Judicial Watch Reveals DOJ Memo Declining Prosecution of Babbitt’s Shooter

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Shooter U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd Did Not Create a Police Report on Killing, Byrd Had Prior ‘Use of Force’ Issue. 

Judicial Watch uncovered more shocking evidence about the shooting death of Ashli Babbitt even as the Pelosi rump 1/6 operation makes a mockery of the system of government with its kangaroo court “hearings.”

We uncovered 102 pages of records from the Department of Justice related to the shooting of January 6 protestor Ashli Babbitt that include a memo recommending “that the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia declined for criminal prosecution the fatal shooting of Ashli McEntee [Babbitt],” also noting that the shooter, U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd, “did not create a police report or documents” related to the shooting of Babbitt.

The documents also reveal that in the press release announcing the decision not to prosecute Byrd for the killing of Babbitt the DOJ replaced the words “group” and “crowd” with the word “mob” several times.

The unarmed Babbitt was shot and killed as she climbed through a broken interior window in the United States Capitol. She was a 14-year Air Force veteran. The identity of the shooter was kept secret by Congress, the Justice Department, and DC police for eight months until Byrd went public to try to defend his killing of Babbitt.

We filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, the Civil Rights Division, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (all components of the Justice Department) failed to provide the records responsive to our April 14, 2021, and May 20, 2021, FOIA requests for records related to Babbitt’s death (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:21-cv-02462)).

The records contain the prosecution declination memorandum justifying the decision not to prosecute Byrd.

The “Overview and Recommendation” section reads as follows:

This memorandum recommends that the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia decline for criminal prosecution the fatal shooting of Ashli McEntee.

[ *** ]

This declination is based on a review of law enforcement and civilian eyewitness accounts, physical evidence, recorded radio communications, cell phone footage, MPD reports, forensic reports, and the autopsy report for Ms. McEntee. After a thorough review of the facts and circumstances in this case, there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Lieutenant Byrd violated Ms. McEntee’s civil rights by willfully using more force than was reasonably necessary, or was not acting in self-defense or the defense of others.

The memo details:

Once the demonstrators broke the glass, Lieutenant Byrd took up a tactical position to the immediate right of the barricaded entry doors, [Capitol Police Officer Reggie Tyson] took up a tactical position behind Lieutenant Byrd on the right side behind the third pillar and Sergeant McKenna took up a tactical position behind Officer Tyson and behind the fourth pillar on the right side of the Speakers Lobby.

[ *** ]

All three officers had their service pistols drawn, pointed them in the direction of the barricaded entry doors, and repeatedly instructed the ‘mob’ to get back. The ‘mob’ of demonstrators ignored the officers’ commands and continued to break the glass on the doors in their attempt to breach the Speakers Lobby. Suddenly, Ashli McEntee began to crawl through one of the doors where the glass was already broken out. As Ms. McEntee was climbing through the door, Lieutenant Byrd stepped forward from his tactical position towards Ms. McEntee and fired one round from his service pistol striking Ms. McEntee in her left shoulder, just below her clavicle. Ms. McEntee then fell back from the doorway and onto the floor.

Regarding possible closed-circuit television footage, the memo notes: “There are several USCP operated Closed-Circuit Television Video (CCTV) cameras inside of the United States Capitol Building. However, there were no CCTV cameras observed or located in the Speaker’s Lobby area.”

In a section of the memo titled “USCP Lieutenant Michael Byrd,” the memo notes: “He [Byrd] did not create any police reports or documents relating to the incident, and did not provide an official statement regarding use of force” though he did provide a voluntary “debrief” and walk-through of the scene with his lawyer. A footnote details that: “During the debrief of Lieutenant Byrd, he did recall writing a few sentences on an evidence bag the evening of January 6, 2021, at the request of a crime scene officer. To date, the bag has not been located by USCP or MPD.”

The memo reports:

Lieutenant Byrd heard glass breaking and saw some of the items used to barricade the doors being pushed down. Lieutenant Byrd continued to tell the rioters to “get back, get back!” Lieutenant Byrd then saw a rioter with a backpack on start to climb through one of the broken glass doors. Lieutenant Byrd saw the rioter “as a threat,” so he stepped forward from his tactical position and fired one round at the rioter. The rioter fell back out of the opening and Lieutenant Byrd eventually stepped back into the seated area of the Speaker’s Lobby before confirming to other USCP officers that arrived on the scene that he was the one that fired his service weapon.

The memo notes that security staffing on January 6 was less than half the usual amount due to COVID-19:

Lieutenant Byrd did agree to participate with his counsel, Mark Schamel, in a voluntary debrief and walk-through of the scene on January 29, 2021 … Due to COVID-19 and other issues, the normal staffing for a joint session was less than half of what Lieutenant Byrd usually has assigned to the House Chamber. Once he arrived that morning, he was informed that USCP operations had made the decision that the uniform officers needed to pick up riot gear.

In a section titled, “Use of Force History,” it is noted that, “Lieutenant Byrd had one prior use of force matter, that was originally sustained by USCP, but after Lt. Byrd appealed, he was found not guilty by the Disciplinary Review Board.”

In a section titled “Recommendation,” the memo details:

This matter does not constitute a prosecutable violation of the federal criminal civil rights statutes or the District of Columbia homicide statutes. To show a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 242, the applicable federal criminal civil rights statute, the Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an officer willfully used more force than was reasonably necessary under the circumstances. ‘The “reasonableness” of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.’ Graham v Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989).

[ *** ]

Because Ms. McEntee was an active participant in a ‘mob’ that had just illegally entered the Capitol building, and then broke out the glass doors and removed barricades to forcefully gain entry into the Speaker’s Lobby, there is insufficient evidence to refute Lieutenant Byrd’s fear for his life or the life of others at the time he discharged his weapon. Therefore, there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he willfully deprived Ms. McEntee of a right protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States of America. Accordingly I recommend declination of this matter.

The records include a draft version of the April 14, 2021, Justice Department press release announcing their decision not to prosecute Byrd for the killing of Babbitt, the authors replaced the word “crowd” with the word “mob” five times in describing the January 6 protestors.

The documents also include charts of January 6 investigations and targets. For one of the investigations, it is noted that a New York Times reporter is a “CW” [confidential witness]. Another notation tied to “pipe bombs” notes that a “geo fence” request was made to Google.

Previously, we uncovered records from the DC Metropolitan Police showing that multiple officers claimed they didn’t see a weapon in Babbitt’s hand before Byrd shot her, and that Byrd was visibly distraught afterward. One officer attested that he didn’t recall hearing any verbal commands before Byrd shot Babbitt. The records include internal communications about Byrd’s case and a crime scene examination report. Investigators who wrote the January 6, 2021, Metro PD Death Report for Babbitt (identified as Ashli Elizabeth McEntee-Babbitt Pamatian) note that the possible Manner of Death was “Homicide (Police Involved Shooting).”

These records show that Lt. Byrd was given special treatment by the Biden DOJ and that there was a miscarriage of justice in the half-baked shooting death investigation of Ashli Babbitt. Lt. Byrd, who works for Congress, shot an unarmed woman for no good reason. I suspect that this unjustified shooting isn’t of much interest to the Pelosi rump January 6 committee.

These revelations are the latest in our comprehensive, independent investigation into the January 6 disturbance:

  • February 2022: We filed an opposition to the U.S. Capitol Police’s (USCP) effort to shut down our federal lawsuit for January 6 videos and emails. Through its police department, Congress argues that the videos and emails are not public records, there is no public interest in their release, and that “sovereign immunity” prevents citizens from suing for their release.
  • November 2021: We released multiple audio, visual and photo records from the DC Metropolitan Police Department about Babbitt’s death. The records include a cell phone video of the shooting and an audio of a brief police interview of Byrd.
  • Also in November 2021: we – in its FOIA lawsuit asking for records of communication between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and several financial institutions about the reported transfer of financial transaction records of people in DC, Maryland and Virginia on January 5 and January 6, 2021 – told a federal court that the FBI may have violated law in its January 6 probes.

Frankly, given all our historic works and finds, perhaps Judicial Watch should be conducting January 6 hearings!

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

Yes, the Products You’re Buying Are Getting Smaller—Even Though Prices Are Not

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The rise in consumer prices has rightly received a great deal of attention, as inflation hovers around 40-year highs. Everyone can see that virtually everything is getting more expensive, but fewer have noticed that many items are also getting smaller.

On Wednesday the Associated Press ran an article under the headline “No, you’re not imagining it — package sizes are shrinking.”

The AP spoke to one shopper, Alex Aspacher, who does a lot of shopping for his family of four in Ohio. He noticed he was still paying $9.99 for Swiss cheese even though the package had shrunk from a pound to 12 ounces.

“I was prepared for it to a degree, but there hasn’t been a limit to it so far,” Aspacher told the AP. “I hope we find that ceiling pretty soon.”

This phenomenon—known as “shrinkflation”—is nothing new, of course. It’s just more pronounced now than in any time in recent memory because inflation is much higher.

But what exactly is shrinkflation? As economist Peter Jacobsen explained last year, it’s simply a different kind of inflation.

“Shrinkflation is a form of inflation because you’d have to spend more money to get the same quantity or quality as you did in a previous year,” he explained. “The prices have remained the same, but the products are worse.”

The only difference is, instead of raising the price of an item or service, businesses are reducing the quantity or quality of it while keeping the price the same.

Edgar Dworsky, a consumer advocate who has tracked shrinkflation for decades, told the AP shrinkflation is rampant at the moment because of the underlying economic conditions.

“It comes in waves,” said Dworsky. “We happen to be in a tidal wave at the moment because of inflation.”

While there are too many examples of shrinkflation to easily track, here is a list of some examples Dworsky highlighted and others that we found.

  1. Kleenex: A box now has 60 tissues instead of the 65 it had a few months ago.
  2. Yogurt: Chobani Flips have shrunk to 4.5 ounces; they had been 5.3 ounces.
  3. Domino’s Pizza, citing the rise of chicken prices, announced earlier this year it was shrinking its 10-piece chicken wing package to eight pieces. The carryout price remains the same: $7.99.
  4. Toothpaste: Tubes of Crest reportedly have shrunk from 4.1 ounces to 3.8 ounces.
  5. Folgers coffee reduced its 51-ounce container to 43.5 ounces. (Oddly, Folgers still says the container will make up to 400 cups of coffee, citing a new technology that yields lighter-weight beans. Or something.)
  6. Fritos: “Party Size” bags used to be 18 ounces, but most retailers are now advertising 15.5 ounce bags.
  7. Gatorade: PepsiCo, who produces Gatorade as well as Fritos, has begun phasing out 32-ounce bottles and replacing them with 28-ounce ones, which are actually more expensive. (PepsiCo said the change was unrelated to the economic climate and the plan had been in the works for years.)
  8. Cereal: Honey Bunches of Oats reduced its standard cereal box to 12 ounces; it had been 14.5 ounces.
  9. Paper Towels: Bounty reduced its 2-ply sheet roll from 165 to 147 sections.
  10. Oatmeal: Quaker reduced the number of pockets in a box from 10 to 8, reports the Daily Mail.
  11. Ziploc bags: Boxes now come with 50 in a package instead of 54.
  12. Soap: Dial reduced its bottle size from 21 ounces to 16 ounces.

BONUS Item: Airline service: As FEE’s Peter Jacobsen notes, airline complaints are through the roof, the result of reduced customer service.

We could go on, of course. But you get the point.

Some people naturally want to blame companies for shrinking the size of their products while charging the same price (or higher ones), but this is the wrong reaction.

As noted above, shrinkflation is simply a form of inflation, and inflation is a monetary phenomenon above all else.

“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon,” noted Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, “in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.”

It’s no coincidence that America is experiencing the highest inflation in decades after the Federal Reserve “flooded the system with money,” as Fed Chairman Jerome Powell admitted in a 60 Minutes interview.

This was a perfect recipe for inflation.

“Inflation is caused by too much money chasing after too few goods,” Friedman noted.

You simply can’t drop $5 trillion dollars into an economy without a corresponding expansion of goods and services and not experience inflation. This is why we’re seeing it now, both through higher prices and the reduced quantity and quality of goods and services.

So if you’re upset you’re paying just as much for less cereal, toilet paper, tissue, and countless other products, that’s fine. Just make sure your anger is directed in the proper direction: at the people who “flooded the system with money,” and those who directed them to do so.t be kept.”

This article was adapted from an issue of the FEE Daily email newsletter. Click here to sign up and get free-market news and analysis like this in your inbox every weekday.

AUTHOR

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

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

Biden Administration Veering Off Into Authoritarianism

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Government documents obtained from a DHS whistleblower show the agency’s Disinformation Governance Board is focused on U.S. citizens (not foreigners, as claimed), is engaged in operations (not just analysis, as claimed), and had begun work prior to the date DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas provided in Congressional testimony.

The whistleblower documents also show the disinformation board was seeking commitments from social media platforms to censor content it didn’t like.  A board leader held meetings with Twitter executives.

The board is currently ‘paused’ and the woman chosen to run it resigned.  After she left, Nina Jankowicz said anyone who criticized her and the board were “endangering our national security.”  Sieg Heil!   She had earlier said she shudders at the thought of free speech advocates gaining control of social media platforms.  Heaven forbid people should have their say.  You know, she can call it ‘disinformation’ but the fact of the matter is she’s talking about censorship, plain and simple – the silencing of opposition viewpoints.  But it’s worse than that.  She’s also talking about the imposition of government-approved viewpoints in their place.   We do not want the government in the business of deciding what is true and what is false for very good reasons I’ve laid out in previous commentaries.  She has proposed having supposedly “trustworthy” people like herself add ‘context’ to other people’s tweets.  This from a woman who had no trouble pronouncing the Hunter Biden laptop story Russian disinformation when no one any longer contests the laptop is genuine.  She was just plain wrong.  One small example of why we don’t want the government telling us what is true or what to believe.

And now we find our government was lying to us all along about the disinformation board.  They told us it was just a study group that would look at foreign bad actors feeding us bad information.  The fact of the matter is it is an operational group that was on the verge of using social media to censor U.S. citizens.  This is the iron fist of state control and it’s not the only way the Biden administration has been veering off into authoritarianism, lately.

The administration told schools to knuckle under to the transgenderism agenda or they would lose funding for school lunches and other federal programs.  Let biological males destroy your girls sports teams and allow them into girls locker rooms or the federal government will starve school kids until you submit.  South Dakota’s Governor has already vowed to fight this gangsterism in court.

The Biden administration in recent days has issued a secret subpoena to get the phone records of a journalist in a leak investigation and secretly been getting the results of home COVID tests from unsuspecting consumers.  Biden climate advisor Gina McCarthy threatened airlines with destruction unless they follow new sustainable energy rules.  They better go all-in on the rules “or they’re gonna be out of here,” she said.  She bragged in the same speech the administration would issue a hundred new rules on appliances this year alone.  This calls to mind Thomas Jefferson’s famous quote about King George who “erected a multitude of New Offices and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”

Put all this together with Joe Biden openly talking about jailing political opponents who don’t follow his rules and the January 6th Committee openly persecuting its political enemies and you can see things are headed in the wrong direction.

Let’s get one thing straight:  these politicians and bureaucrats work for us.  We are the Sovereign.  They are not supposed to be censoring us, telling us what to believe, forcing their sexual agendas on us, secretly gathering data on us, or smothering us with swarms of new rules.  They might have the power to do so at the moment, but they are without question jack-booted thugs and you really should stop supporting them before they find a reason to come after you.

Visit The Daily Skirmish and Watch Eagle Headline News – 7:30am ET Weekdays

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

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Stock Market TANKS 800 POINTS At The Open As Inflation Hits 40 Year High

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That was once considered a bloodbath. Now it’s just another day under the Biden regime.

U.S. INFLATION HIT A NEW FOUR-DECADE HIGH IN MAY

U.S. consumer inflation reached an 8.6% annual rate in May, its highest level in more than four decades as surging energy and food prices pushed prices higher.

The Labor Department on Friday said that the consumer-price index increased 8.6% in May from the same month a year ago, marking its fastest pace since December 1981. That was also up from April’s CPI reading, which was slightly below the previous 40-year high reached in March. The CPI measures what consumers pay for goods and services.

May’s increase was driven by sharp rises in the prices for energy, which rose 34.6% from a year earlier, and groceries, which jumped 11.9% on the year. Prices for used cars and trucks rose 1.8% in May from April, reversing three months of declines. Shelter costs, an indicator of broad inflation pressures, accelerated on a monthly basis in May and were up 5.5% compared with a year ago.

STOCKS FALL BROADLY

Prices for energy jumped 34.6% from a year earlier, while the cost of groceries rose 11.9% on the year. Shelter costs, an indicator of broad inflation pressures, also accelerated.

LIVE COVERAGE OF INFLATION DATA

STOCKS FALL AFTER REPORT

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: Consumer prices reach highest rates in four decades

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

VIDEO: Mortgage Application Index Decreased to Lowest Number in 22 Years

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More of what the Democrats ain’t telling you.

Homeownership is the bedrock of individual autonomy, economic security, social stability, personal well-being and wealth creation. It was the attainable American dream. So, too, the Democrats had to destroy it.

Mortgage-Application Index Falls to Lowest Level in 22 Years

A measure of mortgage applications fell to its lowest level in 22 years last week, another sign the U.S. housing market is coming back to Earth after a red-hot, two-year stretch. Applications fell 6.5% in the week ended June 3, the fourth consecutive week of declines, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Refinance and purchase activity fell 6% and 7%, respectively. Higher interest rates have been weighing on demand for refinances all year, but now there are signs the slowdown has spread to purchase demand as well. Sales of existing homes in April fell to their slowest pace since before the pandemic. But even with sales slowing, home prices continue to rise thanks to a dearth of homes for sale. That means many would-be buyers are struggling with the twin challenges of double-digit jumps in home prices and higher borrowing costs (Wall Street Journal).

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

THEY LIED: Newly Leaked Memos Expose ‘Disinformation Board’ To Be State Propaganda Machine

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The DHS sought to partner with tech firms to censor content – not foreign actors (as they falsely contended) but Americans.

Unconstitutional but more to the point, they bald faced lied to the American people about it in order to extinguish our first amendment rights. All part of the rolling coup ….

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., discusses leaked memos providing evidence of Biden’s real intentions for the disinformation board on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’.

Grassley, Hawley Press DHS on Disinformation Board Amid New Revelations of Efforts to Leverage Social Media Platforms

Docs suggest DHS sought to partner with tech firms to censor content

WASHINGTON, June 8, 2022 – The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) would have served as a central clearinghouse to respond to matters the government unilaterally determines to be mis-, dis- or mal-information (MDM), and planned to coordinate efforts to leverage ties with social media platforms to enable the removal of user content, according to records obtained by Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). The senators are now calling on DHS to turn over additional materials related to the DGB and DHS efforts to partner with big tech platforms to enforce its agenda.

“The First Amendment of the Constitution was designed precisely so that the government could not censor opposing viewpoints – even if those viewpoints were false. DHS should not in any way seek to enlist the private sector to curb or silence opposing viewpoints. It is therefore imperative for DHS to provide additional clarity regarding its policies and procedures for identifying and addressing ‘MDM,’ as well as its efforts to ‘operationalize’ public-private partnerships and the steps it is taking to ensure that it does not infringe on the constitutional rights of American citizens,” the senators wrote in a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The senators’ letter references internal DHS records provided through protected whistleblower disclosures that illustrate how the DGB was designed to exert powerful influence over the government’s efforts to crack down on disinformation in areas where there are “clear, objective facts.” However, it remains unclear how DHS defines “clear, objective facts.” Documents show that DHS was not just focused on foreign disinformation but also issues at the heart of longstanding political debate such as theories about the validity of elections, the origins and effects of COVID-19 vaccines, and the efficacy of wearing masks.

Despite her long and well-documented history of embracing and spreading disinformation aimed at undermining Republican political figures, including President Trump, Nina Jankowicz was tapped to be the DGB’s executive director – a move that whistleblowers allege could have been because of her connections to Twitter executives. Documents confirm that Jankowicz knew Twitter’s head of policy and head of site integrity.

“Given the significant coordinating role the Department envisioned for the DGB, the consequences of installing Nina Jankowicz, a known trafficker of foreign disinformation and liberal conspiracy theories, as the DGB’s first Executive Director, would have been a disaster,” the senators wrote.

Following public scrutiny, Jankowicz resigned from the board, which DHS has reportedly “paused.”

In the letter, the senators raised a number of questions regarding how DHS determines what matters to prioritize. They are also seeking records related to communications regarding DHS’ efforts to enlist the cooperation of social media platforms to advance its policy goals.

The letter and internal records provided to the senators is available HERE.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller 

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

 

Senator John Barrasso: Schumer ‘Bears Some Responsibility’ for Threat on Kavanaugh‘s Life

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Wednesday on the Fox News Channel’s America Reports, Senate Republican Conference Chair Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) said that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was partly responsible for the threat on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s life.

Barrasso said, “Thanks to the police officers for being there and responding so quickly. That man was there. As he stated, apparently, he was there to murder Justice Kavanaugh. I believe Chuck Schumer bears some responsibility because he has contributed to this atmosphere of directly attacking members, by name, of the Supreme Court. Remember, talking about abortion, Chuck Schumer went to the steps of the Supreme Court, and he called out Kavanaugh by name.”

John Roberts said, “What did he say, unleash a whirlwind, or something?”

He added, “He said, ‘I’m telling you Kavanaugh, you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you.’ That is a pretty direct threat. Now with the Supreme Court ready to rule on abortion, it was the abortion issue we are talking about. We have passed a bill in the Senate to provide additional protection for all members of the Supreme Court, all nine members. Nancy Pelosi in the House has refused to take it up.”

Charles Schumer

40 Known Connections

Schumer Demonizes Trump Supporters Who Voted for a “Despicable,” “Racist,” and “Vile” Man

At a July 2021 event with Roosevelt Island and Upper East Side community leaders in New York, Schumer said: “How could 74 million people vote for such a despicable human being as Donald Trump? I don’t care if you’re a liberal or a conservative, Democrat or Republican, he is a vile man. He is dishonest, divisive. That’s what he loves to do. Just divide and have people fighting with each other. He’s a racist. And he always appeals to the dark side of human nature, which he’s very good at, unfortunately. How did they vote for him?”

To learn more about Charles Schumer, click here.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Discover the Networks column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

It’s not that they have an ‘R’ behind their names it’s how they actually vote that counts!

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On June 7th, 2022 Florida News Report published an editorial titled “Are Florida Elected Republicans really Republican?” The editorial begins with these wise words,

It is a rough day when one realizes their political worldview has been based on slick ads, rehearsed GOP talking points and the false belief that ANY politician with an R behind their name is better than any democrat. And we aren’t talking about members of our Party voting for candidates based on name recognition. We are talking about smart, patriotic, motivated Republican voters whose votes are based on the candidate’s policy positions which come directly from the candidate.

We have learned over time that politicians who claim to be a republican once elected don’t vote like a big “R” Republican. The Florida News Report editorial board got this message and showed how little “r’s” say one thing then do the exactly the opposite when introducing or voting on legislation.

Here’s how the Florida News Report editorial board proved this,

Recently, a U.S. Congressman up for re-election, was speaking at a Florida Republican club luncheon. He hit all the talking points much to the delight of the women at the table. At one point, one woman in the group explained that they decided to get informed about who they were voting for after the 2020 Presidential election. They collectively agreed to attend local events to hear candidates speak. They loved what this congressman had to say – it was exactly what they wanted to hear.

Until…..record scratch……they were presented with a flyer exposing the congressman’s actual voting record which was in direct contradiction to what he said. The flyer didn’t just provide the voting record, but a link to each vote so the ladies could verify it for themselves.

Two things immediately happened.

The first was that they were offended…..offended that they had just listened to a liar for an hour who had secured their votes and even their donations only to  discover his voting record showed he didn’t support most of the issues he bragged about.

The second was that they asked how the voting records listed had been obtained. They suddenly were confronted with the fact that politicians lie. And lie well! To our faces! And they wanted the truth. With a few directions and links to reputable sites that post voting records, they now had resources to verify candidates’ real records.

Get it? Got it? Good.

We have seen politicians like Charlie Crist, who was elected governor of the State of Florida as a Republican. Once in office he changed colors from red to deep blue. He went full Democrat and when he was defeated actually joined the Democrat Party. We call these politicians, like the one in the Florida News Report editorial, Charlie Crist republicans!

The Second Amendment and Charlie Crist republicans

Florida News Report editorial board provided the following examples to support their concerns about little “r” republicans,

Republican Senate President Wilton Simpson, accepted $250K From billionaire donor, Mike Fernandez, a registered Republican- who donates to Democrats and Republicans, wanted more gun control laws in Florida. Last October, Robert Rubenstein, Democrat millionaire, contributed $100,000 to Wilton Simpson:

CLICK HERE FOR CONTRBUTION TO FRIENDS OF WILTON SIMPSON INFOGRAPHIC

Simpson ditched the Republican Party Platform to defend gun rights of Floridians and instead, WROTE the Red Flag Law which passed in 2018.

Former Republican Senate President Bill Galvano, accepted $500K from Mike Bloomberg, a Democrat billionaire, who wanted gun control and doesn’t even live in Florida. Galvano ditched the Republican Party Platform to defend gun rights of Floridians and got the Red Flag Law passed instead. https://www.nraila.org/articles/20200124/florida-alert-bill-galvano-is-trying-to-give-bloomberg-his-moneys-worth

Incoming Republican Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, who started off her political career defending the Second Amendment, ditched the Republican Party Platform to defend gun rights of Floridians and instead voted for the Red Flag Law.  She was for it before she was against it. At the same time.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW KATHLEEN PASSIDOMO’S STATEMENT ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT

See a pattern here?

See the list of Florida Republicans who voted for gun control here: https://www.ammoland.com/2018/04/its-time-to-name-gop-betrayers-who-voted-for-florida-gun-control/

The Florida News Report editorial board wrote, “If all it takes is a large donation to change a Republican’s policy position, is he really a Republican?”

To reinforce what the Florida News Report editorial board wrote we now know that five republicans voted for the Democrats marquee piece of legislation, which cleared the chamber, titled the Protecting Our Kids Act. The bill tightens gun restrictions. Among the provisions are raising the minimum age to purchase a semi-automatic weapon from 18 to 21 and banning civilians from using high-capacity magazines. These five republicans are: Reps. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Chris Jacobs (N.Y.) and Fred Upton (Mich.).

Not do you see the big picture?

Election Day for Republicans is August 23rd, 2022

Florida News Report editorial board explains that the real election day is the mid-term primaries. The Editorial Board noted,

Republican voters only get one shot at purging the Republican Party of RINOs each election year and that date comes early – the August Primary election.

But most Republican voters don’t participate…. the Republican voter turnout is only around 30%. It is on August 23rd Republican voters decide the direction of the party when they choose between:

  • A RINO Establishment candidate who doesn’t adhere to the Republican Party Platform 

OR

  • A Republican constitutional conservative candidate who embraces the Republican Party Platform

Do you have some Republican friends you can influence to actually go vote on August 23rd?

Do it.

Do it like your life depends on it. Because it does. When elected Republicans pass Democrat policies, your rights are immediately reduced. From gun rights to Covid restrictions, this is no joke.

August 23rd is your Election Day. 

It’s the primaries stupid! Get out and vote for a “BIG R” on August 23rd!

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

Lyin’ Biden Hits the Talk Show Circuit

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Good morning Joey Kahn,

Diversionary Tactics

Well, it is finally here. I speak of the orchestrated Chardonnay Pelosi and gangs, diversion. The 1/6 kangaroo court just ahead of the midterm elections. You know Joey Kahn, to (try) and take the attention away from the dumpster fire referred to as, the Biden Crime Family Administration, and ALL their failed policies. This according to those radical right wingers, those darn white supremacist’s.

Is This Joey’s Idea of a Press Conference?

I don’t see it that way at all, that this installed administration is an absolute disaster. I think little Joey is doing a bang up job. Just ask him, he will tell you how great things are going. See…….that’s all you need, forget about all the data that says otherwise. Did you see him knock it out of the park last night on Jimmy “lapdog” Kimmel’s show. It was like listening to JKF, Barack Hussein and Bubba Clinton, rolled into one. What an articulate, orating genius. Mind-boggling actually. I’m sure most intelligent American citizens, feel the same way……..even though I understand ratings were in the toilet.

Of course, those conservatives threw water on Lyin’ Biden’s parade again. Calling this desperate attempt (to actually Lie) to fool viewer’s ……a complete embarrassment. They liken it to visiting a grandfather at the senior center, while he rambles on incoherently. Maybe he was exhausted from trying to climb (tripping) up the stairs to Air Force One again…….darn wind!

Kimmel: Democratic Stooge

Was Jimmy Kimmel (former comedian, now political arm of the DNC) going to kiss him? It was getting a little too close for comfort, as he looked lovingly into Joey Talibiden’s eyes as he tried to formulate words……very touching and sincere. Helping Joey finish his sentences, it was awe inspiring. Conservatives suggested next time this liberal hack just sit him in his lap and stroke his hair plugs, and tickle him under his face lifted chin. Embarrassing is a gross understatement! You have to love the fact that he hasn’t done a totally unscripted press conference YET, and his handlers think this is a formidable substitute. Absolutely hilarious. Wouldn’t you agree Joey Kahn, highly respected Executive Editor, …..ahem.

I see, right on cue your tabloid is flooding it’s iconic front page with your propaganda, sorry, I mean honest, unbiased reporting. I love the compensated Op-Ed writer stating, “Liz Cheney Will Not Tolerate Trump’s Lies.” Is this like the Russian collusion farce? You know where everything you accuse elected President Trump of, is actually the blueprint of the Nazi, sorry I mean Democratic Party. Of course, I’m pointing to Beijing Biden’s inability to tell the truth…….at all. He does it with ease, very sociopathic of him. He could give ole Hillary Rodham, Chuckles Schumer, or Chardonnay Pelosi a run for their money. Hilarious.

How much longer is his loving wife “Dr.” Jill going to let her dementia ridden husband be used as Barry’s puppet. I mean when she started dating Joey (while still married) she must have felt something for him. Tell me she has not fallen into the Svengali-like trance of Hunter (former crack addict/now famous artist), like his brother’s widow Hallie.

Now Joey Kahn, I know you are still smarting from your ridiculous photo shoot in your office recently. The one of you reading your tabloid, in your stocking feet on the floor of your office…yikes. Has anyone been fired for this enormous snafu? But, you must get back on track. We need more apolitical, highly moral reporting that the Old Gray Lady is known for. So what, if most say your tabloid is now considered a few notches below The National Inquirer . As long as Slushy is signing those big checks, who really cares, right Joey?

Get Back to Work

So focus champ……..INSURRECTION, INSURRECTION, INSURRECTION, maybe some Russian collusion sans Hillary’s input, of course. Remember no coverage of inflation, the treason being committed at the border, baby formula, violent crime exploding (in Democratic cities), etc, etc, etc. You see that Joey, I said that 3 times. It’s a little trick I picked up from the Houseplant masquerading as a leader last night. When he said, “we have the strongest economy in the world, the world, the world.” See, that is all you need to do. The hell with the actual facts, just Joey doing what he does best…….pathologically lying! Some have even said this would apply to your tabloid as well as WAPO, CNN, MSNBC, network news….well you get the idea.

Remember to deflect, omit and if that fails, just lie. Amazing how some can look themselves in the mirror, eh Joey. Of course, I’m talking about white supremacist’s.

‘Printing the news that is fit to print.” Absolutely hilarious!!

Sincerely,

Chris Cirino

©Christopher Cirino. All rights reserved.

DEMOCRAT RULE: America’s Great Cities Gripped by Decline and Disorder

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This is not about two political parties with different ideas. This is treason and treachery on an epic scale. There can be no ‘co-existing’ with murderers, looters, destroyers. And that is what the Democrat party is and what they stand for.

America’s great cities are gripped by decline and disorder

Voters have had enough of ‘progressive’ leaders who are presiding over spiraling violence and crime.

NYC: Video shows man violently toss random woman onto Bronx subway tracks

By: Joel Kotkin, Spiked, June 7, 2022:

For the past decade, America’s urban centres have been increasingly run by ‘progressive’ activists. Yet today, as US cities reel from collapsed economies, rising crime and pervasive corruption, there’s something of a revolt brewing, the success of which may well determine the role and trajectory of our great urban centres.

This emerging conflict is coming to a head next week in Los Angeles, the US’s second-largest city, in the Democratic primaries for LA mayor. Next week’s vote is likely to lead to a head-to-head between moderate billionaire developer Rick Caruso and progressive congressperson Karen Bass, once considered a potential vice-president for Joe Biden. On the same day, ultra-liberal San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin faces a potential recall amid rising crime rates.

The possible shift towards the centre reflects a move back to more traditional urban policies, particularly on crime and homelessness. It’s not Republicans leading the charge against ultra-progressive policies, either. It is African American, Democratic mayors like Houston’s Sylvester Turner and New York’s Eric Adams.

Even the denizens of left-leaning cities are rethinking progressivism. Last year, Austin – Texas’ blue capital – rescinded provisions, backed by progressives, that allowed vast homeless encampments to spring up across the city. Earlier this year, similarly left-leaning Seattle removed its ultra-progressive district attorney and Buffalo voters defeated a socialist-backed Democrat in favour of a moderate African American. Even in San Francisco, progressive school-board members were overwhelmingly defeated in February 2022 – an ominous development for Boudin’s chances next week.

We could be seeing the beginning of a sea change in urban politics. Not long ago, Republicans were still competitive in urban areas, although larger cities have generally trended Democratic. In 1995, America’s 20 largest cities were evenly divided by party, but today Democrats control 16 out of the 20 largest cities. In the 1990s and 2000s, cities elected successful, pragmatic mayors from both parties – such as Bob Lanier and Bill White in Houston, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg in New York, and Richard Riordan in Los Angeles – who focused on reducing crime, encouraging enterprise and improving basic city services.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLES:

DONKEY POX: The Real Disease That’s Killing Americans

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RED WAVE CRASHES OVER BLUE STATE: Republican Lanhee Chen Leads Statewide Race for Controller in California

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

CALIFORNIA: Newsom Intervenes Drops All Drunk Driving Charges Against Paul Pelosi

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This is third world corruption.

Driving drunk, Paul Pelosi nearly killed a family. And purportedly killed his brother in a car accident some decades ago.

If Newsom wins re-election, California deserves to suffer his reign.

Nancy Pelosi’s husband killed his brother in 1957 car crash

Details of the fatal wreck emerged in the wake of Paul’s arrest following his alleged drunken crash in Napa Valley on Saturday night.

Paul — who has been married to the House speaker since 1963 — was charged with one count of driving under the influence and another for driving with a blood alcohol content level of 0.08 or higher. Both charges are misdemeanors.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLES:

Nancy Pelosi’s Husband Arrested In California, Report Says

DEMOCRAT RULE: America’s great cities are gripped by decline and disorder

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

Democrat Ex-Congressman Ozzie Meyer’s Pleads Guilty To Fraudulently Stuffing Ballot Boxes

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For Democrats, it systemic.

Ex-congressman ‘Ozzie’ Myers pleads guilty in ballot stuffing case

Associated Press | June 6, 2022:

PHILADELPHIA — A former congressman from Philadelphia pleaded guilty Monday to charges related to fraudulently stuffing ballot boxes for Democratic candidates between 2014 and 2018.

Federal prosecutors said former Democratic U.S. Rep. Michael J. “Ozzie” Myers pleaded guilty to violations of election law, conspiracy, bribery and obstruction.

Messages seeking comment were left for his defense lawyers listed on the online docket.

In a sentencing memo dated Friday, federal prosecutors said his “criminal efforts were generally, although not exclusively, directed at securing election victories for local judicial candidates running for Philadelphia’s Court of Common Pleas or Municipal Court who had employed Myers as a ‘political consultant.’”

Myers was expelled from Congress in 1980 after being caught taking bribes in the Abscam sting investigation.

Prosecutors said Myers, 79, admitted he bribed a judge of elections to add votes for his chosen candidates, including clients who were running for judicial offices. The bribes were hundreds or thousands of dollars.

He also conspired with another elections judge to tell voters on election days which candidates they should vote for, candidates that Myers had selected, and the now former judge cast fraudulent votes for people who did not appear at the polls.

Read the rest….

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller 

RELATED ARTICLE: Gavin Newsom Intervenes at Pelosi’s Bidding, ALL CHARGES DROPPED Against Drunk Driving Paul Pelosi

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

New Book Offers Return to a Conservative Future

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“Many can now see that the nations of the West are hurtling toward the abyss,” writes American-Israeli political theorist Yoram Hazony in his recent 400-page magnum opus, Conservatism: A Rediscovery. Herein he provides a tour de force review of Anglo-American conservative political thought, from fifteenth-century England to the modern West, and draws lessons for why increasingly fragmented free societies must abandon failed “Enlightenment liberalism.”

At home and abroad, Hazony surveys the Enlightenment’s political wreckage. Domestically, a “dogmatic belief in the individual’s freedom has moved liberals to destigmatize—and, eventually, to actively legitimize—sexual license, narcotics, and pornography, as well as abortion, easy divorce, and out-of-marriage births.” Correspondingly, the “family has been broken and fertility ruined in nearly every Western country.” In foreign affairs, it was “just this kind of rationalism that brought America and other Western countries into the last generation of costly and unsuccessful wars seeking to bring Enlightenment liberalism to the Balkans, the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa.”

The antidote for Hazony comes in a “revived nationalist conservatism” that has appeared in recent years in places such as America, Britain, Brazil, Eastern Europe, and Italy. This movement “is rightly called a ‘nationalist’ conservatism, since it seeks to return the national interest, or the common good of the nation, to the center of political discourse,” he writes. By contrast, the “liberal paradigm is blind to the nation” and sees “only individuals and the state that rules over them.”

“Conservative democracy,” as Hazony terms it, or the “Anglo-American tradition is rooted in the ideal of a free and just national state, whose origin is in the Hebrew Bible.” This nation arises “out of diverse tribes, its unity anchored in a common traditional language, law, and religion,” he notes. “Conservative democracy regards the traditional family and congregation as the most basic institutions necessary for the conduct of civilized life,” he adds. “At the same time, the state offers toleration to religious and social views that do not endanger the integrity and well-being of the nation as a whole.”

In contrast to the seventh-century English political philosopher John Locke, the “decisive figure in the liberal tradition,” Hazony praises the eighteenth-century British Parliamentarian Edmund Burke. Empiricists including Burke rejected “Locke’s axioms” that “one need only consult reason to arrive at the one form of government that is everywhere the best, for all mankind,” Hazony notes. The “only realistic prospect for advancement in politics and morals is by means of an empirical method, which requires a course of trial and error over centuries,” as exemplified by Anglo-American constitutional history.

Hazony elaborates that “there are certainly principles of human nature that are true of all men, and therefore natural laws that prescribe what is good for every human society.” Yet these “are the subject of unending controversy” due to the “great variety of human experience, and the weakness of the operations of the human mind that are used to generalize from this experience,” he adds. In actuality, the “way people think and the things they believe are largely the product of the particular culture in which they were raised,” not pure reason.

Hazony juxtaposes the French Revolution with the “Second American Revolution” following the ratification of the United States Constitution, both in 1789. Following views developed by Locke and others such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the French Revolution unleashed “its universal Declaration of the Rights of Man and subsequent terror for those who would not listen to reason,” Hazony observes. Meanwhile, after the failed Articles of Confederation, the United States Constitution, “ended a decade of shocking disorder by restoring the familiar forms of the national English constitution.”

At Philadelphia’s 1787 constitutional “convention dominated by the conservative party,” of the “initiators and the most consequential participants, most were longtime nationalists and later Federalists” such as George Washington, Hazony notes. “The Federalist Party was from the start the party of American nationalist conservatism,” he adds, whose legacy, including opposition to slavery, would continue in the later “American Whig party.” This “name strikingly intended to invoke the Anglo-American conservative tradition and the ideas of Edmund Burke,” ideas that later laid the basis for the emergence of the Republican Party under Abraham Lincoln.

This concrete political history means underlines for Hazony that “[n]either America nor Britain has ever been a ‘creedal nation,’ defined primarily by an abstract formula as found, for example, in the American Declaration of Independence.” Beginning with the Federalists, national conservatives therefore believed that the “adoption of immigrant communities into a new nation can only be successful if the immigrants are sufficiently weak, and therefore willing to assimilate,” Hazony notes. Belying mantras that diversity is strength, he observes that the

relationship between cohesion and tyranny is actually the reverse of what is commonly supposed. Where a nation, tribe, or family is cohesive, it may be ruled with a light hand, and a greater degree of freedom can be entrusted to its constituent members.

Enlightenment rationalism has unleashed a “perpetual cultural revolution,” Hazony notes. As he explains, “since liberalism constantly inculcates an aversion to tradition, it is unstable and unsustainable. For this reason, it is easily overthrown by Marxists and others claiming that their own reasoning is superior to that of any liberal.” Accordingly, merely thirty years after the Cold War’s end, an “updated Marxism—one that has taken the oppressed to be people of color and LGBTQ rather than the working class,” has conquered leading American institutions.

A major engine of American social upheaval has been the United States Supreme Court since its 1947 Everson v. Board of Education decision, which falsely proclaimed a “separation between church and state,” Hazony writes. He ironically notes that Washington, America’s first president, and his successor, John Adams, “appointed only committed Federalists to the Supreme Court” such as John Marshall, and thereby further strengthened national union. They never “imagined the circumstances that most Western nations face today, in which jurists use the national Supreme Court to impose what is in effect a new constitution—one that is post-national and hostile to Christianity.”

Changing America’s judicial direction is thus a key concern for Hazony in his drive to restore faith and family to societal prominence in America as part of a wider national renewal. His analysis of American judicial history is just one of the many fascinating facets of this richly detailed, insightful book.  “Conservatism begins at home” with conservative mores, Hazony pithily concludes his tome, which would be a welcome addition to any curious home.

AUTHOR

ANDREW HARROD

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

Why Do People Become Communists, and Why Do They Stick With It?

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So if there is no rational case for communism as such, why do people go for this stuff?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve puzzled about why people become communists. I have no doubt about why someone would stop being one. After all, we have a century of evidence of the murder, famine, and general destruction caused by the idea. Ignoring all this takes a special kind of willful blindness to reality.

Even the theory of communism itself is a complete mess. There is really no such thing as common ownership of goods that are obviously scarce in the real world. There must be some solution to the problem of scarcity beyond just wishing reality away. Perhaps ownership and trade? Slogans and dreams are hardly a suitable substitute for a workable program.

But how communism would work in practice is not something they want to talk about. They just imagined that some magical Hegelian shift would take place in the course of history that would work it all out.

So if there is no rational case for communism as such, why do people go for this stuff?

The Red Century

The New York Times has been exploring that issue in a series of remarkable reflections that they have labelled Red Century. I can’t get enough, even the ones that are written by people who are—how shall I say?—suspiciously sympathetic to communism as a cause.

The most recent installment is written by Vivian Gornick. She reflects on how her childhood world was dominated by communists.

The sociology of the progressive world was complex. At its center were full-time organizers for the Communist Party, at the periphery left-wing sympathizers, and at various points in between everything from rank-and-file party card holders to respected fellow travelers….

When these people sat down to talk, Politics sat down with them, Ideas sat down with them; above all, History sat down with them. They spoke and thought within a context that lifted them out of the nameless, faceless obscurity into which they had been born, and gave them the conviction that they had rights as well as obligations. They were not simply the disinherited of the earth, they were proletarians with a founding myth of their own (the Russian Revolution) and a civilizing worldview (Marxism).

While it is true that thousands of people joined the Communist Party in those years because they were members of the hardscrabble working class (garment district Jews, West Virginia miners, California fruit pickers), it was even truer that many more thousands in the educated middle class (teachers, scientists, writers) joined because for them, too, the party was possessed of a moral authority that lent shape and substance, through its passion for structure and the eloquence of its rhetoric, to an urgent sense of social injustice….

The Marxist vision of world solidarity as translated by the Communist Party induced in the most ordinary of men and women a sense of one’s own humanity that ran deep, made life feel large; large and clarified. It was to this clarity of inner being that so many became not only attached, but addicted. No reward of life, no love nor fame nor wealth, could compete with the experience. It was this all-in-allness of world and self that, all too often, made of the Communists true believers who could not face up to the police state corruption at the heart of their faith.

Sounds fascinating, if bonkers (Marxism is hardly a “civilizing worldview”). It sounds less like an intellectual salon of ideas and more like a religious delusion. Those too can be well intentioned. The key here is a dogmatic ideology, which serves as a kind of substitute for religion. It has a vision of hell (workers and peasants exploited by private-capital wielding capitalist elite), a vision of heaven (a world of universal and equal prosperity and peace), and a means of getting from one to the other (revolution from below, as led by the vanguard of the proletariat).

Once you accept such an ideology, anything intellectual becomes possible. Nothing can shake you from it. Okay, that’s not entirely true. One thing can shake you of it: when the leader of the cult repudiates the thing you believe in most strongly.

Khrushchev’s Heresy

She was 20 years old in 1956, when Nikita Khrushchev spoke to the Soviet Communist Party about the crimes of Stalin. Apparently the unrelenting reports of famine, persecution, and mass death, from the early years of Bolshevik rule – and even the revelation of the Hitler-Stalin pact – would have demoralized them earlier. But no:

The 20th Congress report brought with it political devastation for the organized left around the world. Within weeks of its publication, 30,000 people in this country quit the party, and within the year it was as it had been in its 1919 beginnings: a small sect on the American political map.

Amazing.

The Early Reds

And speaking of this small 1919 sect, I’m reminded of one of my favorite movies: Reds (1981). I could watch it another 20 times. It explores the lives of the American communists of the turn of the 20th century, their loves, longings, and aspirations. The focus is on fiery but deluded Jack Reed, but it includes portraits of a passionate Louise Bryant, the gentile Max Eastman, an edgy Eugene O’Neill, and the ever inspiring Emma Goldman.

These people weren’t the Progressives of the mainstream that history credits with having so much influence over policy in those days. These were the real deal: the Communists that were the source of national frenzy during the Red Scare of the 1920s.

The movie portrays them not as monsters but idealists. They were all very talented, artistic, mostly privileged in upbringing, and what drew them to communism was not bloodlust for genocide but some very high ideals.

They felt a passion for justice. They wanted to end war. They opposed exploitation. They longed for universal freedom and maximum civil liberty. They despised the entrenched hierarchies of the old order and hoped for a new society in which everyone had an equal chance.

All of that sounds reasonable until you get to the details. The communists had a curious understanding of each of these concepts. Freedom meant freedom from material want. Justice meant a planned distribution of goods. The end of war meant a new form of war against the capitalists who they believed created war. The hierarchies they wanted to be abolished were not just state-privileged nobles but also the meritocratic elites of industrial capitalism, and even small land owners, no matter how small the plot.

Why be a communist rather than just a solid liberal of the old school? In the way the movie portrays it, the problem was not so much in their goals but in their mistaken means. They hated the state as it existed but imagined that a new “dictatorship of the proletariat” could become a transition mechanism to usher in their classless society. That led them to cheer on the Bolshevik Revolution in its early stages, and work for the same thing to happen in the United States.

The Dream Dies

Watching their one-by-one demoralization is painful. Goldman sees the betrayal immediately. Reed becomes an apologist for genocide. Bryant forgets pretending to be political and believing in free love, marries Reed, and tends to his medical needs before his death. O’Neill just becomes a full-time cynic (and drunk). It took Max Eastman longer to lose the faith but he eventually became an anti-socialist and wrote for FEE.

The initial demoralization of the early American communists came in the 1920s. They came to realize that all the warning against this wicked ideology – having been written about for many centuries prior, even back to the ancient world – were true.

Eastman, for example, realized that he was seeking to liberate people by taking from them the three things people love most in life: their families, their religion, and their property. Instead of creating a new heaven on earth, they had become apologists for a killing machine.

Stunned and embarrassed, they moved on with life.

But the history didn’t end there. There were still more recruits being added to the ranks, generations of them. The same thing happened after 1989. Some people lost the faith, others decided that socialism needs yet another chance to strut its stuff.

It’s still going on today.

As for the Communist Party in America, most left-Progressives of the Antifa school regard the Party as an embarrassing sellout, wholly owned by the capitalist elite. And when we see their spokesmen appear on television every four years, they sound not unlike pundits we see on TV every night.

It would be nice if any article written about communism were purely retrospective. That, sadly, is not the case. There seem to be new brands of Marxian thought codified every few years, and still more versions of its Hegelian roots that take on ever more complex ideological iterations (the alt-right is an example).

Why do people become communists? Because human beings are capable of believing in all sorts of illusions, and we are capable of working long and hard to turn them into nightmares. Once we’ve invested the time and energy into something, however destructive, it can take a very long time to wake us up. It’s hard to think of a grander example of the sunk-cost fallacy.

AUTHOR

Jeffrey A. Tucker

Jeffrey Tucker is a former Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education.

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

Psychologist Explains the Unhealthy Incentives Behind ‘Cancel Culture’

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Jonathan Haidt, author of ‘The Righteous Mind,’ says one of the marks of an open and civil society is that individuals are not afraid to share opinions.

If there was a video documenting every second of my life, you can bet it would contain some pretty stupid comments I’ve made over the years. I would also probably be reminded of some opinions I no longer believe. If you’re being honest with yourself, yours likely would be equally cringe.

The things we have said in the past may not have been outrageously offensive, but we have all made comments, or held opinions, we later regret. We are, after all, inherently flawed creatures.

But imagine if one instance of poor judgment or one “fringe” opinion stuck with you forever. This is the problem our society is now facing with the prevalence of cancel culture.

In 2016, then-high school freshman Mimi Groves posted a video to Snapchat in which she used a racial slur. The video later circulated around her school, though it wasn’t met with controversy at the time.

Fellow classmate Jimmy Galligan hadn’t seen the footage until last year when the two were seniors—four years after it first made the rounds at Heritage High School. By this time, Groves had moved on to focus on her role as varsity cheer captain with big dreams of attending the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, a school known for its nationally ranked cheer squad.

For Groves, summer 2020 had been a time of celebration as she found out she had been accepted to the university’s cheer team. But her joy was short-lived when the death of George Floyd rightly outraged the nation, sparking a resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Like many teens, Groves used her social media platforms to urge people to protest, donate, and sign petitions in support of ending police brutality. It was then that her unfortunate video came back to haunt her.

“You have the audacity to post this, after saying the N-word,” one commenter, unknown to the teen, posted on her Instagram.

That’s when her phone began ringing nonstop.

Galligan had held onto the video made four years earlier and had chosen to celebrate Groves’ admission to UT by blasting the footage to every major social media platform.

As the video began going viral, public outrage ensued, calling for the university to rescind her acceptance.

Capitulating to the mob, UT removed her from their cheer team, a decision that resulted in Groves withdrawing from the school because of what she perceived as pressure from the school’s admissions office.

Make no mistake, making racial slurs of any kind is demeaning and inappropriate behavior. But is one comment made four years prior enough to ruin the future of a teen who hadn’t even entered adulthood yet?

The court of public opinion said yes, without giving Groves any chance at redemption.

Groves’ story is just one of many.

Cancel culture has become more widespread over the last several years than anyone could have imagined. When I penned this article on the topic two years ago, I had no idea the problem would escalate to the level it has reached today.

But cancel culture isn’t reserved only for those who have made distasteful comments in the past.

Today, those espousing any opinion that goes against “woke” rhetoric are ridiculed online, fired from their jobs, and some are banned from using popular social media platforms altogether.

One University of North Carolina Wilmington professor, Mike Adams, even took his own life after tweets construed as offensive pushed him into early retirement after years of service to the institution.

Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind and co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind, has been an outspoken critic of the cancel culture phenomenon for some time.

“Part of a call-out culture is you get credit based on what someone else said if you ‘call it out,'” he said in a 2018 interview.

This virtue signaling, which is really just a means of proving to society how “good” and “moral” your views are, is only half of the equation, however. Cancel culture is also about personal destruction, which is obvious in Groves’ situation, since Galligan didn’t use this ammunition against her until the time was ripe for maximum harm.

“It(cancel culture) has reached a level of personal vindictiveness, where people go out of their way to find ways the things other people say could be construed as insensitive,” Haidt said.

Slurs and inappropriate comments aside, cancel culture has made people scared to share their opinions lest they be condemned for thinking “incorrectly” about any given issue.

We now live in an era where people are constantly looking over their shoulders, or computer screens, worried that whatever opinion they post might make them victims of cancel culture.

There is no opportunity to change one’s mind, nor is there room to defend opinions you genuinely believe. And this is a huge problem for any civil society.

Haidt spoke of the importance of protecting open dialogue so that we may live in a society filled with varying opinions from which to choose.

“One of the most important [aspects] is that people are not afraid to share their opinions – they’re not afraid that they’re going to be shamed socially for disagreeing with the dominant opinion,” Haidt said.

The odds are high that your opinions about certain issues will change over time. However, some may not, and you shouldn’t live in fear that your beliefs will be met with social condemnation and isolation.

We are no longer given the room to share our opinions today because we are no longer able to disagree with each other respectfully.

You’re not always going to agree with everything other people say — not your professors, your classmates, or your parents. In fact, you might even find that your own views change as you learn new things and grow as a person and adult.

But having the freedom to consider all opinions and decide what you genuinely believe is vital to the human experience and civil discourse.

There is a market of choice in all things, from what clothes you wear, products you buy, and what ideas you subscribe to.

When you go shopping, you might not like the first outfit you try. You might not even like the second or third. But trying on different looks, or opinions, allows you to think for yourself and figure out what it is you want, or believe.

To be truly open-minded, you must be able to consider all opinions, instead of condemning any thought contrary to your own. The free exchange of ideas pushes individuals to share unique ideas and allows for opinions to evolve.

Dissent is what makes democracy strong. Our Constitution has outlasted so many others because the Founders disagreed and debated with each other until they crafted a document that fostered “a more perfect union” than had ever been seen before. We would be wise not to forget the example they set.

Put simply, shaming others doesn’t work. It’s purely punitive, and self-aggrandizing. It also rarely changes a person’s mind and often further radicalizes their beliefs, widening the divide already growing in our country.

To foster a world where ideas can be freely expressed, Pacific Legal Foundation will be hosting an event this Friday featuring Haidt that will examine the many ways free speech serves as a central tenet of innovation, community, and civil society, and how we can preserve and protect this fundamental value that makes our society so extraordinary.

Without the ability to speak freely and consider all opinions, civil discourse cannot occur. In its absence, society as we know it will cease to exist and the divides between us will continue to grow.

AUTHOR

Brittany Hunter

Brittany is a writer for the Pacific Legal Foundation. She is a co-host of “The Way The World Works,” a Tuttle Twins podcast for families.

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