The Political War of 2018

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Back in January, I previewed the midterm elections and predicted this will become a “bloody” political war. Unfortunately, I was right. With just over a month to go, the election gets nastier with each passing day.

As I predicted, every word President Trump says or Tweets is scrutinized by the news media and twisted by the Left. Accuracy in news reporting is a myth. Flagrant lies and misrepresentations abound in order to try and stop Republicans from holding on to the Congress and various State governments.

Everything is politicized, even hurricanes, in fear it might make the president and Republicans look good. Prior to Hurricane Florence’s arrival off the coast of the Carolinas, the media asked the president if the federal government was prepared for the emergency and had they learned anything from Puerto Rico one year earlier. The President responded by saying the government was ready for Florence and, all things considered, did a remarkably good job in supporting Puerto Rico, which took the press aback, claiming it was a disaster instead.

When you consider the location of the island and its poor economic condition, Yes, the federal government did a good job.

People seem to have forgotten that, thanks to the policies of the Democrats, Puerto Rico was on the verge of bankruptcy. It has a horrible reputation for economic responsibility, with billions of dollars in debt, pension obligations they cannot afford to pay, and a dwindling GDP. Consequently, the infrastructure and utilities were not in the best of shape prior to the hurricane, as well as emergency services, requiring major repairs by the federal government.

Then, the president was accused of being insensitive to the deaths in Puerto Rico when he tweeted…

After maintaining for several months that only a handful of people had perished due to hurricanes, the Puerto Rican government raised the death toll unexpectedly to 2,975 in August. Is it a coincidence this news came just before the midterms? Hmm…

In other words, the president makes a good point, yet the media went viral in their condemnation of what he said. This certainly will not be the last instance of twisting his words as we still have over a month to go until the election.

Then there is the outrageous behavior by Senate Democrats to obstruct the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, including an alleged High School sexual misconduct charge reported as a last minute “Hail Mary” designed to stop Mr. Kavanaugh. The candidate categorically and unequivocally denies this allegation, and is backed by many women who have known him for many years. This was nothing more than a last minute smear campaign to besmirch the candidate’s good name.

What this all highlights is this campaign goes well beyond the president to other Republicans running for governor, senate, the House, state assembly, or dog catcher. Using the influence of the media, the Democrats are falsely accusing GOP candidates of racism and other improprieties. Case in point, the attacks on Florida GOP gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis by the media adamantly accusing him of making racist remarks. Actually, he made no such comment at all, this is all concocted by Democrat operatives in the press.

Publications like the New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Tampa Bay Times, and many others have lost all sense of honest journalism and have become the marketing arm of the Democrats. The same can be said for CNN, MS-NBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc. They have lost their integrity and any semblance of reality. Their job is simple: refute anything and everything the president says, and accuse him of maligning their character when he dares to fight back.

While the press persists in putting down a diversionary smokescreen for the Democrats to hide behind, the economy continues to rebound and the average American prospers. As noted by the the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Republicans possess a far better track record of running state governments, particularly in Florida, yet the media refuses to acknowledge this as it does not fit with their political agenda.

Even the polls are skewed in favor of the Democrats, just as they were in 2016. As they are under control of the Left, it is no small wonder they claim the Democrats are pulling ahead. Their predictions will likely be as bad as they were in 2016. Frankly, the polls do not matter. The best way to determine election outcomes is to study the early-voting and absentee balloting data coming out of the various Secretary of States, Division of Elections. This is how I knew Mr. Trump would clinch Florida in 2016. The polls are worthless.

The Left has gone well beyond simple propaganda and lampooning their opponents and now resort to name calling, identity politics, bullying, rumors and innuendo, slander and libel, lies and deceit, character assassination, race baiting, and bearing false witness. They are unapologetic for it as well, even quite proud of how they have changed the moral fabric of the country. This is what the face of desperation looks like.

In reality, what we are witnessing is the death roll of the Democrats, a party desperate for a win in November. As I mentioned back in January, the Democrats have to win if they ever hope to survive as a party. As such, any lie or deceit is deemed acceptable in order to win at any cost. If you think the press is bad now, you haven’t seen anything like what you are about to see in the last month of the campaign. They have lost their civility and found a home as bottom-dwellers. Sad, very sad.

As for the Republicans, they have to keep their cool and not lower themselves to the level of the Democrats. They need to stick to the facts and sell the financial prosperity and stability they have created.

Since the press will not report anything positive about their party, it is necessary for Republicans to blitz the Internet using such things as social media and e-mail to get the truth out. Unfortunately, social media is controlled by the Democrats and, as such, may be censored. Regardless, it is time for Republicans to be proactive, not reactive, in combating the Socialists. Their biggest mistake would be to underestimate the will of the Left and let them have their say uncontested. If they do this, they deserve to lose.

Keep the Faith!

Note: All trademarks both marked and unmarked belong to their respective companies.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Upsplash/Tom Roberts@tomrdesigns.

Nike signs ‘Hanoi’ Jane Fonda for new marketing campaign

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We have recently heard through secret subversive channels on the interwebs that Nike has just signed Jane Fonda to its new marketing campaign set to launch next week.

The company has also announced that it will be launching a line of gender-neutral leotards bearing her name.

Nike has been praised for its promotion of positive female role models, such as Fonda, but criticized for assuming her gender and for insinuating that men would prefer gender-neutral leotards over prima ballerina leotards.

The Nike Commercial MAGA Deserves:

EDITORS NOTE: This political satire column by Fourier’s Anti-Manatee originally appeared on The Peoples Cube. The featured image was posted by Imperatorskiy Pingvin and is from teh interwebz.

Kavanaugh Allegations: Aimed at Justice or at a Justice?

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Why would someone sit on an allegation for nearly six weeks, if were about a subject that everyone is supposed to be concerned about? Perhaps it’s because they are more concerned about how to use the allegation than whether or not the allegation is true.

Welcome to Washington, DC where such political theater is regularly on display, the latest episode being Senate Democrats’ efforts to derail Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh with an eleventh-hour allegation of inappropriate behavior from more than thirty years ago. Whether or not the allegation is true is one thing. We should always be concerned about the truth. But how it is being used is another — and methods have the right to be questioned.

“It’s disturbing that these uncorroborated allegations from more than 35 years ago, during high school, would surface on the eve of a committee vote after Democrats sat on them since July,” a Senate Judiciary Committee statement read. “If Ranking Member Feinstein and other Committee Democrats took this claim seriously, they should have brought it to the full Committee’s attention much earlier.”

Quite true. Instead, writes the committee, Democrats “said nothing during two joint phone calls with the nominee in August, four days of lengthy public hearings, a closed session for all committee members with the nominee where sensitive topics can be discussed and in more than 1,300 written questions. Sixty-five senators met individually with Judge Kavanaugh during a nearly two-month period before the hearing began, yet Feinstein didn’t share this with her colleagues ahead of many of those discussions.”

At the same time, many (including many women who knew him years ago) have firmly vouched for his character and integrity. Additionally, as my friend Franklin Graham noted, “Judge Kavanaugh has been through 6 incredibly thorough FBI vettings and a multitude of other inquiries, and nothing even related to these 36-year-old allegations has ever come up.” We know that many progressives and opponents of our Constitution as it is written would love nothing more than for this whole process to be derailed. Given the way this has unfolded, we have every reason to believe Kavanaugh’s opponents don’t care about justice; they care about a justice — specifically, that he not make it onto the Court.

As Franklin reminds us, we must “[p]ray for Judge Kavanaugh, Mrs. Ford who is making this accusation, their families, and for wisdom and discernment for Senate leadership dealing with these post-hearing, previously unreported, allegations from his distant teenage years.” Indeed, in a situation like this, let us all pray — for the good of our Constitution and our nation — that truth, justice, and righteousness would prevail.

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

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WARNING: Evil is Hunting the American Republic

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Only those people who know Evil can understand and appreciate Goodness. The first two weeks of September 2018 have been a time when real Evil has fought against Goodness in America. It was a coordinated cascade of questionable negative information about President Trump in the media, ideological backlash in the Senate Hearing of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, and Obama’s re-entering political arena with his parade of lies, trying to get us to believe that Trump is our biggest problem. In fact, all three have the same source: the fraudulent ideology of Socialism, which is confronting Trump’s well-functioning Capitalism. We, the former citizens of Socialist countries recognized the Democrat party’s fraudulent Socialist ideology instantly in all three cases.

The Deep State or The International Spy Ring

The GOP is missing an elephant in the room: the Dems’ reason of hateful resistance to the GOP is not only to revenge a losing election, the main reason of resistance is to cover-up the sinister crime of TREASON that they have committed over several decades. This crime of the Dems, committed by the leadership of a Socialist mafia should be a major topic in the midterm election on November 6, 2018.

When I heard the term the Deep State two years ago, I did not understand the meaning of the term and used it quite rarely. I was using the title The Global Spy Ring, writing about Obama/Putin Alliance for a long time. As a matter of fact, this term also was changed from Obama/Putin Joint Venture to the Obama/Putin Conspiracy Against the American Republic, naming it as a ”criminal cabal.” The explanation is simple—the more I learned and analyzed the information, the more clearly I could express and reflect on the reality. Today, I have no doubts that we are dealing with a global spy ring run by the KGB and executed by the radical ‘army’ of Socialist Mafia in America.

To grasp my idea, you have to know at least two elements of reality: the power of the KGB and the status quo of Russia. Using the term KGB, I mean the entire Russian Intel—it is a collective image, the reason for that is those three letters are familiar to the vast majority of Americans. What we saw in the first two weeks of September 2018 was a carbon copy of a manufactured crisis in the KGB’s style. America’s entire Socialist Mafia and media, working together, executed the same play-book, telling us by hundred different voices about the treason committed by President Trump. Offense is the best defense—this was the slogan and policy of the Socialist apparatchiks taught by Stalin. Never admit the crime committed, but accuse the opposition in that exact crime. You see it in America today.

We, the former Soviet citizens, knew the policy very well, having watched it for many years. This policy, coordinated by the KGB helped the Socialist system to survive for many years. For your information the collapse of the Soviet Union meant the collapse of the Socialist economy, which couldn’t produce, but the Police State under the KGB has survived. Nothing substantial has changed and under Putin’s leadership the current apparatchiks are flourishing in Russia today. Yes, nothing substantial has changed in Russia. The KGB is still running the country with a crony capitalism instead of failed socialism. That’s it.

As a matter of fact, a lot of Socialist and KGB methods have been implemented in the U.S. during the last three decades, especially the last eight years of Obama’s administration. The Democrat Party has become America’s Socialist Party embracing the KGB’s methods of implementing Soviet Socialism. To prove my point I’d like to present the part played by the Obama/Putin Conspiracy—a military collaboration, describe by me in my preceding columns. The following list represents military collaboration within the Obama/Putin Conspiracy during all eight years of Obama’s presidency:

  1. Killing of bin-Laden
  2. Invasion of Libya, conspiracy of Obama, Putin, and French Pres. Sarkozy.
  3. Benghazi, murder of the U.S. ambassador Stevens to provide arms to Assad’s Syria and Iran.
  4. “On 6 August 2011, a U.S. Boeing CH-47 Chinook military helicopter was shot down while transporting a quick reaction force attempting to reinforce an engaged unit of Army Rangers in Wardak province, west of Kabul, Afghanistan. The resulting crash killed all 38 people on board—25 American specialists … Fifteen of the Navy SEALs that were killed were members of the Naval… “
  5. The return of deserter Bergdahl from Afghanistan to release five Taliban’s commanders.

The Afghanistan story, I have explained in my preceding columns, Russia was working with the Taliban and needed the return of several famous commanders imprisoned in America. The deal was manufactured by the Obama/Putin Conspiracy using the family of a mentally unstable individual.

With Obama re-entering the campaign trail, he is benefitting himself by saying that Trump’s economy was built on his achievements. At that, my jaw dropped! He behaved as a real Socialist of the KGB school, acting with superiority to us ordinary people. The man can’t grasp the axiom—different policies produce the different results. And again, when Obama stated that Benghazi was a Republican conspiracy theory, my blood pressure went over 200. Obama was lying like a typical Soviet apparatchik, he lied that way during his entire presidency. Please read my book Socialist Lies: from Stalin to the Clintons, Obamas, and Sanders, Xlibris, 2016.

Violation of constitutional process by the Criminal Cabal

Describing his nominee for the Supreme Court Justice, President Trump used superlative words in a genuine way: the best, extremely knowledgeable, excellent, and so on. I shared his feeling, the Supreme Court Justice should be that person. Watching the hearing surpassed my expectations–Judge Kavanaugh’s knowledge of the Law and eloquence in offering his opinion was superb.

Yet, it was more than that: the events at Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing revealed the major skullduggery of that fraudulent ideology I have written about for the last thirty years—the ideology of Soviet Socialism, embraced by the Dems. It wasn’t mere leftism. You saw a radical army of Socialist Mafia in action, presented by the Dems—distortion, sabotage, deceit, subversion, and intimidation, cheating, lies, bribery, fraud and violence.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), after watching the hearing stated: “What I have watched over the last couple of days was a bunch of people who want to be nominee in 2020.” Both GOP and Rep Gowdy are right only partially, the crime is much deeper and more sinister. What we saw at Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing was an attempt to stop a constitutional process or delay it by all possible means, by hook or by crook to prevent confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to become a Supreme Court Justice. The Dems know that investigations into their crimes have already begun and Judge Kavanaugh will be the decisive Justice to put a last nail in the coffin of the Dems’ Socialist Party’s existence in America…

As the prime attribute of Socialism, there was also violence: Two dozen protesters of Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh poured into the office of Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, demanding the senator appear before them. “Grassley staffers told Capitol Police that the protesters also banged on doors and windows,” the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.

Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney said in response that “the future of our nation depends upon our ability to exchange ideas and viewpoints, to argue and debate, free from violence and intimidation.” She is absolutely right, but the Dems’ Socialist mafia doesn’t have any new ideas, and their old ideas have no appeal. There was also an attempt to stab a Republican candidate—violence is the Dems usual tool, let alone hundred calls to assassinate President Trump. When voting on November 6, please, remember the Dems’ devices and tricks: a radical army of Socialist Mafia in action, presents—distortion, sabotage, deceit, subversion, bribery, and intimidation, cheating, lies, fraud and violence. You saw that inside and outside of the Judge Kavanaugh hearing. Yet, knowing the KGB playbook, I expect more–a character assassination a-la high-tech lynching of Judge Clarence Thomas and California Senator Dianne Feinstein delivered it….

 The Axis of Evil and Failed Western Intelligence

Let me start with the story from my youth: While studying in the law school, I used to sing the Russian classic romances at the student’s parties. One day I was introduced to a young man who wanted to sing some patriotic songs with me. The young man told me that he was a child-orphan of the Spanish civil war 1936-1939. He and many other children had been brought to Russia. Only a few were adapted by Russian families, all the rest lived in the Internat, (where school and dormitory are in the same dwelling). He was very grateful to Comrade Stalin for saving his life and he successfully graduated from the Leningrad Engineering Institute.

I liked the Spanish man and wanted to sing with him. We arranged the rehearsal to the next week. When I told the story to my fiancé, there wasn’t enthusiasm if his voice, but I wanted to sing with the Spanish man and couldn’t wait for our meeting.  When we met for the rehearsal, he was very nervous and existed telling me that he couldn’t sing with me as he is leaving for the Central or South America to teach engineering. I was disappointed, but happy for his career and the opportunity to see the world. I never saw the Spanish singer again.

This story came back to my mind many years later in America. When researching Soviet Socialism, I read a book Drugging of America, by Joseph Douglas. It was an incredibly interesting and unique book, giving me indispensable information on the sinister history of the Soviet’s attempt to drug the world. The information in the book opened me to the real fascist’s intention to conquer the world by the criminal activities. Reading the Soviet document of 1955 you will agree with me. It was a document by the Soviet Defense Council, the first formal Soviet decision to launch narcotics trafficking against the Bourgeoisie and especially against American capitalists:

“Soviet strategy for revolutionary war is a global strategy… narcotics strategy is a sub-component of this global strategy. …First was the increased training of leaders for the revolutionary movements—the civilian, military, and intelligence cadres.”   When I read these words, being in America, my Spanish singer came to my mind.

In 1950, he would be about 24-26 years old, and that was the time when the Soviets expended their criminal drugging enterprise to the South and Central America. There were hundreds of children in the Internet, inculcated and trained, speaking Spanish. They all had been taken to Russia by Stalin after the communist forces lost the Spanish civil war in 1939. The Soviet Socialist idea to use them in the Spanish speaking world is understandable for those who know Evil.

The analogy came to my mind in the 21st century, because an incredible number of children speaking Spanish from the Central and South America had been taken by Obama. Knowing his socialist intention for America and a lot of illegal Spanish population within America, I am thinking about his plan and purpose to use the Spanish-speaking boys, the way Soviet fascism had used the orphans in the 20th century. As a matter of fact, Socialists do not like children, they are inculcated and using them as a radical, violent force to conquer the world and build Socialism. Just read these:

According to Judicial Watch, then-President Barack Obama oversaw a “humanitarian and public safety nightmare” in 2014, when thousands of immigrant children were abused, threatened, and even raped while in the custody and care of government officials. Report: Immigrant children detained under Obama were raped, abused, Patriot News Alerts, July 19, 2018 by Ben Baird. I have no doubts that Obama-the-Socialist had in mind to use those children against the American interests and I know how he planned doing that. The Trump administration is politically suffering the situation and have the dilemma of knowing what to do with these children today.

History is the Mother of all sciences. If you go back and research the history of Democrat Party, and I mean the real history, only then you will find a real truth. We are living in the age of a hideous amoral ideology, embraced by the Dems. I named it Soviet fascism, which continues threatening the Western way of life for decades and we are not confronting it successfully. What we witness in America today is the result of our Intel’s inability to expose this menacing Evil and show the aggressive and criminal methods and tricks of socialist/communist Left fighting our way of life to take over American Republic, the system left to us by our Founding Fathers. The KGB is leading this fight against a successful capitalist-Trump.

It is not a coincidence that Judge Jeanine Pirro believes something nefarious is afoot in Washington:

“This president was framed,” the Fox News star claimed. “It’s that simple.” She is absolutely right, I have written about Democrat’s coup d’état against Trump for the last two years. To grasp the Truth you should know the transformation which has taken place in the Democrat Party, which is not democratic any longer. Instead, we are dealing with typical Socialist Party with a socialist agenda to destroy America’s capitalist economic system in order to build a socialist system worldwide…

The erroneous American foreign policy for the last three decades gave the KGB the opportunity to expand the fraudulent ideology of Socialism and consolidate the power globally, including America. It started with Stalin, by converting Mongolia, North Korea, China, Eastern Europe, Arab Palestine, his devoted disciples continued expansion to Syria, Venezuela, Iran, and Turkey. Today we are dealing with an Axis of Evil under the umbrella and supervision of Russia. The Axis of Evil doesn’t have a specific race or nationality: the Axis of Evil has converted radical Islamic terrorists as well, and spread the KGB’s criminal methods throughout the world, using them and the rest of the Socialist mafia to implement the ideology of Soviet Fascism…

I wrote a lot of pages about the KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov 1967-1982, and his menacing plan to infiltrate the American security apparatus and social media simultaneously, the way the Soviets did it in Europe. Moreover, I believed that Watergate had been orchestrated by the KGB and Carl Bernstein was an obedient toy in the arms of the KGB. Today, the resurfacing of John Dean in politics did not surprise me—the KGB toys of the Watergate have been used again with the same methods and techniques. The anti-Trump campaign is orchestrated again by the KGB. Please read: The Ideological Battlefield in Washington D.C. May 27, 2018

These are the tactics of an old KGB formula being used against President Trump that had been used against President Nixon in the Watergate days—a corrupt security apparatus in cahoots with the social media. A good example is the September 16, 2018, the CNN show, GPS, hosted by Zakaria, interviewing Bob Woodward. As usual, it was a one-sided conversation on behalf of the Dems and against Republicans. Woodward was talking about confidential sources in the past. There was not one word about the involvement of the KGB in both cases, as if it didn’t exist… In that show we saw the transformation—media becoming an extension of the DNC—it was Andropov’s plan in action. Our Intel had missed it…

The latest news: “Left-wing groups funded by George Soros and other major Democratic donors hand out cash to protesters arrested for disrupting Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, the activists revealed Monday night.” EXCLUSIVE: SOROS-BACKED ACTIVISTS SLIP CASH TO ANTI-KAVANAUGH PROTESTERS BEFORE ARRESTS, The Daily Caller, Peter Hasson and Joe Simonson | Contributor, 09/18/2018. For your information George Soros is the KGB agent confronting the American Republic from within for several decades and Western Intel had failed to expose him. Alas! Our Intel has no knowledge of the enemy.

There are two types of people committing betrayals: those who do not like the system established by our Founding Fathers and are trying to transform it– they are currently collaborating with the KGB to destroy America the Beautiful, and those people who haven’t a clue about the KGB infiltrations, hence becoming their unwitting accomplices. The FBI Director and current security and Intel people won’t be able to identify those people without reading my books and columns. We are dealing with the Axis of Evil and Americans must know that, because there is a Coup against President Trump and the American Republic led by the Dems collaborating with Putin’s KGB. Please, read my columns.

Today we have a paradox of incompetence in Washington D.C. The rank-and-file Democrats are not familiar with the information in my books and columns—they are fooled and deceived by a “criminal cabal” that is leading their party. To your surprise, the Republicans are not well informed either. This paradox of incompetence allowed “a criminal cabal” in cahoots with Putin’s KGB to successfully go fishing in the murky waters of the DC Swamp. Of course, it was a spy program for information from Trump’s team, the same way Putin’s KGB has used the unmasked names of Americans and information, trying to recruit them. This is Andropov’s teachings in action, read about him in my columns, which are banned by the corrupt FBI…

Knowledge of Russia and the KGB is a must for all politicians. Unaware of these enemies, the Attorney General is not exposing aggressively and fighting enemies foreign and domestic. Every day counts and we are again giving up precious time to the enemy by fighting the symptoms and not the deadly disease—the ideology of Soviet Socialism, I named Soviet Fascism. We are witnessing, as I have already predicted, another Watergate in the 21st century—this time, a quadrupled, international case of conspiracy against the American Republic. We can’t resolve it until the Democrat Party is exposed for what it really is. Masked Dems are more dangerous than Russia.

To be continued www.simonapipko1.com and  www.drrichswier.com/author/spipko/.

EDITORS NOTE:  The featured image is by Unsplash/BESCHTE Photography@beschtephotography.

VIDEO: American Capitalism vs Liberal Socialism

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Socialism is the liberal war cry to end America’s financial power. Capitalism is the cure and we have a plan.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image, edited with the word “WIN!”, is by Upsplash/Jon Tyson@jontyson.

Minnesota’s Center of the American Experiment celebrates SCOTUS Janus v. AFSCME decision – Union outraged!

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According to the State Policy Network:

June 27 [2018]—Today the US Supreme Court released a landmark decision in Janus v. American Federation of State, Country, and Municipal Employees, Council 31. The Court ruled in favor of plaintiff Mark Janus, a child support specialist who works for Health Care & Family Services, returning First Amendment rights to public sector workers. This means that five million public servants in 22 states no longer have to pay a government union as a condition of employment.

Specifically, the Court ruled that the “State’s extraction of agency fees from nonconsenting public sector employees violates the First Amendment,” overturning the Court’s earlier decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education.

The Court agreed with Mark Janus that public sector union speech is inherently political since “it covers critically important and public matters such as the State’s budget crisis, taxes, and collective bargaining issues related to education, child welfare, healthcare, and minority rights.”

The Court’s decision will impact how government unions extract fees from members—moving the system from opt-out to opt-in. The onus is now on the unions since public sector employees must now “affirmatively consent” to pay dues. Now, no government worker can be forced to check their First Amendments rights at the door in order to serve their communities.

On Constitution Day the Center of the American Experiment, a Minnesota think tank held, an event celebrating the Janus v. AFSCME decision.

Kim Crockett in a column titled “Celebrate Labor Day by Telling Your Friends About Employee Freedom Janus-Style. And Join Us on Constitution Day (Sept. 17)” wrote:

I cannot think of a better way to celebrate Labor Day this year than telling every public employee you know about the Janus case. After decades of forcing employees to subsidize the political speech and agenda of government unions as a condition of employment, the Supreme Court restored their First Amendment rights. The Court said that our government has to get the “affirmative consent” of public employees before union dues can be deducted from their paychecks.

[ … ]

We won at the U.S. Supreme Court on June 27, 2018 but our hard work has just begun.

Public employees do not know their rights, and they are being pressured by unions that do not want to lose their revenue and power. Unions have enjoyed, and still enjoy, a position of political privilege that was never envisioned by our constitutional system or representational democracy. Lawsuits have been filed and legislation is being drafted to enforce the Court’s ruling. We are up against Goliath but remember what happened to him.

The unions are angry and on going on the offensive against the Center and anyone else who dares to defy their monopolistic position. They are not accustomed to having to sell themselves to employees, to be customer friendly and frankly they are not very good at it!

PR Newswire reports:

More than 100 union members and their supporters converged on the Minneapolis Hilton to protest the [Center of the American Experiment] event and picket outside the hotel.

“Minneapolis is a union town and Minnesota is a union state,” said Teamsters Local 320 Secretary-Treasurer Brian Aldes while addressing the crowd. “We’re here to keep it that way!”

The pickets were the length of a city block stretching from one end of the hotel to the other. Pickets were chanting: “Who are we? Union!” and “What’s disgusting? Union busting!”

Do unions support giving their members the right to chose how their union dues are spent? Apparently not.

About Center of the American Experiment

Center of the American Experiment is Minnesota’s leading public policy organization. The Center is more than a think tank. It not only researches and produces papers on Minnesota’s economy, education, health care, the family, employee freedom and state and local governance. It also crafts and proposes creative solutions that emphasize free enterprise, limited government, personal responsibility and government accountability.

American Experiment’s staff advances those solutions by drafting legislation, testifying before legislative committees, placing op-eds in newspapers and magazines across the State of Minnesota and nationally, appearing on radio and television news programs, holding town meetings, and lobbying. Further, American Experiment conducts grass roots advertising campaigns on radio and on the internet, which bring the key findings of the Center’s research papers to millions of Minnesotans. And the Center carries out investigative reporting, uncovering waste, abuse of power and ineptitude in Minnesota’s state and local governments, schools and unions.

For more than 25 years, Center of the American Experiment has been the most impactful and effective public policy organization in Minnesota. It leads the way in creating and advocating policies that make Minnesota a freer, more prosperous and better-governed state.

The Center is a civic and educational 501(c)(3) organization. Contributions are tax deductible.

Everyone Should Pray as Much as Mark Wahlberg by Tess Farrand

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According to Answers.com variations of the word prayer appear 540 times in the King James version of the Holy Bible:

  • the word – pray – appears 313 times
  • the word – prayed – appears 65 times
  • the word – prayer – appears 109 times
  • the word – prayers – appears 24 times
  • the word – prayest – appears twice
  • the word – prayeth – appears 7 times
  • the word – praying – appears 20 times

In a Movie Guide article titled “Everyone Should Pray as Much as Mark Wahlberg” Tess Farrand reports:

Mark Wahlberg is an actor, producer, director, father, husband, co-owner of a family restaurant chain…. This guy is busy, busy, busy. Regardless of all his commitments and responsibilities, according to a daily schedule of Wahlberg’s that was made public, the star, who’s a committed catholic, spends 30 to 45 minutes in prayer every morning. If this media mogul can find the time, we should be encouraged to do the same!

The star whose recent movies include DADDY’S HOME, DEEPWATER HORIZON and the upcoming family comedy INSTANT FAMILY shared on Tuesday the answer to some frequently asked question about his daily routine. He detailed his movements starting at 2:30 am when he wakes up until 7:30 pm when he goes to bed. A good portion of his day includes working out, workout recovery and meals, but if one looks closely, you can’t help but notice a good chunk of time dedicated towards prayer and family time. Thirty minutes to be exact from 2:45 am to 3:15 am Wahlberg likes to spend praying.

Despite the chaotic life of this actor/entrepreneur, it seems that Wahlberg’s successes in life come in part to his dedication, but more importantly, by starting every day with God.

Read more.

Here are some Bible passages on the power of prayer:

Psalm 107:28-30 Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven

Matthew 7:7 ”Ask, and it will be given to you seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

Matthew 21:22 And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”

Mark 9:29 And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

Mark 11:24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

John 14:13-14 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it

Acts 9:40 But Peter put them all outside, and knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said, “Tabitha, arise.” And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up.

Ephesians 6:18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,

Philippians 4:6-7 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

James 5:14-16 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another,that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

In what call many these “dark days” it is fitting and proper for Christians to pray for the church and the people of the world to deliver them from evil.

Mark Wahlberg, and his fellow Christians, understand that though the church has many critics, it has no rivals.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of Movie Guide.

It Does Not Take A Village – It Takes An Adult

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Mammals, including humans, have a cycle of life with a beginning, a middle, and an end. The survival of the species requires that adult members of the group help newborns survive and develop into reproducing adults who can then help their own newborns develop into reproducing adults and the cycle of life continues. The growth process from the smallest to the largest mammals demands food, water, shelter, and a transfer of information from the knowledgeable adult to the uninformed young. The adults in the community teach their young how to survive. What happens when the process is impeded?

The United States of America and its social order was founded upon the principles of adulthood. Powers entrusted to the adult members of the family were gradually transferred to the children as they became adults themselves and began having families of their own. Parents taught their children survival skills and imbued them with their personal, moral, and religious values. What happened?

There has been a gradual shift in the established social order of America. Institutional “experts” pressured society toward regression, dependence, and mediocrity rather than growth, independence, and individual achievement. This movement has eroded parental authority and tilted young people away from independence and adulthood toward collectivism and middling both personally and professionally. The social order of adulthood is under attack. This is how it works.

Let’s begin at the beginning. Traditionally, when new babies are born young mothers turn toward their own mothers for guidance – grandmothers have standing in the transfer of knowledge about raising children. Grandma’s successes as well as her mistakes are a rich source of information for new moms – not anymore.

Authors Ari Brown, MD, Denise Fields, and Michele Hakakha, MD, have written an overbearing and incredibly condescending book titled Baby 411: Clear Answers & Smart Advice for Your Baby’s First Year. On the acknowledgements page of the 2014 edition they arrogantly state that, “It’s sad but true: any parenting book written before 2013 is already outdated.” REALLY?

In an equally pompous description of themselves they state, “We give you the 4-1-1. Ours is the ONLY parenting book series in the market that updates with new editions every two to three years, giving our readers the most current, scientific-evidence based advice.”  Ahhh – scientific advice!

21st century parents are persuaded by anything claiming to be scientific – it is the foundation of their world. They willingly surrender their common sense and critical thinking skills to the “experts” who gladly tell them how to do anything and everything scientifically. A generation of American parents have surrendered their adult authority and independence to the self-proclaimed experts who offer them self-assured advice and online communities for support.

No other mammal seems to have this problem – once the bears and the cows learn their survival lessons they are on their own and either survive or die in the environment.

People are more complicated, especially new parents, they ruminate and obsess over whether they are doing the right thing and whether they are being good parents. Most of all they worry if their children are happy. Rather than having confidence in their own parenting instincts and the generational advice of trusted family, they trust the often corrupt “scientific-evidence based” advice of designated experts. Bears and cows trust themselves.

What happens when their children go to school? 21st century parents willingly surrender their adult authority to the educational experts as well. Why is that a problem?

Most parents are completely unaware of the ideological agenda of the experts in charge of the Education Establishment in America. Their children are being indoctrinated away from independence and traditional Judeo-Christian values toward collectivism and global citizenship and the parents are oblivious. Out with the old – in with the new.

Parents today are extremely stressed – they lack confidence in their own competence and ability to problem solve and are constantly in search of experts who will soothe their fragile selves and absolve them of personal responsibility. It’s easier to believe the experts than trust themselves. Why are these parents so fragile and uncertain?

Adulthood requires assuming personal responsibility for one’s decisions and taking responsibility for the consequences of those decisions. Parents today are so other-directed that they have unwittingly denied themselves the self-confidence and self-esteem enjoyed by their parents and grandparents because they have never assumed the adult responsibilities that empowered their elders. When an individual surrenders his/her adult authority and independence that individual is resuming the position of childhood instead of assuming the position of adulthood. Why does this matter?

It matters because it does not take a village – it takes an adult to raise a child. It matters because Hillary Clinton’s village is socialism. When she talked about an unaware and compliant public she described the situation of childhood. Socialism is a children’s village where the state has assumed the responsibilities of adulthood and the public has resumed the powerlessness of childhood.

Still, Hillary’s romanticized village requires leadership – Hillary conveniently leaves that part out of her description of the village. It is the elite in socialist societies who rule those societies and reap the benefits – not the citizens. The Cubans and the Venezuelans were promised social justice and income equality too. What the citizens of their once thriving nations now have under socialism is poverty, scarcity, and lawlessness. The leaders have all the wealth and power – of course they do – that was their plan all along.

Every incremental step that reduces individual personal adult authority awards the government more authority and control over the individual. To understand the devastation of Hillary’s village it is necessary to examine education in the village.

Bruce Deitrick Price has written a stunning book titled Saving K-12 that explains in chilling detail the deliberate destruction of public education in America courtesy of the leftist Education Establishment. He writes:

“When most people say the word ‘education’ they mean something very specific, and almost everyone knows exactly what that is: reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, to be followed by history, science, literature, and the arts. . . Unfortunately, the people who control public education and shape the debate have another meaning in their minds, and they know exactly what that is: social engineering, indoctrination, political correctness, and left-wing politics.”

Price explains in unique and meticulous detail how failed systems of Sight-Words and Reform Math are still being taught decades later to innocent students with the support of clueless parents, often with fancy new scientific names. Traditional learning modes that stress simplicity, facts, and practical application are out of fashion. The new methods focus on “scientific” abstract concepts instead of basic skills. Common sense dictates it is impossible to run before walking so it should surprise no one that American children in public schools are falling down.

Consider the method known as Constructivism, an experiential program where children are supposed to invent their own versions of knowledge and teachers stand back and act as their facilitators to encourage the process. WHAT?? The problem with Constructivism is the same problem with Sight-Words and Reform Math – running before walking. Basic skills are what give children the foundation to understand their experience – simple before complex – children must walk before they can run.

Constructivism is just another harmful example of adults (teachers) abandoning their authority because the experts told them to. The children end up anxious and without foundational knowledge. It is idiotic to expect children to “invent knowledge,” and since they cannot read they cannot even acquire basic knowledge independently outside their toxic classrooms.

The left-wing experts have deliberately dumbed down, confused, and produced such nervousness in students that many are being misdiagnosed as having disruptive behavior disorders, learning disabilities, anxiety disorders, and/or attention deficit disorders. The children are then given drugs and other therapies to calm them down!!

In 1955 Rudolph Flesch published his blockbuster book Why Johnny Can’t Read that sold 8 million copies and explained why America had an illiteracy problem (Sight-Words) and what to do about it (bring back phonics). Flesch explained that English is a phonetic language that must be taught phonetically. If you teach English as Sight-Words, you are turning English into Chinese. The “experts” have arrogantly ignored Flesch’s wisdom for 60 years but Johnny still cannot read. Why not?

What is the motive for deliberately insisting upon systems that are known failures? Why is this happening?

The answer is extremely difficult to accept because the good citizens of America trust the Education Establishment to teach their children well. They have great difficulty embracing the notion that there is a purposeful educational dumbing down of their beloved sons and daughters. Parents remain perilously unaware of the despicable ideological campaign of the Education Establishment toward mediocrity and socialism. It is simply inconceivable to most parents that their children are being deliberately taught to fail.

The Education Establishment’s collectivist goals are accomplished through the the twin strategies of eliminating as much of the traditional curriculum content as possible and then making the remainder so confusing that the children don’t understand or remember what they are being taught. The outcome is a staggering ignorance of basic knowledge.

Bruce Dietrick Price explains in exquisite detail the traumatizing experience of the child being taught to sight-read in a system of WHOLE WORDS rather than learning the foundational basics of sounding out words using phonics:

“Just for a moment, consider the silly theory that our top educators put forward. There should be no sounding out of letters and syllables; instead, children should memorize words as graphic designs or diagrams. Put yourself in the head of a kid showing up for first grade. The teacher points to a design like ‘xhylg’ and instructs, ‘This means house. When you see this, say house.’ So, can you memorize ‘xhyld’? Probably. But will you be able to pick it out from similar designs, of which there are dozens, such as: xhydd, xyhld, xhydl, xyyld, xhdyl, xyjkl, xkyht, xygld, etc. of course you will need to be ready for variations such as XHYDD, XYHLD, XHYDL, XYYLD, XHDYL, XYJKL, XKYHT, XYGLD. . . You can probably feel the dyslexia creeping into your brain.”

Price’s book is riveting and should be required reading of all parents with young children. Saving K-12 says the unsayable. The motive for insisting upon failed systems of Sight-Reading and Reform Math that produce illiteracy is social control through a dumbed-down population. It is the strategy necessary to create Hillary’s village of compliant adults who function as compliant children. A functionally illiterate society is easy to control.

In an equally disturbing article appearing in Renew America titled, “Memo to K-12 students: Resist” Bruce Dietrick Price exposes the psychological warfare being waged against K-12 students to prepare them for global citizenship in a restructured globalist one world government.

“You are a participant in a vast psychological war. Believe it or not, you are the enemy in this war. You are the primary target. Yes, they want you, your unformed personality, your uninformed mind. They want to shape you and make you so that finally you’re indistinguishable from other kids. You’re not supposed to know much or think much. In Brave New World you would be a Gamma or maybe a Delta. According to Wikipedia,’these people are deliberately limited in their cognitive and physical abilities, as well as the scope of their ambitions and the complexity of their desires, thus rendering them easier to control.’”

Limited cognitive abilities has been the undisputed consequence of decades of debilitating educational systems that subvert learning the basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic. There are 50 million people in the United States who are functionally illiterate. Price argues very persuasively that READING is the basis of all learning so parents can at least inoculate their children against the education establishment by teaching the children phonics at home.

Price reiterates Flesch’s central thesis that English is a phonetic language and must be taught phonetically. If you teach it as Sight-Words, you are turning English into Chinese. It is as simple as that. So, why does Common Core teach Sight-Words?

Under ex-president Obama the egregious Common Core State Standards were adopted by 42 of the 50 states – all incentivized by “stimulus money” – nothing scientific about bribery. Common Core is the educational standard of the United Nations Agenda 2030 marketed to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all.” WOW! Sounds great! The problem is that United Nations Agenda 2030 is a globalist campaign to indoctrinate our children into becoming global citizens in an internationalized world under one world government – administered by the UN of course!

Now you are beginning to understand the deceit because what the “experts” mean by inclusive and equitable is probably not what you understand those words to mean.

Ileana Johnson has written an important article titled, “The Link Between Declining National Education Quality and UN Agenda 2030” that appeared in The Epoch Times on 7/15/18. Johnson directs the reader to the Pearson curriculum and its Common Core textbooks that are methodically indoctrinating our children and grandchildren.

In a suspiciously unpublicized event Education Secretary Betsy DeVos signed on to the anti-American globalist United Nations Agenda 2030 initiative while attending the July, 2018 G20 Education Ministerial Meeting in Argentina. Any American Secretary of Education who signs on to the globalist United Nations education agenda, including Betsy DeVos, is not fit for office.  What could DeVos be thinking?

Appointing Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education was a HUGE mistake. DeVos’ job was to eliminate the destructive Common Core Standards and return educational authority to the states and to parents. The United Nations Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals are diametrically opposed to American sovereignty, American independence, and the stated America-first goals of the Trump administration. President Trump has wisely taken us out of the Paris Accord, the Iran deal, and NAFTA – thanks to Betsy DeVos he will now have to take us out of any commitment whatsoever to this egregious agreement with the UN.

The United Nations and every one of its deceptive initiatives is designed to weaken America in preparation for one world government. The deal DeVos signed on to with the Education Working Group of the Group of 20 is arguably the worst and most sinister deal of all because it propagandizes American students against America! We need representatives of America who represent American interests like Nikki Haley – not incompetent fools or closet globalists like Betsy DeVos.

When curriculum content becomes a national security threat it is a federal matter and demands the attention of the President. President Trump must withdraw the United States from any involvement in UN Agenda 2030 and replace Betsy DeVos with an education secretary who is committed to American excellence through excellence in American public schools.

Making America great again requires making American public education great again. We must reclaim the power we were entrusted with and demand a total K-12 educational overhaul committed to reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, to be followed by history, science, literature, and the arts. We must insist upon restoring phonics and traditional math in the classroom. We must ensure our children acquire the skills they need to survive.

It does not take a village to raise a child – it takes an adult.

If Americans continue to trust the Education Establishment “experts” and allow the insidious dumbing down of America through Common Core and the UN Agenda 2030, America will not remain free. As Thomas Jefferson said, “You cannot be both ignorant and free.”

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the Goudsmit Pundicity. The featured image is from UnSplash/Sandy Millar@sandym10.

If You Believe in #BuildTheWall here are Ten Reasons to see the film “Peppermint”

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In our column “New Yorker labels movie ‘Peppermint’ racist. Is it because the bad guys are MS13 or the hero is a white woman?” we wrote:

There are two things that get Hollywood critics in a tizzy. The first is a picture of a woman with angel wings made of bullets. The second is a story line that makes the case for securing America’s borders from organizations like MS13. It is the perfect film for those “despicable” supporters of President Donald J. Trump.

Movieclips Trailers video of “Peppermint”:

We went to see “Peppermint.” For those who believe in the rule of law, building a boarder wall and toughening our immigration enforcement, there are ten reasons you must see the film.

  1. The film depicts Los Angeles (a city run by Democrats) as it truly is, a failed city with a high crime rate, high poverty rate and a growing population living is squalor.
  2. The film shows corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department, that undermines an FBI investigation.
  3. The film shows corruption in the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office that makes the MS13 criminals into the victims and the mother into a criminal.
  4. The film shows a corrupt Los Angeles District judge who is bribed to rule against the mother and in favor of the drug cartel.
  5. The film shows a white family being gunned down by members of MS13.
  6. The film shows a white mother who cannot get justice via the corrupt judicial system.
  7. The film shows how brutal the illegal alien based MS13 organization truly is.
  8. The film shows the enemy of the people to be those who come to America to commit crimes. Los Angeles is a sanctuary city in a sanctuary state.
  9. The film shows how the poorest people of Los Angeles are in great danger from Mexican drug cartels.
  10. And finally, the hero of the film is a white middle class mother who has had everything she loves taken from her and given no other option strikes back.

Jennifer Garner does a stellar job portraying a woman, wife and mother who has felt the pain of having loved ones killed by gangbangers. She portrays a woman who tries to get justice, but justice is not what the system provides.

Sound familiar?

RELATED ARTICLE: California Leads Nation In Poverty But Governor Jerry Brown Launching State Satellite To Monitor Global Warming.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is from the “Peppermint” movie trailer showing Jennifer Garner.

An American Weekend

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As I write this, it’s the beginning of the weekend. An American weekend. It’s not the heart of summer. It’s not a holiday. But it’s a celebration in any event.

It’s an American weekend. Americans will be out mowing their laws, doing maintenance on their homes, working on their cars, spending time with family, friends and neighbors. Maybe even going to a party or a bar or night club.

Yes it’s an American weekend.

We celebrate our hard work week that has ended. We forget, if only for two days, the troubles of the past week. We indulge our fantasies whatever they may be. We are happy.

An American weekend means freedom to some degree. Freedom from work. Freedom for bills we may be having trouble paying. Freedom to worship as we please or not please. Freedom to sleep late. Freedom to stay up late. We celebrate freedom.

An American weekend is like no other in the world.

Study after study after study says that Americans typically work longer hours during the week than any other nation on the planet. We slave at our jobs or we fret over looking for a new job. We get up early, we stay up late. Not because we want to but because its our job or our duty.

Many enjoy their work. Many do not. Many think about changing their work. Many look forward to their next promotion in their current work.

When Americans work, we work. And we work hard and we tend to work long. It doesn’t matter if you are salaried or hourly. You work.

Some would think that this is slavery. But we work towards a goal. A goal of our choosing. Its our goal. Each individual. And nobody can tell us how to achieve that goal.

You know the sayings. Put your head down and work. Keep your nose to the grindstone. Get ‘er done.

Some of think we give our lives to our work and for some that may be true. During the week it’s all we think about. It’s all we talk about. Even when we get home at night. The conversation around the dining table is centered on work.

We lose ourselves in our work all too often. Sometimes that work gets in the way of family life. It can hinder family and friend relationships. It can cause friction with those who are not as dedicated as you.

Yes, during the week we may struggle and labor. It may be a labor of love or a labor of convenience or even a labor of hate, but we labor anyway.

But the weekend. Ah the weekend is all ours.

Americans can weekend harder than anyone on the planet. Whole businesses are dedicated to the weekender. Some businesses are only open on the weekends. From Friday night to Sunday evening, they are open to ensure that this and every weekend is an American weekend.

What do Americans celebrate on weekends? It is always summed up in one word. A word that is universal. A word that at least half of the world population would do anything to experience. That word is FREEDOM.

An American weekend is a celebration of freedom.

Not just on Memorial Day. Not just on the Fourth of July. Not just on Labor Day or Veterans Day or Thanksgiving Day or Christmas or New Year’s Day. But every weekend.

But Americans know there is a threat to this freedom. We note the politicians and bureaucrats that want to take our weekends away. They want to raise our taxes to such levels as to force us to actually work on our weekends to make ends meet.

These politicians and bureaucrats want to tell us how to celebrate our weekends by introducing laws and regulations that prevent us from grilling outside, from planting and tending a garden on our own property, raising our gasoline tax so we cant afford to take that wonderful weekend trip to the lake or ocean.

If we make it to the lake or ocean, they want to charge us outrageous entrance or usage fees. And if you are a weekend shopper, try parking without getting a ticket in your downtown area.

Big government doesn’t like the weekend. Big government wants you to work. Slave. For them and them only.

Want to work on your house this weekend by expanding or doing certain repairs? Better make sure you have the proper permits in which you have to pay for. If you don’t, a government agent could show up and throw a thunderstorm on your weekend.

But Americans don’t like it when somebody tries to rain on their weekend. It’s the only time that is truly all their own. Americans usually resist when politicians, bureaucrats and big government agents want to ruin their weekend.

Americans love their weekend. And anyone who says the same and wants you to fully enjoy your weekend usually gets the votes of other weekend lovers.

Why?

Because the weekend represents freedom and Americans love their freedom.

Americans love their weekends.

Americans love the American Weekend.

ABSURD: Media Blames Trump for Hurricane Florence and Rick Scott for Red Tide [Video]

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The legacy media was quick to criticize two Republicans for things that they have absolutely no control of, e.g. the weather and algae blooms. There are two recent examples of Republican politician blamed for natural occurrences, which have been taking place for millennia.

In a Huffington Post column titled “Red Tide and Blue-Green Algae Could Block Rick Scott’s Path To The Senate” S.V. Date wrote:

Like millions of Floridians whose livelihoods are directly and indirectly tied to the state’s water quality, Conley is watching his income dry up just as the man he and many others believe is responsible for the environmental calamity is seeking a new political office: Gov. Rick Scott, who hopes to become Sen. Rick Scott.

Will the algae disaster be enough to stop Scott, who won both his terms as governor with but the slimmest of margins?

Read more.

Red tides were documented in the southern Gulf of Mexico as far back as the 1700s and along Florida’s Gulf coast in the 1840s. According the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):

While harmful algal blooms (HABs) may occur anywhere along the nation’s coast (especially during the summer), red tide events caused by blooms of the harmful algae Karenia brevis are particularly common in coastal regions of Florida and Texas.

According to Live Science, “Since June 1 [2018], about 25 billion gallons of algae-laden water were discharged from the lake [Okeechobee]. On June 20, Gov. Rick Scott issued an executive order to curtail the flow of harmful water and prevent the blooms from spreading.”

Dan Bongino did a video about the media blaming President Donald Trump for hurricane Florence. Bongino writes, “The media and the left is interested only in a pre-emptive outrage campaign, blaming Donald Trump for a storm he has no control over, and a federal government that is obviously going to be limited in what it can do in a state.”

Scientists and meteorologists have been studying natural occurrences such as red tide and hurricanes for centuries. No man, no matter how powerful can control nature.

This is another column which contests the uncontested absurdities.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Did you know that President Trump is responsible for Hurricane Florence?

Anne Hathaway denounces white privilege in award speech

2018 Amendments to the Florida Constitution

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As part of the 2018 midterm elections, Floridians will be asked to vote on thirteen amendments to the state’s constitution. Thirteen seems a lot, but it is understandable as many of them are proposed by the Constitution Revision Commission, a state commission that meets every 20 years to recommend changes, and, Yes, this is the year when they met, hence the substantial number of changes.

A copy of the amendments can be obtained from the state (click HERE), and I encourage voters to become familiar with them prior to November 6th.

The purpose of a constitution is to define the basic mechanisms of the government. For example, the U.S. Constitution defines the duties and responsibilities of the three branches of government, including voting and how to enact changes. The Bill of Rights is a separate document related to the Constitution detailing our rights. In Florida though, the state constitution is a bloated document where everything is thrown into, thereby requiring it to be updated frequently. Many of the Amendments here should be placed in a separate document or simply handled by the state assembly.

I endeavored to find out how the Democrats and Republicans feel about each issue. This was difficult as I could find no party specific recommendations. Along the way though, I discovered how many of the party officials felt and deduced their answer. Naturally, the two parties were black and white on every issue (no surprise there). The one group who was unafraid to state their position was the Florida Chamber of Commerce. Consequently, I have included their response herein.

With this said, here are the thirteen amendments, along with their sponsors and pertinent comments:

NO. 1 – BALLOT TITLE: Increased Homestead Property Tax Exemption
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT, ARTICLE VII, SECTION 6, ARTICLE XII, SECTION 37
Sponsor: The Florida Legislature/House (HJR7105)

BALLOT SUMMARY:
Proposing an amendment to the State Constitution to increase the homestead exemption by exempting the assessed valuation of homestead property greater than $100,000 and up to $125,000 for all levies other than school district levies. The amendment shall take effect January 1, 2019.

COMMENT:
Democrats will likely vote NO, Republicans YES, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce is Neutral. Conceptually, the legislation gives homeowners a tax reduction, and by doing so will result in less money for municipalities, counties and special districts.

NO. 2 – BALLOT TITLE: Limitations on Property Tax Assessments
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT, ARTICLE XII, SECTION 27
Sponsor: The Florida Legislature/House (CS/HJR 21)

BALLOT SUMMARY:
Proposing an amendment to the State Constitution to permanently retain provisions currently in effect, which limit property tax assessment increases on specified nonhomestead real property, except for school district taxes, to 10 percent each year. If approved, the amendment removes the scheduled repeal of such provisions in 2019 and shall take effect January 1, 2019.

COMMENT:
Democrats will likely vote NO, Republicans YES, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce is a YES.

NO. 3 – BALLOT TITLE: Voter Control of Gambling in Florida
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT, ARTICLE X, SECTION 29
Sponsor: Voters In Charge

BALLOT SUMMARY:
This amendment ensures that Florida voters shall have the exclusive right to decide whether to authorize casino gambling by requiring that in order for casino gambling to be authorized under Florida law, it must be approved by Florida voters pursuant to Article XI, Section 3 of the Florida Constitution. Affects articles X and XI. Defines casino gambling and clarifies that this amendment does not conflict with federal law regarding state/tribal compacts.

COMMENT:
Democrats will likely vote YES, Republicans NO, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce is a YES. If passed, 60% of Florida voters will be needed to regulate it in the future. Is this something that really belongs in our constitution?

NO. 4 – BALLOT TITLE: Voting Restoration Amendment
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT, ARTICLE VI, SECTION 4
Sponsor: Floridians for a Fair Democracy, Inc.

BALLOT SUMMARY:
This amendment restores the voting rights of Floridians with felony convictions after they complete all terms of their sentence including parole or probation. The amendment would not apply to those convicted of murder or sexual offenses, who would continue to be permanently barred from voting unless the Governor and Cabinet vote to restore their voting rights on a case by case basis.

COMMENT:
Democrats will likely vote YES, Republicans NO, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce is Neutral.

NO. 5 – BALLOT TITLE: Supermajority Vote Required to Impose, Authorize, or Raise State Taxes or Fees
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT, ARTICLE VII, SECTION 19
Sponsor: The Florida Legislature/House (HJR7001)

BALLOT SUMMARY:
Prohibits the legislature from imposing, authorizing, or raising a state tax or fee except through legislation approved by a twothirds vote of each house of the legislature in a bill containing no other subject. This proposal does not authorize a state tax or fee otherwise prohibited by the Constitution and does not apply to fees or taxes imposed or authorized to be imposed by a county, municipality, school board, or special district.

COMMENT:
Democrats will likely vote NO, Republicans YES, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce is a YES. A YES vote means tax increases require a 2/3 approval in both the state senate and house; a NO vote means a simple majority is needed for passage.

NO. 6 – BALLOT TITLE: Rights of Crime Victims; Judges
CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, ARTICLE I, SECTION 16, ARTICLE V, SECTIONS 8 AND 21, ARTICLE XII, NEW SECTION
Sponsor: Constitution Revision Commission

BALLOT SUMMARY:
Creates constitutional rights for victims of crime; requires courts to facilitate victims’ rights; authorizes victims to enforce their rights throughout criminal and juvenile justice processes. Requires judges and hearing officers to independently interpret statutes and rules rather than deferring to government agency’s interpretation. Raises mandatory retirement age of state justices and judges from seventy to seventy-five years; deletes authorization to complete judicial term if one-half of term has been served by retirement age.

COMMENT:
Democrats will likely vote NO, Republicans YES, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce is Neutral.

NO. 7 – BALLOT TITLE: First Responder and Military Member Survivor Benefits; Public Colleges and Universities
CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, ARTICLE IX, SECTIONS 7 AND 8, ARTICLE X, NEW SECTION
Sponsor: Constitution Revision Commission

BALLOT SUMMARY:
Grants mandatory payment of death benefits and waiver of certain educational expenses to qualifying survivors of certain first responders and military members who die performing official duties. Requires supermajority votes by university trustees and state university system board of governors to raise or impose all legislatively authorized fees if law requires approval by those bodies. Establishes existing state college system as constitutional entity; provides governance structure.

COMMENT:
Democrats will likely vote NO, Republicans YES, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce is Neutral.

NO. 8 – BALLOT TITLE: School Board Term Limits and Duties; Public Schools
CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, ARTICLE IX, SECTION 4, NEW SECTION, ARTICLE XII, NEW SECTION
Sponsor: Constitution Revision Commission

COMMENT:
THIS AMENDMENT HAS BEEN STRUCK DOWN BY THE FLORIDA SUPREME COURT. As such, it will not be included on the November 6th ballot.

NO. 9 – BALLOT TITLE: Prohibits Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling; Prohibits Vaping in Enclosed Indoor Workplaces
CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, ARTICLE II, SECTION 7, ARTICLE X, SECTION 20
Sponsor: Constitution Revision Commission

BALLOT SUMMARY:
Prohibits drilling for the exploration or extraction of oil and natural gas beneath all state-owned waters between the mean high water line and the state’s outermost territorial boundaries. Adds use of vapor-generating electronic devices to current prohibition of tobacco smoking in enclosed indoor workplaces with exceptions; permits more restrictive local vapor ordinances.

COMMENT:
Democrats will likely vote YES, Republicans NO, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce is a NO. It is a mystery why a bill concerned with offshore drilling includes a section on e-smoking devices.

NO. 10 – BALLOT TITLE: State and Local Government Structure and Operation
CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, ARTICLE III, SECTION 3, ARTICLE IV, SECTIONS 4 AND 11, ARTICLE VIII, SECTIONS 1 AND 6
Sponsor: Constitution Revision Commission

BALLOT SUMMARY:
Requires legislature to retain department of veterans’ affairs. Ensures election of sheriffs, property appraisers, supervisors of elections, tax collectors, and clerks of court in all counties; removes county charters’ ability to abolish, change term, transfer duties, or eliminate election of these offices. Changes annual legislative session commencement date in even- numbered years from March to January; removes legislature’s authorization to fix another date. Creates office of domestic security and counterterrorism within department of law enforcement.

COMMENT:
Democrats will likely vote NO, Republicans YES, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce is Neutral.

NO. 11 – BALLOT TITLE: Property Rights; Removal of Obsolete Provision; Criminal Statutes
CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, ARTICLE I, SECTION 2, ARTICLE X, SECTIONS 9 AND 19
Sponsor: Constitution Revision Commission

BALLOT SUMMARY:
Removes discriminatory language related to real property rights. Removes obsolete language repealed by voters. Deletes provision that amendment of a criminal statute will not affect prosecution or penalties for a crime committed before the amendment; retains current provision allowing prosecution of a crime committed before the repeal of a criminal statute.

COMMENT:
Democrats will likely vote NO, Republicans YES, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce is a YES.

NO. 12 – BALLOT TITLE: Lobbying and Abuse of Office by Public Officers
CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, ARTICLE II, SECTION 8, ARTICLE V, SECTION 13, ARTICLE XII, NEW SECTION
Sponsor: Constitution Revision Commission

BALLOT SUMMARY:
Expands current restrictions on lobbying for compensation by former public officers; creates restrictions on lobbying for compensation by serving public officers and former justices and judges; provides exceptions; prohibits abuse of a public position by public officers and employees to obtain a personal benefit.

COMMENT:
Democrats will likely vote NO, Republicans YES, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce is a NO.

NO. 13 – BALLOT TITLE: Ends Dog Racing
CONSTITUTIONAL REVISION, ARTICLE X, NEW SECTION, ARTICLE XII, NEW SECTION
Sponsor: Constitution Revision Commission

BALLOT SUMMARY:
Phases out commercial dog racing in connection with wagering by 2020. Other gaming activities are not affected.

COMMENT:
Democrats will likely vote YES, Republicans NO, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce is a NO. Again, is this something that really belongs in our constitution? And what is next, elimination of horse racing?

As you can see, there isn’t anything here to change the basic mechanisms of our government, yet people find it necessary to put everything but the kitchen sink in there.

Keep the Faith!

What Bruce Ohr Told Congress

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In case you hadn’t heard what the #4 person in Department of Justice, Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, told Congresspersons behind closed doors. The article below from Kimberley A. Strassel, one of few reliable journalists and investigative reporters while enlighten you.  Kimberley Strassel is a member of the editorial board for The Wall Street Journal. She writes editorials, as well as the weekly Potomac Watch political column, from her base in Washington, D.C.

Now what will Attorney General Jeff Sessions do with this information?

What Bruce Ohr Told Congress

He warned the FBI that Steele had credibility problems. The bureau forged ahead anyhow.

By Kimberley A. Strassel

To believe most media descriptions of Justice Department lawyer Bruce Ohr, he is a nonentity, unworthy of the attention President Trump has given him. This is remarkable, given that Mr. Ohr spent Tuesday confirming for Congress its worst suspicions about the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s abuse of its surveillance and sourcing rules.

If Mr. Ohr is only now under the spotlight, it’s because it has taken so much effort to unpack his role in the FBI’s 2016 investigation of the Trump campaign. Over the past year, congressional investigators found out that Mr. Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS, the opposition-research firm that gave its infamous dossier, funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign, to the FBI. They then discovered that Mr. Ohr had numerous interactions of his own with Fusion chief Glenn Simpson and dossier author Christopher Steele, and that he passed on information from these talks to the bureau. So the G-men were being fed the dossier allegations from both the outside and the inside.

This week’s news is that Mr. Ohr’s deliveries to the FBI came with a caveat. Congress already knew that Mr. Ohr had been aware of Mr. Steele’s political biases. In notes Mr. Ohr took of a September 2016 conversation with Mr. Steele, he wrote that the dossier author “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.” Congressional sources tell me that Mr. Ohr revealed Tuesday that he verbally warned the FBI that its source had a credibility problem, alerting the bureau to Mr. Steele’s leanings and motives. He also informed the bureau that Mrs. Ohr was working for Fusion and contributing to the dossier project.

Mr. Ohr said, moreover, that he delivered this information before the FBI’s first application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for a warrant against Trump aide Carter Page, in October 2016. Yet the FBI made no mention of this warning in the application, instead characterizing Mr. Steele as a “reliable” source. Nor does the application note that a senior Justice Department official’s spouse was contributing to the dossier and benefiting financially from a document the FBI was using in an investigation. That matters both because the FBI failed to flag the enormous conflict and because Mr. Steele’s work product potentially wasn’t entirely his own.

Read more.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Fox News.

The Anti-Israel Effort Increases in Politics and on Campus

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Antisemitism is being aggressively promoted in Britain and on American Campuses. Jewish students in American colleges face ostracism or worse.

Quote—“The growing advocacy of BDS and anti-Zionist activists has contributed to a continued deterioration of conditions for Jewish students. A report from John Jay College noted that BDS leaders actively orchestrated the ostracizing of Jewish students, blacklisting other groups who might co-host events with Jewish organizations and harassing individual Jewish students. Some Jewish students feel pressured to denounce Israel and Jewish organizations in order to participate in campus social life”.

“A new report from the AMCHA Initiative discusses these patterns. Among other conclusions, it shows that “nearly all of the Israel-related incidents in 2017 involved behavior intended to suppress pro-Israel expression and/or that specifically targeted pro-Israel individuals or groups for ostracizing or discriminatory behavior intended to exclude them from fully participating in campus life.” While the number of anti-Israel events remained fairly constant, behavior aimed at ostracizing pro-Israel individuals and groups expanded in 2018”.

The Anti-Israel Effort Intensifies in Politics and On Campus

By Dr. Alex Joffe

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Anti-Semitism continues to be aggressively promoted in the guise of anti-Israelism in two highly influential arenas: politics, particularly in Britain; and on campus. In the US, the BDS movement is doing all it can to ostracize Jewish students.

August’s major BDS issue was the continuation of the British Labour Party’s anti-Semitism crisis, which began more than two years ago. It was revealed that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had formally endorsed BDS in 2015, had laid a wreath at the graves of the Black September terrorists who orchestrated the 1972 Munich massacre, had met Hamas leaders in the West Bank during an undeclared trip in 2010, and had participated in a 2012 conference in Qatar with Hamas members responsible for numerous terrorist murders.

Corbyn’s preposterous excuse that “I was present at that wreath-laying, I don’t think I was actually involved in it” was excoriated by the British press, British Jews, and many Labour Party members. His later comment that “Zionists” do not understand “English irony” compounded the problem.

But these and other outrages were followed by an explosion of anti-Semitic abuse directed at Corbyn’s critics, including accusations that false claims of anti-Semitism are being used to smear Corbyn and wreck the party. Corbyn’s divisive leadership and the anti-Semitism crisis are among the issues leading some observers to predict a permanent split in the party.

The sources of Labour’s crisis — which originated on college campuses — should be emphasized. Campus politics in Britain have long been incubators for national politics, mirroring such national trends as “intersectionality” and identity politics in progressive circles.

Read more.

Dialogue with a Demagogue

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Barack Obama is hitting the campaign trail — and no one could be happier than Republicans! The former president stepped back into the spotlight last Friday, campaigning for a Congress that he spent his entire two terms ignoring. In a speech to University of Illinois students that was equal parts smug and self-righteous, the 44th president’s antagonism was a potent reminder of what voters rejected in 2016. And not a moment too soon.Almost two years to the day that Hillary Clinton gave her fateful “deplorables” speech, Obama proved that Democrats still haven’t learned how to control their contempt for millions of conservative Americans. With a sanctimony that people learned to despise, one of the most polarizing presidents in history had the nerve to lecture Americans on demagoguery. Implying that Trump supporters are “bigots” and “fearmongers,” Obama went on to blame Republicans for tearing the country apart. “…The politics of division and resentment and paranoia has unfortunately found a home in the Republican party,” he said. This from a man who made Middle-America bashing a professional sport in his eight years at the White House. Who dismissed blue-collar patriots “bitter clingers” who turn to religion and guns because they’re too ignorant to know better. Who called political opponents “unpatriotic” or even “craz[y].”

Republicans like Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) fired back at the hypocrisy almost immediately, posting, “Pres. Obama is right. It is wrong for a President to use divisive language, such as: 1. Call all opponents of same-sex marriage bigots; 2. Call the Pro-Life movement a ‘War on Women;’ 3. Call all immigration enforcement advocates racists; 4. Call the GOP the enemy of Hispanics.” On Fox News, Judge Jeanine Pirro said that if Obama was looking for someone to blame for the animus, he ought to look in the mirror. “Your lies, your policies, and your divisiveness… You elected Donald Trump.”

To evangelicals, his longtime punching bag, he tried to preach a decency he rarely practiced. “Even if you are an evangelical and our position on certain social issues is a bridge too far… I’m here to tell you that you should still be concerned with our current course and should still want to see a restoration of honesty… and lawfulness in our government.” So let me get this straight. The president whose reign included an attorney general who was held in contempt of Congress, an administration that refused to enforce federal law, and misled Congress and the American public with meaningless executive orders wants to lecture evangelicals on lawfulness? That’s like Judas lecturing Matthew on proper accounting principles.

Two years is a long time, but it’s not long enough for the American people to forget the man who built a bigger bypass around the Constitution than I-495! His administration was synonymous with lawlessness. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) chronicled 76 examples of it by 2014 alone. The president who said, “Middle class families can’t wait for Republicans in Congress to do stuff. So, sue me,” is sermonizing on political authority?

“He used his ‘pen and phone’ to circumvent the will of Congress,” Chris Pandolfo fumed. “He sicced his IRS on conservative organizations for opposing his agenda. He ran a gun-running “Fast and Furious” program that put illegal firearms in the hands of violent criminals. His administration spied on Fox News reporter James Rosen. His communications director Anita Dunn said the Obama White House would treat Fox News “the way we would treat an opponent.” Obama lied about keeping your doctor, lied about the Iran nuclear deal, lied about NSA spying, lied about how easy it is to buy a gun, and lied repeatedly throughout his presidency.”

And that’s just the tip of the overreach iceberg. The courts have an equally impressive tally, having rebuked and overturned the administration on everything from recess appointments and immigration to Obamacare mandates.

Not content to sit in the shadows and watch Trump rack up victories on the economy, unemployment, trade, and denuclearization, Obama tried desperately to take some credit for the president’s successes. In a sad attempt to rewrite his disastrous financial legacy, he told the students, “Let’s just remember when this recovery started. I’m glad it’s continued, but when you hear about this economic miracle that’s been going on, when the job numbers come out, monthly job numbers and suddenly Republicans are saying it’s a miracle, I have to kind of remind them, actually, those job numbers are the same as they were in 2015 and 2016 and — anyway. I digress.”

The former president can talk all he wants about jumpstarting the economy, but the numbers speak louder than any stump speech soundbite. In reality, Barack Obama presided over “the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression.” It was so awful, CBS’s Michael Graham pointed out, that “in August of 2011— two years after the $1 trillion stimulus was passed — the economy added zero jobs.” Vice President Mike Pence was just as surprised as anyone else that Obama would try to “tout policies that resulted in less than two percent growth, saw tax increases, Obamacare regulation, and doubling the national debt. [I]t was very disappointing, but frankly I think it just illuminates the choice the American people had in the midterm elections.”

“If we don’t step up,” Obama said, “things could get worse.” Worse, as in more take-home pay, a stronger military and economy, peace with North Korea, and a return to free speech, religious liberty, and respect for life? If that’s the Left’s best argument heading into November, then political strategists are right. Obama is doing more to help conservatives out of the White House than he ever did in it!

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

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