A Counterrevolution Is Coming

Victor Davis Hanson lays it out here. Where we were, where we are – how got here – and where it’s all going.

The Impending Thermidor Reaction in Jacobin America

At peak woke, our reign of terror is beginning to lose momentum because its continuation would destroy all the work of 247 years of American progress and sacrifice.

By Victor Davis Hanson, May 7, 2023:

The decade-long French Revolution that broke out in 1789 soon devolved into far more than removing the monarchy, as it became antithetical to the earlier American precedent. American notions of liberty and freedom were seen as far too narrow, given the state, if only all-powerful and all-wise, could mandate “equality” and force “fraternity” among its subjects.

Each cycle of French revolutionary fervor soon became more radicalized and cannibalistic—until it reached its logical ends of violent absurdity.

Originally, the idea of curbing the power of a Bourbon king through a parliamentary republic became lethally counter-revolutionary.

Soon even attacks on the Catholic Church and the abolition of the monarchy entirely were deemed insufficient. The king himself and his consorts had to be beheaded. Monasteries and churches were to be ransacked, and priests exiled or lynched.

The sometimes moderate Girondins, who favored constitutional government, were mostly executed by their former friends among the Montagnards. In turn, the latter were soon deemed too conservative for the emerging crazy Jacobins. So they, too, had to be decapitated. The ensuing year-long reign of terror guillotined thousands of innocents, deemed guilty of being guilty of something.

By 1793, the revolution had turned nihilist and suicidal. The foundational date of France was recalibrated (not as 1619 but) as 1789—or “year one.”

Jacobins sought to wipe out religion, both materially and spiritually. They replaced God, first, with the atheistic “Cult of Reason” and then a stranger still “Cult of the Supreme Being”—a dreamed-up, living, humanistic god that only the murderous Robespierre could fully envision, but eerily similar to our own Green New Deal deity.

The months of the year themselves were renamed, the days of the week renumbered and relabeled. Statues were toppled, first at night, later in shameless daylight. Place names were erased and renamed. The original revolutionary heroes were not to be mentioned; their uncouth successors deified. Money was printed to “spread the wealth”—until it was worthless.

Murderous cancel culture ran unchecked. Yesterday’s French revolutionary became today’s counterrevolutionary—and tomorrow’s decapitated.

Almost everyone who originally had opposed the absolute monarchy, and, like the Americans, wished for a constitutional replacement, was eventually executed by revolutionaries who were then executed by more radical revolutionaries. The longer and more radical the revolution ran, the meaner, dumber, and more deadly the revolutionaries who emerged from the woodwork.

Finally, what could not go on, did not go on, as French society unraveled. Then the so-called Thermidors put an end to the madness of the Robespierre brothers and their sidekick, the 26-year-old Saint-Just, and did to them what they had done to thousands.

The final revolutionary correction saw a Directory, then a Consulate, and finally the dictator Napoleon—the self-described emperor who claimed he was the final absolutist manifestation of the “Revolution.”

A Revolution of the Disingenuous

We are swept up in similarly scary revolutionary times, after the perfect storm of the 2020 rioting, the COVID destructive lockdowns, and a radical socialist takeover of the old Democratic Party.

Decades of successful and legitimate efforts to ensure equality of opportunity, a safety net for the poor, and increased civil liberties have transmogrified into an “equity” agenda, or state-mandated equality of result—or else!

“Diversity” is now an Orwellian word for racial essentialism to the one-drop degree. Jim Crow racism was not eliminated permanently. It now has resurfaced as woke or “good” segregation. Racially separate facilities and events are apparent “reparatory justice.” Black activists are calling for $800 billion in reparations from San Francisco, a city that is melting down as we speak.

The old precivilizational tribalism and monotony of thought are now deemed “diverse.” “Inclusion” means replacing one racial hierarchy of the 1950s with a newer one of the 2020s. Woke leftists prove “inclusive” by excluding as “haters” and “denialists” any who disagree and cannot be easily refuted.

Opportunists Abound

The Nike admen Colin Kaepernick and LeBron James ended up with millions of dollars in endorsements ultimately derived from Communist Chinese exploiters of servile labor—a fact that all their pseudo-revolutionary performance art cannot mask.

Like the rich and elite Montagnards and Jacobins, well-off, degreed suburban grifters suddenly became “woke” arbiters of the “correct.” Thousands of diversity, equity, and inclusion czars bloated administrations, broke university budgets, and terrified faculty and employees with their panopticon surveillance. And yet did any of them result in a single better student reader, or at least one more accomplished university math major? Have K-12 scores soared with DEI monitors on hand?

We have not descended to the guillotine yet, but we are getting there with online cancel culture, doxxing, deplatforming, boycotts, mandatory diversity statements, indoctrination training, ostracism for an incorrect word, and violence redefined as activism.

Black Lives Matter ended when its supposedly Marxist architects all vanished into comfortable bourgeoise estates and cushy retirements—along with the millions of dollars they shook down from guilt-ridden corporations.

#MeToo sputtered out once the mantra of “believe women” turned its attention to candidate Joe Biden and Tara Reade. It turned out that she most certainly must not be believed when she swore the Delaware Democrat had sexually assaulted her.

Supposed transgendered heroes vie for profitable TV endorsement commercials that are as lucrative to them as they are ruinous to their employers.

In our revolutionary times, mediocre biological male athletes “transition” into female sports and suddenly become rich and famous. Women who transition to males, for some reason, find no such profits from male competitions.

A black transient with 42 arrests and three assault convictions is accidentally killed by a would-be Samaritan bystander who takes action to stop his threats on the subway. The tragedy becomes a rallying cry for “activist” leaders, eager for continuous notoriety and profits, while 10,000 black people murdered per year, mostly by other black people, do not earn a snore from these same “civil rights” leaders.

The World Upside Down

Like Revolutionary France, our woke revolution was contrary to human nature and therefore had to be imposed by force or coercion.

Merit is the great enemy of wokeness. One day SAT tests were blind mechanisms to allow the less privileged to compete on the basis of talent rather than parentage. The next day such tests were deemed counterrevolutionary, racist enemies of the people. Universities boast of rejecting 60-70 percent of those who scored perfect on SATs, as if their excellence was proof of their “privilege.”

Jurisprudence was tarred as racist, as if laws against shoplifting, looting, smash-and-grab, car-jacking, and arson were created only by elite white men who never had the need to steal or loot and who therefore made silly, arbitrary laws against them.

Like the Jacobins, our woke elite deem prisons arbitrary detention centers. So thousands of those arrested for committing violent crimes have either never been charged, never convicted, never sentenced, or never incarcerated. These exemptions rest on the principle that the revolutionaries who destroyed the enforcement of law have the wherewithal to protect themselves from the dystopia they created.

Borders disappeared, apparently on grounds they were 19th-century racist relics. Yet sanctuary cities prove the least welcoming of the tens of thousands they all but invited into distant other towns and counties.

The homeless were no longer deemed vagrants, or selfish in their take-over of public spaces, but the victims of an oppressive society.

So public defecation, urination, fornication, and injection were rebranded as mere lifestyle choices of the unfortunate, not to be judged wrong or unlawful by the victimizers who supposedly made thousands homeless. Ancient laws of hygiene and municipal cleanliness were thrown out as bourgeois, as cities reverted to the protocols of their medieval forebears.

Leftists who created these Frankenstein-like monsters, like the fictive Dr. Frankenstein himself, became targets of their own experiments. It was no longer enough to support civil rights for the transgendered. Suddenly any questioning of the wisdom of biologically born males competing in women’s sports or of teenagers with penises undressing among teenage girls in locker rooms, or of state-sponsored drag-queen shows with children in attendance condemned one as transphobic and worse.

Advocating a secure border and strictly legal immigration was proof of nativism. Equal opportunity for all races was racism. Advocacy for the use of natural gas as a needed transitional fuel indicted one as a climate “denialist.”

As our woke version of the Jacobin revolution accelerated, society itself began to unwind—as expected given America relied on meritocracy, free expression dissent, the rule of law, forbearance, and tolerance.

In less than three years, our major cities became filthy to the point of unhealthiness. Violent crime and thievery drove businesses and commuters away. Subways at night became the domain of the homeless and criminal. Vacancy rates in San Francisco or downtown Portland shot up to 25 percent or more. Millions began leaving Jacobin blue cities and states, and headed for sanctuaries in more suburban and rural red states.

Once-trusted and familiar government agencies became weaponized—and inevitably incompetent. The FBI was not interested in the organizers of 120 days of violent looting, arson, murder, and rioting in summer 2020, or the threatening mobs who showed up at the homes of Supreme Court Justices. Instead, it fixated on parents at school board meetings, Latin Mass Catholics, former Trump Administration officials, and anyone daring to question the Russian collusion or Russian disinformation laptop hoaxes.

The Pentagon brass oversaw a flight from Afghanistan, in the greatest military humiliation in modern American history. Yet at the same time, it focused on rooting out white rage and white privilege despite presenting no data to substantiate its accusations. Former intelligence officers and “authorities” misled the country and warped an election, to ensure Americans did not take seriously the incriminating evidence in Hunter Biden’s laptop of the Biden family’s widespread corruption.

So, the world became topsy-turvy. Throwing a firebomb into a police-occupied patrol car earned a light sentence, while protesting illegally at the Capitol won a decade in prison.

An American who did not get vaccinated was to be thrown out of the U.S. military; an illegal alien crossing the border unlawfully without a vaccination might earn a free phone and free lodging in a big-city hotel.

The more the government printed money it did not have, the more the country was slandered as cruel and mean to its underclass. The more standards were dropped for admission, hiring, promotion, and retention, the more employers were deemed unfair and bigoted.

As the American Jacobin phase accelerated, the more it, too, seemed to pursue its own destruction. Few now trust that the graduates of the Ivy League and marquee universities know what they once did. And why not, when students are admitted without test scores, but are assured passing grades, watered-down classes, and graduation to be synonymous with admission?

The U.S. military fell short by thousands of recruits. And why not, when it advertised for manpower with invitations from drag queens, and hounded those as racists who had died at twice their numbers in the population in Afghanistan and Iraq?

At peak woke, our reign of terror is beginning to lose momentum because its continuation would erode all the work of 247 years of American progress and sacrifice.

Former and current liberals—an Elon Musk, Bill Maher, Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Glen Greenwald, Naomi Wolf, or a Richard Dreyfuss—are deemed counterrevolutionaries for questioning the excesses of wokeism, and so began questioning the premises of wokeism itself.

New polls showed scant public support for open borders, for multiple sexual identities, and for biological men competing in women’s sports. Reparations from an insolvent government to black Americans—on the principle that those whose ancestors might have been enslaved eight generations ago were owed money from those whose ancestors might have owned slaves eight generations ago—is widely rejected by the general population.

When corporations like Anheuser-Busch or Disney tried to ingratiate themselves to the woke Jacobins, they lost billions in revenue—just as the woke Pentagon has lost thousands of recruits.

Woke networks like CNN have smaller audiences than some one-person podcasts.

A desperate and woke NBA now brags that its recent playoff televised audience reached over 4 million viewers. A quarter-century ago, when the U.S. population was nearly 60 million smaller, the pre-Jacobin NBA won over 70 million viewers who watched the 1998 finals.

Joe Biden, the thin veneer of the woke revolution, polls below 40 percent. Even that favorability is propped up by the consensus that he has no idea where he is or what he is saying—and thus at least is deserving of 40 percent support for not being responsible for what he has empowered.

A counterrevolution is building, not just because people are angry at what has become of their country, but because they now are learning that if they do nothing, they will have no country—and soon.

AUTHOR

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

McCarthy blocks Tlaib from hosting ‘Nakba Day’ event at U.S. Capitol, glorifying ‘Palestinian’ jihad

The reality is that the “Palestinians,” who weren’t “Palestinians” in 1948, were not forced out by the Israelis. They were told to leave the area by the Arab Higher Committee. Get the facts in The Palestinian Delusion.

“EXCLUSIVE: McCarthy Blocks Rashida Tlaib’s Anti-Semitic Congressional Event,” by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, May 9, 2023:

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy moved on Tuesday evening to block Michigan’s Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib from hosting an anti-Semitic congressional event planned for Wednesday, the speaker’s office confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon.

McCarthy told the Free Beacon that he intervened late Tuesday to reserve the Capitol Visitor Center space where Tlaib was set to host a Wednesday event to mourn Israel’s founding as a “catastrophe.’  In its place, the speaker will lead a bipartisan briefing celebrating the 75th anniversary of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

“It’s wrong for members of Congress to traffic in anti-Semitic tropes about Israel,” McCarthy told the Free Beacon. “As long as I’m Speaker, we are going to support Israel’s right to self-determination and self-defense, unequivocally and in a bipartisan fashion.”

The anti-Semitic ‘Squad’ member came under fire this week after the Free Beacon reported that she would host the event alongside an array of anti-Israel groups, including some that have defended terrorism. Tlaib’s event was meant to celebrate the “Nakba,” a Palestinian term for the creation of Israel that loosely translates as “catastrophe.”

It is unclear how Tlaib and her supporters will move forward with the event now that McCarthy has occupied their meeting space. Tlaib, or another member, could potentially attempt to reschedule the event for a later date….

“Rashida Tlaib hosting ‘Nakba Day’ event in US Capitol,” by Lahav Harkov, Jerusalem Post, May 8, 2023:

US Rep. Rashida Tlaib plans to hold an event in the Capitol opposing Israel’s establishment this week.

“Nakba 75 & The Palestinian People” is set for Wednesday, to mark the “catastrophe” – the meaning of the word Nakba – of Israel’s establishment in a 400-seat auditorium in the US Capitol Visitor Center.

“Nakba Day” events portray the Palestinians as victims, rather than parties to a conflict with Israel. In 1948, five Arab armies attacked the fledgling Israel, with support from Palestinian leadership.

Her partners in organizing the event include organizations supporting the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel and NGOs that have expressed support for terrorism. For example, Jewish Voice for Peace has glorified the First Intifada in which Palestinians killed close to 300 Israelis, and the Institute for Middle East Understanding lionized the Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Khader Adnan that died last week after a hunger strike and Ghassan Kanafani, who orchestrated the 1972 Lod Airport Massacre in which 26 people, including 17 US citizens, were murdered.

Events at the Capitol Visitor Center can only be held by request from a member of the US Congress or an Officer of Congress, indicating Tlaib’s direct involvement in organizing the event.

US Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) said that “there is strong bipartisan support in Congress for the US-Israel relationship, and no effort that attempts to rewrite history and question Israel’s right to exist has any hope of succeeding.

“At a time when that relationship is integral to our joint fight against terror, expansion of Israeli-Arab normalization efforts, and shared security and intelligence efforts, this narrative only sows divisiveness and hate,” Gottheimer stated….

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Sen. Joe Manchin Vows To Block All Biden Nominees To Environmental Protection Agency

Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin will block all of President Joe Biden’s nominees to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the agency’s proposed rule regulating power plants, he announced Wednesday.

“This Administration is determined to advance its radical climate agenda and has made it clear they are hellbent on doing everything in their power to regulate coal and gas-fueled power plants out of existence, no matter the cost to energy security and reliability. Just last week, before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, every FERC Commissioner agreed that we cannot eliminate coal today or in the near future if we want to have a reliable electric grid. If the reports are true, the pending EPA proposal would impact nearly all fossil-fueled power plants in the United States, which generate about 60 percent of our electricity, without an adequate plan to replace the lost baseload generation. This piles on top of a broader regulatory agenda being rolled out designed to kill the fossil industry by a thousand cuts,” Manchin said in a statement.

“Neither the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law nor the IRA gave new authority to regulate power plant emission standards. However, I fear that this Administration’s commitment to their extreme ideology overshadows their responsibility to ensure long-lasting energy and economic security and I will oppose all EPA nominees until they halt their government overreach,” he continued.

EPA administrator Michael Regan is scheduled to announce his agency’s new power plant regulations on Thursday. The new rules will reportedly require gas and coal power plants to employ carbon capture technology, according to The New York Times. Out of the 3,400 currently operational power plants in the U.S., fewer than 20 have the appropriate technology in place to comply with the rule. They would have to do so by 2040.

Republicans have made extensive use of the Congressional Review Act in the 118th Congress in a bid to push back against Biden administration rules and regulations. Manchin has signed on to resolutions that would roll back the COVID-19 pandemic emergency and a Department of Labor environmental, social, and governance investing rule. Congress could move to roll back the EPA regulation, although any passed resolution would be subject to a presidential veto.

Manchin has voted against Biden administration nominees more often than any other Senate Democrat. Most recently, he announced his opposition to a Department of the Interior nominee over concerns she would play “political games” with energy production. Manchin is still considering whether or not to support Labor Secretary nominee Julie Su.

The Senate is currently considering two nominees for EPA posts, and two others remain vacant, according to a Washington Post tracker.

AUTHOR

MICHAEL GINSBERG

Congressional correspondent.

RELATED ARTICLE: Manchin Sinks Biden Federal Reserve Nominee Who Drew Republican Boycott

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Chinese Farmland Nearest You

Grand Forks, North Dakota is, as they might say out west, a far piece from Beijing, China. Yet the Chinese communist government has an unusual interest in one of the more obscure regions of North America.

Last year, the Fufeng Group of Shandong, China bought 300 acres of farmland near Grand Forks and planned to develop a corn milling plant there. Some North Dakotans appeared delighted by their new Chinese neighbors. One estimate is that the new $700 million facility would have created 200 new jobs in itself plus more in “spin-off” businesses (restaurants, retail merchants, etc.). But after the Air Force contacted North Dakota Senator John Hoeven (R) expressing concerns over the new plant, the Grand Forks city council voted 5-0 to cancel its development.

So, why would analysts in the U.S. Air Force care about a “bio-fermentation company” that processes food for animal consumption? The answer is pretty simple: the proposed Fufeng plant would have been a roughly 20-minute drive from Grand Forks Air Force Base, which is “believed to be the home of some of the country’s most sophisticated military drone technology.”

According to USAF Major Jeremy Fox, the Grand Forks base is home to highly sensitive “digital uplinks and downlinks inherent with unmanned air systems and their interaction with space-based assets.” Were the Fufeng plant to gain electronic access to these systems, Fox notes that this “would present a costly national security risk causing grave damage to United States’ strategic advantages” and that the information could be collected by “ordinary antennas tuned to the right collecting frequencies.”

Is Fox unduly concerned? Well, considering that Fufeng is tied closely to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the answer is a resounding “no.” In September 2022, U.S. Reps. Carlos Gimenez and Michael Waltz (both Florida Republicans) were joined by more than 50 Members of Congress in sending a letter to Cabinet secretaries Lloyd Austin, Janet Yellen, and Tom Vilsack arguing that “the presence of a CCP affiliated corporation near a military installation potentially undermines the integrity of our high capability military bases, jeopardizing our strategic interests.”

As of 2021, China owned about 384,000 acres of American farmland. Forbes journalist Emily Washburn reports that of this amount, “195,000 acres, worth almost $2 billion when purchased, are owned by 85 Chinese investors, which could be individuals, companies or the government.” The remainder “are owned by 62 U.S. corporations with Chinese shareholders.”

The effort to curtail Chinese intrusion into the American heartland is gaining bipartisan support. Andrew Hunter, an assistant secretary of the Department of the Air Force, wrote to Senator Hoeven in January that the Defense Department’s “view is unambiguous: the proposed [Grand Forks] project presents a significant threat to national security with both near- and long-term risks of significant impacts to our operations in the area.”

Similarly, Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) argues, “We have never had a potential adversary like China. They have $500 billion in intellectual property theft, and we are in a competition not just on a national security basis but on a technology basis. That’s why national security now includes telecommunications, satellites, artificial intelligence, quantum computing.”

Governors and state legislators are also taking action, ranging from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) to the California legislature. In Virginia, Governor Glenn Youngkin (R-Va.) “has moved to ban TikTok from state devices, called for a prohibition on Chinese companies purchasing farmland and blocked plans to attract an electric battery plant.”

Additionally, U.S. officials are now acknowledging that the Chinese spy balloon “that flew across the U.S. was able to gather intelligence from several sensitive American military sites, despite the Biden administration’s efforts to block it from doing so.” We now know that “China was able to control the balloon so it could make multiple passes over some of the sites (at times flying figure-eight formations) and transmit the information it collected back to Beijing in real time.”

U.S. Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), chairman on the House Intelligence Committee, recently wrote that according to a Defense Department review, “The Chinese Communist Party will likely have a stockpile of nearly 1,500 warheads by 2035 if it continues with its current nuclear buildout and now has more ICBM launchers than the United States. China is also developing a land-attack cruise missile designed to be fired from a launcher disguised as a commercial shipping container.”

We are faced with numerous and grave social and cultural challenges. They occupy much of our attention and concern, as they should. But we dismiss China’s growing threat to our peril, even to our eventual collapse.

AUTHOR

Rob Schwarzwalder

Rob Schwarzwalder is Senior Lecturer in Regent University’s Honors College.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘Christian Nationalism?’ Texas Legislation Would Require Ten Commandments Be Posted in Schools

Critics are calling a Texas bill that would require the Ten Commandments to be posted in public school classrooms an example of “Christian nationalism.” But the bill’s sponsors say the legislation is needed to help remind students of America’s biblical foundations.

In April, S.B. 1515 passed the Texas Senate with a vote of 17-12; the bill is now headed to the state’s House of Representatives.

“[The bill] will remind students all across Texas of the importance of the fundamental foundation of America,” Texas State Senator Phil King (R), the bill’s sponsor, said during an April committee hearing.

Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick (R) expressed further support of the legislation along with another bill requiring there be allotted time for students and employees to pray and read the Bible if they choose. “Allowing the Ten Commandments and prayer back into our public schools is one step we can take to make sure that all Texans have the right to freely express their sincerely held religious beliefs,” he said in a statement, adding that the bills “will enable our students to become better Texans.”

King went on to assert that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to uphold Coach Joe Kennedy’s right to pray on the field after high school football games in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District signaled that it would also uphold S.B. 1515 if it became law. This outcome remains uncertain in light of a previous Supreme Court ruling in Stone v. Graham (1980), which held that a Kentucky statute requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms was unconstitutional due to it violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Critics such as Washington Post columnist Paul Waldman say that the Texas legislation amounts to a “new frontier of Christian nationalism,” claiming that the so-called philosophy “rejects our legal and cultural tradition of religious pluralism.”

But as mass shootingssuicides, and mental health issues continue to mount in the U.S., observers fear that a lack of clearly defined principles to live by in the public square will only lead to further societal chaos.

“What we are seeing culturally is a predictable result of a secularizing culture,” Family Research Council’s Joseph Backholm told The Washington Stand. “Government schools, claiming to be neutral, are teaching children to understand the world without consideration of the one who created the world. This predictably leads to growing depression and suicide because there is nowhere to turn when we lose control. It also leads to increasingly lawlessness, because there is no one to be accountable to.”

Still, Backholm, who serves as FRC’s senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement, expressed reservations about the legal ramifications of mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools.

“As a legal matter, if a state allows the Ten Commandments, they would be obligated to allow other religious displays and messages I might not want my kids exposed to,” he observed. The rise of “After School Satan Clubs” indeed has some experts worried about what kinds of beliefs could make their way into schools once a legal foothold is achieved.

“That’s why this situation also shows the necessity of universal school choice,” Backholm continued. “No parent should be forced by government to have their child indoctrinated in a worldview they do not share. By giving parents control over where their child is educated, parents have control over how their child is educated — and no one has to fight over the Ten Commandments in school. The only reason this is even controversial is because people are stuck in public schools, so people who have no shared values are fighting over space the government mandates we share. It’s a recipe for conflict, so we are seeing conflict.”

“So yes, we need reminders that we are accountable and we are not alone, but government should not be the source of our theology,” Backholm concluded.

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘They Will Try to Bully You’: Lawmakers Exit the Democratic Party

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘There’s a Remedy for Our Nation — and That Remedy Is Not Gun Control’: Congressman

Waves of grief continue to break over Texas, as the tight-knit Allen community comes to grip with the weekend’s senseless shooting. As the names and pictures of Saturday’s victims were released by police, hearts across the country shattered at the news that two families had lost multiple loved ones. A six-year-old boy, orphaned by the death of his parents and brother, is all that remains of the Cho family. Other moms and dads reeled at the horror of losing two elementary-aged daughters as the Mendozas did. After Nashville, Louisville, and so many other devastating tragedies this spring, people are desperate for answers. When will it end — and what can we possibly do to stop it?

Congressman Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who had a front-row seat for the overwhelming sorrow that followed The Covenant School killings in March told “Washington Watch” guest host Jody Hice that he stepped off the House floor after those murders and said, “This country needs a revival.” As a result, he pointed out, “I was mocked by the national media and across the country — and maybe across the globe, I don’t know. But I still stand by that.”

As usual, Hice said, the Left is “trying to blame the instruments of death.” “So they’re going after the guns. But as Christians,” he pointed out, “we know that evil exists in our world. We know that there’s a remedy for our nation — and that remedy is not going to be found simply in gun control. We’ve got to go to the heart of the issue, which is the heart of mankind — mankind which has turned away from the Lord.”

While Democrats like Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez blame Republicans — “We’re living in a Texas nightmare, and it’s a nightmare that [the GOP] created” — the reality, Hice insists, is that guns have been around “for hundreds of years.” “It’s just now that we’re seeing a change, a surge in violence. So it’s not the guns.”

Burchett agreed. “Well, it’s an easy scapegoat,” he pointed out. “… And it’s an election year coming up, [and] they have a weak candidate [in Joe Biden]. So [gun control is] what they’re going to go for. … [I]t’s symbolism. It’s what sells. And … these murders are just horrible.” But, he went on, “We lose 100 people a day in automobile accidents every 39 minutes. We lose somebody to a drunk driver. Yet nobody’s wanting to take alcohol or cars away from people. And so, to me it’s pretty telling about what’s going on.”

When Americans look at what happened in Brownsville, Texas on Sunday, “a man with murder in his heart [used] his vehicle to attack others,” Hice said. “[But] there are no cries to do away with SUVs, right?”

That’s because, as Bishop Charles Flowers said later, “You cannot legislate righteousness. Policies don’t change the heart of a person,” he insisted on “Washington Watch.” “But policies do set the environment in which either evil or righteousness flourish. And with respect to the right to bear arms, that is the responsibility that you and I have been given — not by men, but by God — to protect that which belongs to us.”

It’s important to remember, Flowers said, “The gun itself has never shot anybody.” It’s in someone’s hands. “And the person who has their hands on that weapon is either more or less likely to use it based on what kind of environment … that is around them.”

“Every lost life, of course, is a sad situation in any case,” he emphasized. “But it’s not the possession of guns that do[es] it. I believe in responsible gun ownership. [But if] you put the guns in the hands of somebody that … [will] aid them in their already twisted behavior, you don’t do that. That doesn’t make good sense. But at the same time, [you also don’t] pull that right and responsibility from everybody else who would rightfully use the weapons.”

As Hice mentioned, this is a “heart” problem, and that heart is molded by several so many factors. “We have this outcry to get rid of guns. Why is there no outcry to restore the family, to restore morality? Why this misguided blame for an issue that they’re trying to address with a Band-Aid rather than get to the heart of it?”

Flowers said the answer, at least from the Democrats’ perspective, is simple. “Gun control is part of a larger agenda, and that agenda is to disarm the citizens so that another power can come in and massively control the citizenship. A broken family assists that agenda, so they can’t tout the strength of a strengthening family, because it is counterproductive to what the end goal is.”

But there is hope, he insists, and it starts with prayer and action. “Pray, he says in Second Chronicles: ‘If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek his face and turn from their wicked ways …’ Turning is a prerequisite,” Flowers pointed out. “… ‘Then will I hear from heaven. I’ll forgive their sins, and I’ll heal their land.’ Secondly, don’t let passivity gulf you up like the vicious monster that it is. We have to begin to act — and act out our morals in the social environment.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Public Health Tyrants Need to Be Quarantined

I’m going to keep pounding away at the fact our public health authorities were wrong about everything regarding COVID.  I’m doing so because they assumed an awful lot of power over our lives and ultimately proved to be destructive.  This should never be allowed to happen again.

They were wrong about masks.  A review of 78 studies shows there is no evidence masks are effective in a pandemic.  There is also no evidence removal of mask mandates caused COVID deaths to go up.  In fact, in Kansas, counties with a mask mandate experienced significantly higher case fatality rates than counties that did not.  So, masks not only did not help, they hurt.  But what did the public health industrial complex do?  Suppress the truth, that’s what.

Public health authorities were wrong about the lab leak theory.  It remains a perfectly good theory, now found credible by the Energy Department and the FBI.  But what did Fauci do?   Government records show he dismissed the lab leak hypothesis as a “conspiracy theory”, gave government grants to proponents of the theory to shut them up, and commissioned a report to publicly discredit the theory.  Fauci rules?  I don’t think so.  CNN and Facebook helped Fauci cover up the truth.

Public health officials were wrong about ivermectin.  The aggregate of studies continues to weigh in favor of ivermectin’s efficacy in COVID cases on mortality and lesser questions.  But public officials deliberately trashed ivermectin – calling it just a ‘horse de-wormer’ – and conspired to keep it from being prescribed.  A group of doctors is now suing to hold officials at the FDA and HHS accountable for their actions.  I hope all the hospitals that threw doctors out for prescribing or advocating for the use of ivermectin get sued, too.

The public health industrial complex was also wrong about the impact of COVID on kids, falsely claiming it was a leading cause of death among young people.  Accidents, drug overdoses, and drownings were far more prevalent.  The truth is only one out of a 100,000 kids and teens died from COVID.  The numbers were never high enough to justify school lockdowns and the self-inflicted ravages of learning loss from closing school doors are now common knowledge.

Public health authorities were also wrong about natural immunity, falsely claiming COVID vaccine immunity was better, as late as in March in congressional testimony.  Fauci is in this story, too, meeting in secret with other U.S. health officials, to get their story straight about how natural immunity was no good despite the scientific evidence showing it was.  Their effort was ultimately futile, though, because evidence keeps piling up that natural immunity is better.

Evidence is also piling up the vaccines were not very effective.  A recent study shows the immune system gets tired and doesn’t produce much of a response after a third dose.  Another study shows the effect of bivalent boosters wears off after two months.  These studies are in addition to the pile of other studies I mentioned in previous commentaries casting doubt on COVID vaccine efficacy.

So many lies, so many cover-ups.  We deserve better from our government officials and politicians.  They’re supposed to be working for us, not lording over us.  I, for one, will never trust them again.  But the Moral of the Story is we need to put up more of a fight when public health authorities and politicians try to steal our liberty for no good reason.  One of the very first things I read about pandemic legal theory is that public health authorities have to make their case in court before taking emergency measures.  That never happened.  They were never put to their proof under oath and cross-examination.  Let’s make sure a full examination of their argument happens the next time these political animals go off the rails.

©2023 Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

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Inflation Refuses To Go Away As Prices Stay High

Inflation refused to significantly ease despite the Federal Reserve’s efforts to rein in high prices, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) inflation report released on Wednesday.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI), a broad measure of the prices of everyday goods such as energy and food, increased 4.9% on an annual basis in April compared to 5% in March, according to the BLS. Core CPI — which excludes energy and food — remained high, rising 5.5% year-over-year in April, compared to 5.6% in March.

The increase was driven primarily by a rise in shelter costs, which jumped 0.4% in April compared to 0.6% in March, according to the BLS. Inflation grew 0.4% on a monthly basis in April, compared to 0.1% in March, according to the BLS.

The index for used cars and trucks increased 4.4% and the index for motor vehicle insurance rose 1.4%, according to the BLS. The indices for recreation, household furnishings and operations and personal care also increased.

The energy index decreased 5.1% over the 12 months ending in April while the food index increased 7.7% for the last year.

Inflation reached 9.1% in June 2022, its highest point since 1982, according to the BLS.

“The direction of inflation is getting less bad, but pace of improvement is still frustratingly slow,” Bill Adams, chief economist for Comerica Bank told Morningstar.

“Inflation has stayed higher for longer than the conventional forecasting techniques would lead us to believe, and so the risk is that the persistence of inflation continues,” he said. “That’s another way of saying that once inflation has picked up, it’s hard to slow down again. And that’s where we are now.”

The CPI report follows an unexpectedly hot jobs report on Friday as the U.S. added 253,000 jobs in April, and the unemployment rate dropped slightly to 3.4%, according to BLS data.

“We remain committed to bringing inflation back down to our 2% goal and to keep our longer-term inflation expectations well-anchored,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who has raised interest rates ten consecutive times in an attempt to lower inflation, said Wednesday in a press conference following the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. “Reducing inflation is likely to require a period of below-trend growth and some softening of labor market conditions.”

AUTHOR

JASON COHEN

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Core Inflation Still Sky High, New Report Shows

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Interior Secretary: ‘The Monstrous Administrative State Killing Self-Government Must Be Stopped’

News sites like Geller Report have warned of the subversive take-over from within in our most powerful government agencies.

Trump Interior Secretary: The Monstrous Administrative State Killing Self-Government Must Be Stopped

David Bernhardt has written a screed against the burgeoning administrative state built on his firsthand experience as a Beltway insider.

By: Tristan Justice, The Federalist. May 8, 2023:

A new book out Tuesday lifts the curtain on what the modern administrative state has become: a bureaucratic leviathan undermining representative systems of government — and it needs to be reined in.

After a long career in civil service that includes stints under the last two Republican presidents, former Trump Interior Secretary David Bernhardt has written a screed against the burgeoning administrative state from his firsthand experience as a Beltway insider. The book, titled You Report to Me: Accountability for the Failing Administrative State, is both an expose of the swamp-style tactics leveraged to stifle the agenda of democratically elected leaders and a guide to confront the weaponization of the federal bureaucracy.

In a Monday interview with The Federalist, Bernhardt pointed to the “lionization” of “the resistance” within federal agencies following the triumphant 2016 election of President Donald Trump as an inflection point in the administrative state subverting the will of American voters.

“My concern over time is that if you have 2.2 million people in the civil service, and 1 percent of them is actively resisting,” Bernhardt said, “that’s one thing.” He continued:

But if it’s 10 percent of them, it’s a different thing. If it’s 20 percent of them, it’s something else. And if it’s more than that, what does that mean for representative democracy and government? Because at the end of the day, in my mind the entire point of us having an election system is so that the American people can express a view and have it mean something.

While primarily drawn from his time at the Department of the Interior, the book examines how employees across federal agencies have learned to manipulate bureaucratic processes to hamper White House priorities that run counter to their ideologies. From turning in products rendered unusable to outright delaying the completion of projects deemed important by the elected administration, employees exploit protections as federal bureaucrats to “resist” presidential directives.

In one chapter, Bernhardt pulls extensively from a report by the America First Policy Institute, where he serves as chairman of the Center for American Freedom, titled, “Tales from the Swamp.” The 2021 paper documents episodes of resistance throughout the four years of the Trump administration.

A plurality of examples Bernhardt cites involve the Department of Justice, the same agency that sought to frame Trump and his 2016 campaign as engaged in Russian collusion. The FBI investigation known as Crossfire Hurricane culminated in the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who ultimately exonerated the president. Bernhardt made no reference to the Russia-collusion hoax but shed light on a litany of other abuses by DOJ officials who successfully subverted the will of voters by thwarting White House initiatives. The cross-agency examples illustrate the extent to which unelected ideologues are able to hijack democracy to substitute presidential policy with their own agendas.

Axios published a report last summer that unveiled Trump’s plans for a complete overhaul of the entire federal bureaucracy in a potential second term, starting with the Department of Justice. Bernhardt’s book offers not just a warrant but a mandate for bureaucratic reform to be a top priority for the next Republican president.

“The election involves the change of, let’s say, 3,500 people,” Bernhardt told The Federalist. “There’s 2.2 million that don’t change, and you have to figure out, ‘How am I going to have these folks help me drive change forward?’”

Trump, he added, “started very late,” with “Schedule F” for federal employees not proposed until the last year of his administration.

The delay not only gave the president’s antagonists years of experience in hampering administrative priorities but also gave former Trump officials a lesson in urgency. Last week, the Heritage Foundation announced the hiring of former White House Personnel Director John McEntee to preemptively staff the next administration. Bernhardt wrote about the importance of administrative staff moving on the president’s agenda from day one.

“A presidential term is 1,461 days,” Bernhardt reported. “In the absence of a second term, everything that is not accomplished by day 1,461 is probably never going to be done.”

In his interview with The Federalist, Bernhardt finished with a warning for the next administration. “The resistance to the next Republican president’s policies will be 10 times worse from the standpoint of the career civil service, the [nongovernmental organizations], and the radical left,” Bernhardt said.

The prophetic note makes Bernhardt’s book a must-read for anyone wishing to understand the true scale of the administrative state, especially for those hoping for a political appointment.

Read more.

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Injustice of Biden’s Equity Agenda

In a move that has critics crying “socialism,” the Biden administration created a new policy that will raise mortgage fees on low-risk borrowers so high-risk borrowers can pay less. The most affected group, those with credit scores between 720 and 759 who also have a downpayment of 15% -20%, would pay an additional $3,200 in fees.

Unlike other left-wing economic plans which transfer money from the wealthy to the poor, under this scheme, borrowers with good credit will pay more even if they have less money. In a sane world, this makes no sense. We understand that lending money comes with risk, and borrowers come with different risks. Someone who has paid their bills on time for the past 30 years presents less risk than a recent high school graduate. But we no longer live in a sane world, we live in a world led by those who want every group to experience the same outcome. They call it “equity.”

We’re very familiar with this dynamic when it comes to categories like race, sex, religion, and the suite of LGBTQ identity categories. Applicants to medical school are rewarded and punished based on their skin color as much as their competency, and male-dominated professions like computer science are seen as evidence of sexism, not evidence that women like different things.

The Biden administration’s new mortgage fee policy is just an extension of this logic as they attempt to “level the playing field” so those with bad credit will have the same outcome as those with good credit. What everyone other than the most zealous equity advocates immediately recognize, however, is that this playing field should not be leveled. We do not want to live in a world where responsible people are treated the same as irresponsible people. While equity demands groups be treated similarly, justice demands individuals be treated as individuals. This is why none of us would hire a convicted sex-offender to babysit our children.

We have a criminal justice system because we understand some individuals deserve to walk about freely in society, while others do not. While we should acknowledge the unfortunate ways race and wealth have been relevant in the criminal justice system, we should also acknowledge the entire purpose of the criminal justice system is to treat people justly, not equitably. If we had a criminal equity system instead, we would rotate people in and out of prisons based on their age, sex, or race — regardless of their criminal history — to ensure that no groups were over or under-represented in the prison population. An equity-based credit system is less harmful than an equity based criminal justice system would be, but it is just as unfair. So why do smart people propose it?

Modern sensibilities reject the idea that human nature is inherently sinful but acknowledge the world is broken. Since their starting assumption is that there’s nothing wrong with people, they blame the bad things people do on “systemic injustice.” The gospel tells us the systems will be fixed once hearts change, but modern progressivism tells us heart will change once the systems are fixed.

This is the reason Brandon Johnson, the recently elected Mayor of Chicago, came to the defense of hundreds of teenagers who destroyed property, beat bystanders, and got into gun fights with police in a recent Chicago riot. He said it was “not constructive to demonize youth who have been starved of opportunities.” If the problem is a lack of character, those kids need to take responsibility for what happened. If the problem is a lack of opportunity, everyone but the kids need to take responsibility for what happened.

Of course, there are things we can do to help each other. Life is a team sport best lived in community which means we each have power to help and harm each other. But when we misunderstand the source of our problems, we guarantee the solutions will be inadequate. The pursuit of equity discourages us from treating individuals based on the content of their character. Instead, it encourages us to see people primarily as members of a group and demands those groups be treated the same. So, we treat the guilty the same as the innocent and the capable just like we treat the less capable. And now we’re charging responsible people more for credit because it doesn’t feel right that one group should be treated differently than another.

It isn’t just or fair, but it is equitable.

AUTHOR

Joseph Backholm

Joseph Backholm is Senior Fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at Family Research Council.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘States Have No Choice’: Officials Grapple with Border Surge amid Listless Federal Response

On Friday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed on “NBC Nightly News” that “the border is secure.” The statement comes as the number of apprehensions at the U.S.’s southern border has spiked to record highs, with an additional surge expected in the coming days when Title 42 expires. In response, border state officials say they are preparing to take immigration enforcement into their own hands due to a lack of effort from the federal government.

On Sunday, reports surfaced that migrant apprehensions had reached 9,000 per day, significantly up from the previous high during Joe Biden’s presidency of 7,200 per day and “the second-highest month in Border Patrol history.” Indications are that the surge will only increase in the coming days due to the expiration of Title 42, which is set to end on May 11. Title 42 is a pandemic-era policy that allowed border officials to quickly expel migrants. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill from both sides of the aisle are expressing frustration over what they say is a lack of preparation for the expected surge on the part of the White House.

“[W]e need the Biden administration to act, and to act fast,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.). “I’ve heard directly from leaders in our border communities … [who] are simply unequipped to handle the surge of migrants that are expected when Title 42 ends.” Senator Krysten Sinema (I-Ariz.) was equally concerned about the Biden administration’s actions, or lack thereof. “Just today [Sunday], I was on the phone with a sheriff of Cochise County. He has gotten no information from the Department of Homeland Security or the federal government about what the flow is going to look like, about what they can expect for processing in terms of how long it takes to process migrants. He’s got no information.”

In response to the Biden administration announcing that 1,500 active-duty troops would be deployed to the border to “serve in administrative roles and not perform any law enforcement function,” Sinema was blunt. “It is a border of over 2,000 miles … so 1,500 troops isn’t gonna get the job done. That’s just the reality.”

The concerns come as a new report reveals that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are “overwhelmed, overworked and frustrated” and “stretched to their breaking points,” with almost 90% of employees in both agencies saying they do not have enough staff to handle an additional migrant surge. The report noted that despite “increasing border encounters and travel volume … staffing levels have remained the same, with CBP and ICE using details and overtime to temporarily fill staffing gaps along the Southwest border.”

As a result, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) announced Monday that a new “Texas Tactical Border Force” made up of 545 specially trained Texas National Guard troops will be deployed at “hotspots along the border to intercept, to repel and to turn back migrants who are trying to enter Texas illegally.” The governor said that the troops will be used to strengthen Operation Lone Star, which has already repelled 37,000 individuals attempting to cross the border illegally, arrested 27,000 criminals, including “cartel gang members” wanted for crimes including murder, and seized “enough fentanyl that would have been enough to kill every man, woman, and child in the United States.”

On Friday’s edition of “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins,” Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas) further emphasized the need for border states like Texas to assume responsibility for protecting the border.

“[H]ere in Texas, for the past couple of years, there’s been lots of talk about do we actually look at the U.S. Constitution and say, ‘Is this an invasion?’” he noted. “Luckily, Governor Abbott in the last year declared this is, in fact, an invasion across our borders. … The Constitution makes clear that it should be a federal operation for us to secure our borders. But when the federal government is unwilling to do so, states have no choice.”

“States like Arizona and Texas are the ones that are leading the way,” Moran concluded. “But I can tell you here in Texas … we recognize that there is a need to fill the gap where the federal government has failed over and over again.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Biden Tanks under ‘Brutal’ Polling as Reelection Campaign Struggles to Lift Off

If Joe Biden’s team drew up a nightmare scenario for his reelection announcement, even they couldn’t have predicted something this awful. A string of crises, policy failures, and negative polling have all combined to make the rollout a complete dud by most pundits’ standards — and the idea of a second term unimaginable by most voters. Is two years already too much? The majority of Americans seem to be saying yes.

Until recently, the White House had managed to keep the storm clouds of China, an out-of-control southern border, inflation, and the Biden family’s questionable financials from breaking over an already shaky approval rating. That changed this week, as “brutal” poll numbers were released on everything from the president’s mental fitness to how he’s handling the job.

Monday’s rock bottom approval rating (36%) marked the lowest of Biden’s presidency, sending “shockwaves” through the Democratic Party, a former Clinton pollster said. “When he drops here from 42 to 36 in approval in this poll, that’s all [the] Democrats who are jumping ship and saying, ‘I don’t approve of the presidency he’s doing,’” Mark Penn insisted on “America’s Newsroom.” As for the numbers being an anomaly, Penn argued this has been coming “for a long time.” “Look,” he pointed out, “the Harris polling showed the same thing. People question his fitness for continued office. Most Democrats didn’t want him to run. But this poll has to send shockwaves. … He just announced for presidency. You’re supposed to go up when you announce, not down.”

A whopping 63% of Americans now believe Biden lacks the “mental sharpness” to be president, the ABC News/Washington Post survey shows, compared to just 32% who think he does. Just last year, a little over half (54%) were concerned. But, with another year’s worth of rambling statements, memory loss, and situational unawareness, even the friendly media can’t tamp down concerns.

Adding to the bad news, another 68% say he’s too old for a second term — while the age of his stiffest competition, Donald Trump, at 76, weighs a lot less heavily (44%) on people’s minds. MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle addressed the elephant (donkey?) in the room with Biden himself, pointing out — quite bluntly — that “there’s not a Fortune 500 company in the world looking to hire a CEO in his 80s.” So why, she asked, “would an 82-year-old Joe Biden be the right person for the most important job in the world?”

Relying on stale talking points, Biden made the argument that most Democrats were banking on to win him a second term: the 45th president. “We cannot let this election be one where the same man who was president four years ago becomes president again.”

That strategy worked in 2020, when people hoped Biden would have time to accomplish things worth running on in four years. Now, without a single policy success to his name and fires raging across his foreign and domestic agendas, Democrats are betting the farm on the hatred for his old nemesis and a laundry list of social extremisms.

Turns out, that’s not a very compelling argument when families can barely afford groceries and our enemies threaten nuclear war with the world. Add to that the two-year onslaught of wokeness Biden is fueling in educationsportscorporate America, and health care, and it’s no wonder Democrats are looking for the exits. Fifty-five percent of his own party doesn’t want him to run again, and, as Penn explained, “they’re looking at a potential Titanic at this point unless it changes.”

In a head-to-head with Trump, the former president has a clear, seven-point lead (49-42%) — well beyond the poll’s margin of error. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R), widely considered the second most potent GOP candidate, enjoys the same comfortable advantage (48-41%). Obviously, the MAGA-bashing isn’t working. Biden’s problem, unfortunately for Democrats, is Biden.

FRC Action Vice President Brent Keilen pointed out, “The 2024 election will be about turnout, and turnout is determined by voter enthusiasm. The fact that only 18% of Americans strongly approve of President Biden’s work indicates he will have a difficult time motivating voters to turn out,” he told The Washington Stand. “The voters are looking for real leadership, and they don’t think they’re currently getting that.”

Even at the highest levels of the Democratic Party, the fears about Biden are real. Democratic strategist Donna Brazile admitted to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Sunday that the negative numbers “kept me up.” With his support tanking among reliable voting blocs like black, Hispanic, independent, and suburban women voters, Brazile worries that the entire 2020 coalition “is fragmented.” “That should concern them. The second thing that should concern them, of course, is that they are still unable to get a real good strong message to the American people [on] … where they want to take the country.”

On that point, Brazile is wrong. Americans understand exactly where Biden wants to take the country — to open borders, rampant crime on our streets, sky-rocketing prices, loan default, government dependence, medically-mutilated children in the name of “gender ideology,” war with China, the end of parental and women’s rights, religious targeting, and socialized, one-party rule.

As Family Research Council’s Quena Gonzalez pointed out, that jig is up. “Joe Biden ran as a centrist, the moderate choice, but he’s governed far to the left of the electorate. Most Americans want Washington, D.C. to balance the budget, protect our borders, and leave us alone. Instead, Biden has been beholden to those in his party who despise America, love abortion, embrace radical gender ideology for kindergarteners, and resent the Constitution, the Supreme Court, Republicans in Congress — and anyone else who stands in the way of their dystopian ideas.”

“From reversing himself on the right of Americans to believe in one-man, one-woman marriage to siccing the FBI on parents who show up at school board meetings, President Biden has lashed himself to the most extreme wing of his party,” he told TWS. “He’s borrowed trillions of dollars that our great-grandchildren will still owe, and he’s driving the nation’s economy off of a cliff. Americans should continue to pray for our leaders, including President Biden, that they would fear God and lead us well. But from the looks of the polls, perhaps most Americans are beginning to simply pray that God will bless and keep the president — far away from us.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Climate Change: A Fairy-Tale Wrapped In Falsehoods Inside Fictions

The phony climate change narrative has had a rough time on Capitol Hill, lately.

David Turk, deputy secretary of the Energy Department, made a complete fool of himself in congressional testimony when he would not say how much it would cost to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.  He admitted it would cost trillions of dollars, but would not affirm credible estimates it would cost $50 trillion.  All he did was dance around the question and filibuster.  And what do we get for spending $50 trillion?  He was asked point-blank how much achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 would lower world temperatures and he NEVER ANSWERED THE QUESTION.  He went on and on about how it’s a global problem and the U.S. is 13 percent of it, blah blah blah, but he would not be pinned down on the effect of carbon neutrality on temperatures.  He didn’t even offer to provide the information later, as congressional witnesses commonly do.  He just sat there all smug, repeating his platitudes about how “this is a global problem” and how we need ‘fundamental transformation’.  No, what we need is to stop government by phony narratives and get rid of tyrants like Turk who invoke those narratives to rule over us.  According to this guy, we’re just supposed to spend trillions of dollars without asking any questions to reach climate goals he won’t specify because, one may reasonably conclude from his evasiveness, spending trillions of dollars won’t make any difference at all to climate change.

But make no mistake: the ruling over us has already begun.  The Biden administration has issued an avalanche of new rules in the name of climate change raising the cost of washing machines, dishwashers, microwaves, toothbrush chargers, and other household appliances, as well as degrading their performance.  Climate change is YOUR fault, you see, and you must be made to suffer.  Only if you submit and bow down to your new masters will we keep the planet from burning up.  What a crock!

Back to Capitol Hill, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland was asked, “Are you aware that China controls, by proxy production, the supply chain of critical minerals that are critical to both the [electric vehicle] world and defense?  … Are you aware, by multiple studies, that in order to satisfy the present requirements of [electric vehicles] and critical minerals to defense, it would take an increase of 2,000% of mining for 20 years?”  She was tongue-tied.  She had no idea how to respond.  She had never heard this before, despite years of warnings from western land rights activists the federal government is locking up our minerals in national monument designations and making us completely dependent on China for our critical defense needs.    In addition, Haaland’s interior Department has been blocking critical mining projects in Minnesota and elsewhere that would reduce our dependence on China.

A recent World Bank study showed the world cannot possibly produce enough lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel, or other minerals necessary to support a world green energy transition.

So what we have here is government by phony narrative, implemented by ignorant know-nothing fools who have no idea what they’re talking about and are totally out of touch with reality.  All these self-promoters can see is that they’ve made their careers pushing absolute nonsense and the path to further power and riches for themselves is to keep right on doing so, regardless of the consequences to others.

But, as economists like to say, things will continue until they can’t.  Someday, hopefully in the not-too-far distant future, it will become apparent to all the green energy transition is a pipedream completely impossible to achieve.  It will become apparent too many other important values like national security, expense, performance, and living standards are being sacrificed on the altar of climate change for no good reason – green energy regulations are all pain for no gain.  And when that day comes, the charlatans of climate change who want to rule over us will be exposed for what they are.  That day can’t come soon enough.

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

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Devastating New Poll: Trump Clobbers Biden

If the election wasn’t rigged, it’s a landslide.

The Biden Administration has decimated our economy, our energy independence, our boarder, our deterrence, our military, and our credibility on the world stage.

What rational American would vote for another four years of this insanity? #Trump2024!

Devastating New Poll For Biden Shows Trump With 7 Point Advantage

By Conservative Briefing, May 7, 2023

The news continues to get more disastrous for President Joe Biden as a new poll shows that former President Donald Trump is destroying him.

The new poll, done by ABC/Washington Post, shows former President Trump with a whopping 7 point lead over President Biden, Mediaite reported.

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Brazile: Democrats Need to ‘Wake Up’ to Biden’s Poor Polling Numbers

Sunday on ABC’s This Week, Democrat strategist Donna Brazile said Democrats need to “wake up” following a new Washington Post-ABC News poll in which President Biden’s approval ratings fell six percentage points between February and May.

The poll also found former President Trump would beat Biden in a head-to-head matchup in 2024.

Host George Stephanopoulos said, “I can only imagine what it is like inside the White House now, looking at the numbers in our poll this morning.”

Brazile said, “I was told I could not send the poll around until after 12 midnight. I sent it out at 12:02 because it kept me up and I thought they should wake up and look at those numbers. You know, it is not the age. I want to be 80 plus just so I can hang out with you.”

She added, “It is sobering that the coalition that elected Joe Biden with the historic numbers that we saw in 2020, that coalition right now is fragmented. That should concern them. The second thing that should concern them of course is that they are still unable to get a real good strong message to the American people not just beyond the accomplishments but where they want to take the country.”


Donna Brazile

26 Known Connections

On October 11, 2016, WikiLeaks  released a hacked DNC email that Brazile had sent to John Podesta (Hillary Clinton‘s 2016 presidential campaign chairman) and Jennifer Palmieri (the Clinton campaign’s director of communications), at a time when she (Brazile) was serving as a frequent political commentator for CNN. The email was dated March 12, 2016 — the day before a Democratic primary debate hosted by CNN — and the Subject heading read: “From time to time, I get the [debate] questions in advance.” In the body of the email, Brazile wrote: “Here’s one that worries me about HRC” (Hillary Rodham Clinton), and then proceeded to spell out a question that Clinton would be asked about the death penalty. The next day at the debate, CNN’s Roland Martin asked Clinton that question, virtually word for word. In a subsequent correspondence that was part of the same email chain, Brazile told Palmieri: “I’ll send some more” (debate questions).

When Brazile in October 2016 was asked about the debate question referenced above, and about the email released by Wikileaks, she replied: “I never had access to questions and would never have shared them with the candidates if I did.” CNN media reporter Brian Stelter subsequently contacted Roland Martin, and the latter admitted that he had in fact shared some debate questions, in advance of the debate, with his staffers as well as others at CNN.

Brazile also claimed that the aforementioned leaked email likely had been “doctored by Russian sources,” but Domain Keys Identified Mail, or DKIM — an email security system that can independently authenticate the contents and sender of an email — confirmed that Brazile had in fact sent that email message to Podesta…

To learn more about Donna Brazile, click here.

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