, Arizona, and Illinois.

There are other potential cases, but the closeness of those races cannot merit the same scrutiny that these do.—Ken McDonald

***

Widespread voter fraud is a lie to inspire a fear-and-outrage narrative. How many have taken even one minute to consider what the logistics of pulling it off would be, let alone no one getting caught?

Certainly among individuals caught who’re facing real prison time, many would sing like a bird for a plea deal providing proof and hard evidence.

Any actual research shows it a lie. Even The Heritage Foundation’s own data show it to be a rare occurrence and usually committed through ignorance and the occasional idiots trying manipulate some local seat.—William Robert

***

One idea to eliminate a lot of these shenanigans is to separate the accounting for the ballots from the counting of the ballots.

After all ballots are received and accounted for, then and only then does the counting begin. Sure, it will delay the process for a few days, but I’d rather wait a couple of days. We’ve already endured a year or more of campaigning, what’s a few more days?

Once all parties agree that all the ballots are in, any recount will only count those ballots, not “found” ones.—Roger Zegers

***

If you’ve watched, researched, and compared as long as I have, you know the gangsters admitted they’ve always done what needed doing for the Democrat Party. They, and movie stars, mostly donated money to the Dems.

The immoral beat goes on and on. All things are seen and known … and have their consequences. Those in charge of voting need to follow the law, and our government needs to see that they do.—Bonnie McGuire

***

Fraud, deception, activist judges, political cowardice, and failures of law enforcement. It’s all pretty disgusting and does not bode well for our once-revered republic.—Steve Fowler

The Origins of Birthright Citizenship

Dear Daily Signal: I would agree with Ed Feulner’s commentary on birthright citizenship that the intent of the authors of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment was clear in their minds and in their debates (“If Trump Ended Birthright Citizenship by Executive Order, He’d Be Enforcing Existing Law”).

Unfortunately, the language they used when they wrote the amendment does not clearly express their intentions. The Supreme Court came to that conclusion in 1898 in the case of U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark.

It doesn’t matter what Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan noted in the 19th century. It doesn’t matter what “constitutional scholar” Edward Erler said. There are lots of constitutional scholars, with lots of varying opinions.

It doesn’t matter what Matthew Spalding of Hillsdale College opined, and it does not matter what President Trump thinks, or what you or I think. It doesn’t matter what the Supreme Court justices thought in the decisions prior to that of 1898.

What does matter is the last high court decision on birthright citizenship (U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark). This decision set the precedent for determining that anyone, with a few limited exceptions, born on U.S. soil (or soil under the jurisdiction of the U.S.) is a citizen of the United States.

Was the language used in Section 1 of the 14th Amendment misinterpreted by the Supreme Court in its 6-2 decision? Possibly. Certainly the two dissenting justices thought so.

Lots of people—including current justices, former justices, constitutional scholars, and law professors—who believe that many of the court’s decisions were wrong due to “misinterpretation” of the written law.

As I see it, there are but two remedies:

1. Pass another amendment to the Constitution that more clearly defines “birthright citizenship,” and to whom it does and does not apply.

2. Let anyone born on U.S. soil who was denied birthright citizenship file suit in federal court and, if denied in court, file an appeal with the Supreme Court, which can render a decision.—Drew Page

***

We have to understand what that phrase—”subject to the jurisdiction of”—meant in 1868.—Kate Ratigan

***

I don’t believe it’s up to Congress to clarify this law. The Supreme Court should be the final say. And if the court determines that the president is right, it’s up to Congress to change it. President Trump is correct in enforcing the laws.—Wayne Mayer

Learning About the First Thanksgiving

Dear Daily Signal: What is missing from your podcast discussion of the Mayflower Compact with historian Robert Tracy McKenzie is that the compact set up a commune in which all would give whatever they raised into communal storage, from which each person had an equal draw on the resources (“Podcast: The Surprising Story of the First Thanksgiving”).

As human nature would dictate, many did not work very hard because it offered no individual reward. Some worked little at all; why work if you are to be given everything you needed?

That caused the colony to fail in spite of help from the Indians. They nearly starved to death. William Bradford then originated a new compact that gave each family a plot of land that they could work on and keep the fruits of their labor.

This was basically a case of capitalism replacing socialism/communism. It stimulated trade within the colony and with the Indians. The colony thrived under the new system and had a major banquet to honor and thank God for delivering prosperity. That was the original Thanksgiving.—Randy Leyendecker, Kerrville, Texas

***

Early American history is absolutely grand. It’s relatively recent, so in many cases we can understand with some certainty who did what when.

Today I’m grateful to be born in the U.S. and to have attended school before major and negative revisions set in. Your podcast guest, historian Robert Tracy McKenzie, might be surprised that we nonelites were taught generally right along the lines of his interpretations.

Our dinner table was filled with historical discussions about major figures and events in American history: the black, the white, and the gray. Both parents enjoyed history and read endlessly in that context. We were taught not to apply today’s mindless cultural perspectives against yesterday’s occurrences.—Samuel Mazzuchelli

***

Not to be a stickler for details, but the first Thanksgiving was in 1619 at Berkeley, Virginia. Next year will be the 400th anniversary of that Thanksgiving—Greg Knapp

***

I’m not falling for this version of the first Thanksgiving for one second. Is Robert Tracy McKenzie such a genius that all of America’s historians for the past couple-plus centuries got it wrong until he came along?

This is utter hogwash and reflects the hubris of those in academia. To me, this version is just one more effort to rewrite American history, but coming from an institution that our side, and The Daily Signal, would trust.

My suspicions were highly raised when Dr. McKenzie enlightened us with his version of why the Pilgrims came.

Could any sensible person with a modicum of wisdom believe that such puddle-deep motivations as those proposed by Dr. McKenzie prompted a band of sober-minded and grounded Christians to embark on such an arduous, perilous journey, putting themselves and their children at risk? A boat full of 16th-century adrenaline junkies, whooping it up to the New World …

This is another attempt at rewriting our magnificent history by some young punk who thinks history began at his birth. I’ll have none of it.—Jane Blacksmith

This and That

Dear Daily Signal: I am a longtime reader. I greatly appreciate the quality journalism, reporting, and commentary that The Daily Signal provides.

However, I am writing to express grave concern regarding your practice of releasing the names of suspects in mass-casualty incidents, such as in the articles “11 Dead in Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting; Gunman Faces Hate Crime Charges” and “Multiple Men Were ‘Ready to Take a Bullet for Any Single One of Us,’ Says Woman Who Survived California Shooting.”

Each time your editors allow these names to be included, they actively make the decision to contribute to the frenzy of media attention that draws other unstable individuals into committing these types of atrocities. While I expect nothing better from the mainstream media, The Daily Signal has demonstrated a commitment to a higher standard, and this practice seems a grave violation of that standard.

Perhaps there is a rationale in this decision that I am overlooking. If so, I’d appreciate an explanation.—Timothy de Laveaga, Philadelphia

Editor’s note: The Daily Signal’s policy generally is not to use a photo of the gunman or other perpetrator in such a crime, and to minimize use of his or her name in our coverage. We picked up both of the cited articles from The Daily Caller News Foundation, however, and our agreement with that organization doesn’t allow us to delete such facts. 

***

I hope President Trump will open up the report on the Steele dossier by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif. This would clear up a lot of material that seems to be always in question about how it was designed.—Adam Schwartz, Honesdale, Pa.

***

Why would businessman Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, not give that $1.8 billion to pay down the national debt instead of giving it to Johns Hopkins University? Or give it to the migrants to help them settle in Mexico. Start a fund for medical care. A college will support only the left’s agenda.—Windle White

Sarah Sleem and Troy Worden helped to compile this edition of “We Hear You.”

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Ken McIntyre

Ken McIntyre, a 30-year veteran of national and local newspapers, serves as senior editor at The Daily Signal and The Heritage Foundation’s Marilyn and Fred Guardabassi Fellow in Media and Public Policy Studies. Send an email to Ken. Twitter: .


The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now


EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission.

Don’t Be Fooled: Ocasio-Cortez Is A Very Real Threat

Too many conservatives are having too much fun with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s gaffes and more-than-apparent ignorance of economics, history and the U.S. Constitution. There is truly a lot of low-hanging fruit, and it hardly needs to be re-hashed. Just check your social media feed.

But just deriding the woman belies two errors. One is thinking that she is a lightweight one-off to be mocked and ridiculed for sport and the other is to think there is no harm in doing so.

On the first count, she is showing herself to be a much quicker study than one might expect considering her astounding ignorance on so many levels (that is a condemnation more of her education than of her, it seems.) Her speeches are improving, her communication skills are respectable and getting stronger, her use of social media is adroit — with one glaring exception we will get to — she understands how to use a friendly and sympathetic media to her advantage, she uses emotional arguments well and she is already learning how to work within the Washington, D.C. establishment while maintaining her quasi-revolutionary status.

On the second count, the endless memes and savage mockery do nothing more on the right than entertain, but do serve to strengthen the depth of her supporters and probably expand them. “Look, the rotten old Republicans keep attacking this young woman and calling her stupid,” many in the middle will exclaim. “I want to hear what she has to say!”

It’s worth remembering that Democrats and the left mocked, belittled and laughed at candidate Donald Trump until he won.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is not Trump, but not taking someone seriously in the political realm is a recipe for disaster. And would the D.C. swamp really be that upset at someone who wanted to dramatically expand their realm of influence and power? Would they go after her some day as they have Trump? We all know the answer to that.

If we conservatives content ourselves to ridicule her with the “crazy eyes,” we make a young, pretty woman with a bright smile into a sympathetic victim, thereby strengthening her without ever engaging her on her message — which is a total shipwreck for the nation.

Kevin McCullough at Townhall wrote, “…we must engage, confront with truth and winsomely dispense with her most emotionally charged but intellectually dishonest ideas.”

Further, Ocasio-Cortez has displayed very thin skin, which is par for her generation, and a willingness to swiftly move to use the levers of power against opponents — an instinct of every socialist ever worldwide.

Most recently on this point, she was trolled by Donald Trump, Jr., who shared a meme on Instagram. It had two images: one on top of Ocasio-Cortez with the text, “Why are you so afraid of a socialist economy?” Below that is an image of President Donald Trump with the text, “Because Americans want to walk their dogs, not eat them.”

Funny, pointed, harmless.

But not to Ocasio-Cortez. She amazingly went straight to threat by the power of government, then tried to say that’s not what she did when it was transparently what she did. She tweeted:

“I have noticed that Junior here has a habit of posting nonsense about me whenever the Mueller investigation heats up,” Ocasio-Cortez said, “Please, keep it coming Jr [sic] — it’s definitely a ‘very, very large brain’ idea to troll a member of a body that will have subpoena power in a month.”

That’s pretty pointed. Sean Davis, at the Federalist, responded by pointing out that the House Ethics Manual prohibits members of Congress from threatening citizens due to partisan politics.

“It’s worth noting that the official House Ethics Manual explicitly prohibits the kind of threat that@Ocasio2018 just issued against @DonaldJTrumpJr for his refusal to support her political agenda.”

In this sense, she is not the bright, pretty young lady from the Bronx. She’s taking the first step toward being a Stalinist. (Yes, many steps to go, but you have to start with one, and she did.)

Since upsetting one of the most powerful and entrenched Democrats in Congress, Joe Crowley, during the primaries, Ocasio-Cortez has argued for a broad array of socialist policies, including a single-payer government healthcare system; government-guaranteed high-paying jobs; government-issued housing; abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) and much more.

Perhaps the most chilling part of her agenda was first broached during a rather infamous interview on PBS, when she said “capitalism has not always existed in the world, and it will not always exist in the world” while arguing for why America should end the tyranny of capitalism and move towards socialism.

Of course, she is right that capitalism has not always existed. And neither has anything remotely approaching the standard of living that the poorest American or Western European enjoys today. Just a lowly working stiff in 2018 lives a life of luxury and amazements that Louis XIV, the Sun King of France, could not have imagined. Billions have been lifted out of poverty while starvation due to scarcity has all but disappeared from the planet.

None of that happened before capitalism. And none of that has happened where capitalism was replaced by socialism — in Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, Vietnam, the Eastern Bloc or China, which has seen its economic boom only after adopting capitalist markets.

But the chill-down-the-spine statement was the last part: capitalism “will not always exist in the world.” A world without capitalism, governed by the socialist elites that always end up at despotic communism, is a truly terrifying goal.

And it is her goal. She is much smarter than her original ignorance belied. (She really needs her money back from Boston College.)

The way to fight Ocasio-Cortez — and she must be fought — is not by mocking her ignorance or calling her stupid. That only strengthens both her personal resolve in pursuing terrible ideas and those backing her and her ideas. The way to fight her is to destroy her ideas with relentless history, facts, data and economics.

Socialism is like Sharia law when it comes to America and the U.S. Constitution. Neither of those brutal doctrines can co-exist for long in the same country with the Constitution. The First Amendment alone is antithetical to socialism, and where it always and inevitably leads is to erasing free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly and so on.

Socialism is simply un-American at its core. Americans used to know that. They don’t so much anymore, and certainly not the younger generation. And Ocasio-Cortez is now the smiling face of that brutal philosophy. Mocking her is a grave error.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The Revolutionary Act. It is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Jason Leung on Unsplash.

GQ’s Luke Darby reveals Left’s totalitarian agenda, calls for ‘taking megaphones’ from dissenters of Leftist line

This lengthy article is mostly just one long victory dance over the apparent fact that Milo Yiannopoulos is deeply in debt. But along the way, Luke Darby of GQ (which is supposed to be a fashion magazine, as far as I know, but today the Leftist agitprop is everywhere, with no letup) makes some revealing statements about the Left’s mindset and agenda.

“He also owes money to a rogue’s gallery of other right-wingers, including the anti-Muslim zealot Pamela Geller.”

Why is Pamela Geller an “anti-Muslim zealot”? Because she opposes jihad mass murder and Sharia oppression of women, gays, and others. Luke Darby, if pressed, which he never will be, would probably admit that he also opposes jihad mass murder and Sharia oppression of women, gays, and others, but he would claim that Pamela Geller “hates” Muslims and he doesn’t, or tars “all Muslims” as jihad terrorists and/or Sharia supremacists, and he doesn’t. She doesn’t do those things, however, and it is reflexive now among Leftist “journalists” to smear as “anti-Muslim” any and all opposition to jihad and Sharia, and to try to discredit and marginalize it as “racism,” “bigotry,” and “Islamophobia.” If the jihadists and the influence of Sharia continue to advance in the West, Darby may someday regret that he jumped on this particular bandwagon without a moment’s thought, but by then it will be far too late.

“Liberals who buy into Yiannopoulos’s bad-faith arguments for free speech, that the only way to defeat his punchy bigotry is to validate it with debate, should take note: When Yiannopoulos made his pedophilia-friendly comments, his conservative patrons and audiences didn’t invite him to a public forum to weigh the pros and cons of what he said.”

It is Darby who is in bad faith here. There was nothing for Milo’s “conservative patrons and audiences” to debate, because Milo immediately apologized and backtracked. It wasn’t as if he was out there calling for debate on the pros and cons of pedophilia.

Note also Darby’s phrase, “Yiannopoulos’s bad faith arguments for free speech.” Darby is referring to Milo’s calls to Leftists to debate him, not about pedophilia, but about political issues. Darby, however, simply labels Milo’s views “punchy bigotry” and wants him silenced. This is increasingly how the Left deals with dissent. Leftists, like Muslim spokesmen, appear to know that they can’t win debates, so they simply want those whom they hate to be shut down. Darby doesn’t contemplate the possibility that once he and his allies have opened this door, their own views could be shut down if they fall out of favor with the elites; apparently he doesn’t think that could ever happen.

“Media personalities like Jones and Yiannopoulos don’t just rely on attention to ideologically thrive. They also need it just to financially survive. Taking their megaphones remains the best way to mitigate the damage they’ve already done.”

Darby here openly endorses the deplatforming and silencing of those whom he hates. He appears to have full trust in the social media giants that they will wield this power in a way of which he will approve. Once again, it doesn’t seem to occur to him that if Milo and Alex Jones can be deplatformed, so can Luke Darby. He is a totalitarian, and totalitarians don’t contemplate being out of power, for power is their god, and they will do anything to attain it and keep it.

“Milo Yiannopoulos Is Millions of Dollars in Debt,” by Luke Darby, GQ, December 3, 2018 (thanks to Vikram):

…Now Yiannopoulos is reportedly $2 million in debt….He also owes money to a rogue’s gallery of other right-wingers, including the anti-Muslim zealot Pamela Geller….

Liberals who buy into Yiannopoulos’s bad-faith arguments for free speech, that the only way to defeat his punchy bigotry is to validate it with debate, should take note: When Yiannopoulos made his pedophilia-friendly comments, his conservative patrons and audiences didn’t invite him to a public forum to weigh the pros and cons of what he said. They dropped him without hesitation. With no platform, he was no longer a provocative, popular figure with even a slight bit of influence. It’s the same hole that Alex Jones is falling into now that Infowars is off of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. All that Jones can do to get attention these days is literally yell at Marco Rubio in public.

Media personalities like Jones and Yiannopoulos don’t just rely on attention to ideologically thrive. They also need it just to financially survive. Taking their megaphones remains the best way to mitigate the damage they’ve already done.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on Jihad Watch. The featured photo is by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash.