Important Free Speech Case Filed: Jared Taylor v. Twitter

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And, it all started when Twitter banned Jared Taylor and American Renaissance from its platform.

Breitbart has a long report on the case.  I think Taylor has a good case, but you know how our court system has become (too often these days) the place where Leftwing ideology has found its home and Constitutional protections are lost, so I won’t dare to predict how this could turn out.

Here is Ian Mason writing at Breitbart about the case filed last week in California:

A group of free-speech lawyers filed the most serious legal challenge yet to Twitter’s censorship policies Tuesday in San Francisco County Superior Court, seeking a ruling preventing Twitter from banning users purely on the basis of their views and political associations.

Jared Taylor

Jared Taylor

The 29-page complaint contends that, under a California legal doctrine that recognizes some private facilities as “public forums,” Twitter may not discriminate against speech on their platform based purely on viewpoint. If successful, it would be the first extension of that doctrine to internet social media platforms and could transform the way free speech is treated online. The suit became all the more relevant Wednesday as Twitter stood accused of locking out thousands of conservatives under the guise of cracking down on “Russian bots.”

The genesis of the suit is Twitter’s November 2017 announcement that they would start banning and sanctioning users based on their offline behavior and associations.

On December 18, 2017, Twitter, five years after their top British executive described the company as “the free speech wing of the free speech party,” made good on this threat, “purging” hundreds of mostly right-wing users. Twitter’s new policy refers to association with “violent extremist groups,” and a company blog post claimed, “If an account’s profile information includes a violent threat or multiple slurs, epithets, racist or sexist tropes, incites fear, or reduces someone to less than human, it will be permanently suspended.”

One of those purged is Jared Taylor, founder and editor of “American Renaissance,” a fringe-right journal on race and immigration. He is frequently described as an “extremist” and a “white supremacist” by left-wing groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the latter of which sits on Twitter’s “Trust and Safety Council,” the largely leftist group of activists and non-profits Twitter assembled in 2016 to help decide which speech to censor.

Taylor is a graduate of Yale University and Paris’s Sciences Po, the former West Coast editor of PC Magazine, and author of several books. He describes himself as a “white advocate” or “race realist” and condemns Nazism and antisemitism.

According to the complaint, in his more than six years on Twitter, Taylor never made threats, harassed anyone, or otherwise came under scrutiny for his behavior on the platform. Even the SPLC notes Taylor “scrupulously avoided racist epithets [and] employed the language of academic journals” in his writings, and Taylor once wrote an article urging people to be more civil on Twitter.

[….]

Yet both Taylor’s personal account and that of American Renaissance were permanently banned. The only explanation Twitter gave was that the accounts were “affiliated with a violent extremist group.” Twitter refused to offer Taylor any further details including to which “violent extremist group” he was affiliated.

There is much more here.

The SPLC and me….

You might also want to know that the SPLC has gone on another of its media hit campaigns.  See that the Baltimore Sun has listed me as a “hate group” (taking the SPLC’s word for it!) without ever checking to find out that I am a journalist blogger and have no group!

How many more one-person ‘groups’ are on SPLC’s “hate group” list?

LOL! The Sun says Maryland hate groups are “on the rise” as Maryland gains one “hate group” since the SPLC’s list last year.

The SPLC aimed its big-money guns at me after the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society directed them to my work. Of course HIAS didn’t like anyone questioning their federal funding and their refugee resettlement program.

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Two Shadows in the Valley

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Do all the men of the universe a favor and wear your hair like that for the rest of your life.

In the rolling, wooded hills of Hamilton, Georgia, it was a cold Monday in December 2007. As the three sisters scurried around the house getting ready for Emma’s wedding, the letter arrived postmarked November 21, obviously sent from a mail collection point near a combat outpost in Iraq.

The handwritten message where a stamp normally would have been was apparent: Free mail, Go Gators!

On the other side of the envelope where the flap was, another handwritten message:

Axis of Evil: Iran, N. Korea, Auburn, LSU, Georgia.

Capt. Adam Paulson Snyder (1981-2007)

As the mail was delivered, the busy house stood still to read the contents of this particular letter. Anyone under roof who took one look could instantly identify the envelope as an RSVP to Emma’s wedding from none other than sister Kathryn’s unspoken love, Florida Gator Superfan Capt. Adam Snyder of Fort Campbell’s 101st Airborne Division.

Three years earlier, it was probably one of the toughest days of Ranger School for Adam. Instead of being in the mountains of Dahlonega with his brothers, he was held back for an accidental discharge of weapon, an infraction he knew he did not commit.

A close friend with rank, found out about it and went to bat for him, demanding to speak to the Brigade Commander on his behalf.

“Can you attest to this Lieutenant’s character and integrity?” the Commander asked.

“I’d put my rank on the line,” said the friend.

The Commander agreed to have Lt. Snyder take a polygraph test to determine if he was lying about the accidental discharge.

The interrogating agent asked whether he had ever done anything bad and seemed to be pleased when Snyder answered yes.

“Once, McDonalds gave me an extra hamburger in my bag and I didn’t pay for it.”

The agent became extremely angry and continued to press Adam with intimidating questions, only to find out that he had never lied about anything, most especially misfiring his weapon.

So that Monday of December 2007, there was a hush in the room as Emma’s RSVP was opened.  It read:

Mr. and Mrs. Hill,

Thank you for sending me Emma’s wedding invitation. Unfortunately, President Bush has me on a great mission against terror and I cannot attend. Please send me an email on how I can get them a wedding gift.—Adam.

Though it was supposed to be the most joyous of times, tears filled the eyes of everyone in the room, but most especially Kathryn. Adam had been killed in action five days earlier.

She remembered his words when she had once enclosed a picture of herself in a letter. Do all the men of the universe a favor and wear your hair like that for the rest of your life.

Kathryn attended Adam’s funeral where the the hero was laid to rest with the picture she sent tucked close to his heart, underneath full military accoutrement. Within a few hours of the funeral, she stood as Emma’s Maid of Honor. One sister’s happiest day was another’s saddest, but Kathryn was a tower of strength.

Life has a funny way of creating new pathways when we least expect it. After Adam’s death, Kathryn did what few would have the courage to do when she finished Adam’s mission of service and enlisted in the Air Force.

Shortly after her return, God sent her a Boaz. A simple and pure love, down on one knee on Santa Rosa Beach, “Will you marry me?” he said. And her life began as she knows it today.

She is happily married with a husband who adores her, three precious children, and a lot of memories behind her, but there is rarely time to look back. Kathryn’s life journey has inspired many who have also endured the unexpected storms of life. Challenged to learn a little more about how God works, her example proves the loving nature of a God who restores and never leaves us alone. It was a testimony to everyone she knew that there are always two shadows in the valley of death.

In loving memory, Capt. Adam Paulson Snyder (1981-2007), for his faithful sacrifice to God and country.

101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), 1st Brigade Combat Team (Bastogne), 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Platoon, A-Company.

Fake News and Real Consequences

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What should Christians do in a world of fake news? It’s a question I’ve heard frequently from listeners to my radio show “Washington Watch.” Media distortion is a real and present danger, as President Donald Trump knows better than anyone. But in the last several months, the problem has ballooned well beyond the White House gates. The relationship between Americans and the press is rockier than ever — and not just for conservatives.

As Harvard points out, the skepticism surrounding what used to be one of the country’s most respected institution is at an all-time high. A whopping 65 percent of Americans think the mainstream media is full of fake news, including 53 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of independents. An astounding 84 percent of voters said it’s hard to know what to believe online. Over the past two years, Gallup has clocked similar numbers across the country, pointing out that more people have “very little” confidence in newspapers. According to Gallup these are the lowest levels of confidence they’ve ever recorded in the 45 years.

This agenda of intentional deception is raising serious questions about the media — but the rising skepticism from the public doesn’t seem to be prompting the kind of soul-searching that’s necessary to snap the press back to respectability. Instead, the media often seems to be digging in deeper, casting its net of deception even wider. Two weeks ago, I was caught up in a headline war of my own when a 45-minute podcast was reduced to a five-word soundbite taken completely out of context. It was sensational and controversial, which is what the media intended when it took a comment I made in a broader conversation and turned it into a national caption that Christians excuse sin.

Like so many news outlets, Politico is desperately trying to understand evangelicals’ strong support for the president — who’s made good on his promises but carries plenty of moral baggage. In a lengthy interview, which lasted about 45 minutes, I made the point that Christians weren’t rationalizing or excusing bad behavior. Here’s the transcript from that conversation. I want you to see the raw transcript from the portion of the interview that other media outlets crafted narratives and headlines from that aren’t even close to what I said in this very straight forward podcast with Edward-Isaac Dovere:

Dovere: You know, we have a situation in which it seems this woman is claiming from an interview she did years ago, that she had sex with the president – well, not then the president, but with Donald Trump, three months after his son was born. So he’s married and with a porn star, that just seems like what would be a huge problem…

Perkins: Well, it’s not — I would not say it’s not a problem. But I would say… I think it’s important to understand is that evangelicals did not vote for Donald Trump based on his moral qualifications but based upon what he said he was going to do and who he was surrounding himself with. Now, that was in the context of a general election.

Dovere: Right.

Perkins: When you had Hillary Clinton – who, you know, embraces abortion and the whole homosexual agenda — and herself does not have a pristine background with some of the stuff between her and Bill. So, that’s the context, you’ve got to put it in that context.

Dovere: That’s totally fair. I guess you know well that’s 2016 and you get the decisions that were made in 2016. Now it’s 2018. Does this give you pause at all?

Perkins: Well… I think he’s maturing as president — and back to what we said earlier, I think from a human being standpoint and a spiritual being standpoint, I think he is maturing as well because of the people he’s been around and the influences that he has brought into his life. Again, evangelical support is not unconditional. If the president were to all of the sudden revert back to some of that behavior as president, evangelical support will not be there. So it’s basically, we gave him a mulligan. You know, you get a do-over. You can start —

Dovere: A mulligan for 70 years of his life?

Perkins: I mean the guy — I mean this is what he’s committed to. And as long as he commits to that and continues on that, he will have the support of evangelicals.

Dovere: There are people who are not evangelicals who would say this — and there are some people who are evangelicals but whose politics don’t line up with yours who would say — it’s hypocritical to say that you believe in all the things you believe and–

Perkins: But what’s the option?

Dovere: Yeah.

Perkins: What’s the option? That’s what I would ask, what are the options I have? Is one of the options to sit at home and allow Hillary Clinton to —

Dovere: No, no, no but in 2018 —

Perkins: OK, but why should I not support him now when he’s actually doing the things that I asked him to do? I mean I say me, but I mean we —

Dovere: Right, right.

Perkins: I mean, he’s done more to restore religious freedom given the background over the last eight years than any president we have ever had. He is actually doing what he said: he is keeping his promise. So I have no reason to say, ‘Alright, well, 10 years ago you said this, so I am going to drop my support.’ Again, it’s not unconditional, this President keeps his commitment and his promise to the evangelicals that supported him, and he continues to you know walk this straight and narrow if you will…”

I went on to explain how evangelicals could come to the point of supporting Mr. Trump, I told the reporter that we — of all people — understand grace and new beginnings. That message never made it to the majority of Americans. Instead, they opened their web browsers and Twitter feeds to outright lies. “Evangelicals trumpet morality while condoning the rankest sin,” was the lead from the Daily Kos. “It’s unlikely,” Salon scoffed, “that after a lifetime of disingenuousness Tony Perkins and other leaders of the Christian right will admit that their entire crusade was never about ‘values.'” The fake controversy exploded, with the New York Times fanning the flames: “Christian conservatives may believe strongly in their own righteousness. But from the outside, it looks as if their movement was never really about morality at all.” “Rank hypocrites,” cried the Washington Post. The viciousness dripped from the Left’s megaphones, CNN and MSNBC, to print outlets like the New Orleans Times Picayune with a creative license usually reserved for fiction.

The debate raged on this week in editorial pages like USA Today. Fortunately, I had the chance to counter the spin in my own response. Evangelicals, I warned, are not offering blind allegiance.

You have to understand the motive behind these headlines. It’s not to uphold a biblical standard of morality. Instead, it’s designed to accomplish two objectives in the pursuit of snuffing out the flame of conservative, constitutional governance. The first objective is to discredit evangelicals and try to brand them with the Left’s scarlet letter H — hypocrite. That facilitates their second objective, which is to drive a wedge between the president and evangelical voters so that they don’t turn out in record numbers and vote with unity, like they did in 2016. Suppressing the evangelical vote would enable the Left to retake Congress, impeach the president, and pick up where Barack Obama left off with his pro-abortion, anti-Christian policies.

Thankfully, FRC has its own ways of cutting through the media’s lies and misrepresentations. Through this publication, along with my daily radio show, we were able to show the intentional distortion of the media. But this episode certainly underscores a lot of things, including the vigilance Christians need to have when they take in today’s headlines. It’s not enough to know the fake news is out there. As disciples of truth, we have to practice real discernment. Who can you trust? The Update and “Washington Watch” are two daily, reliable options for getting the news you care about from a Christian perspective. If you know people searching for credible commentary, share it! Click here for a station listing and Update sign-up.

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

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CNN on Top in Trump’s ‘Fake News Awards’

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CNN won four out of 11 “Fake News Awards” on Wednesday night, while The New York Times captured two of the dishonors hyped for weeks by President Donald Trump, but actually given in the end by the Republican National Committee.

The “awards” to the cable network and other media organizations cited reports darkly predicting an economic collapse under Trump, detailing the Russia investigation, and mistakenly asserting that the new president had removed a bust of civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office.

The White House had kept details close, but at 8 p.m. Trump tweeted a link to a Republican National Committee webpage showcasing “The Highly Anticipated 2017 Fake News Awards.”

Trump also conceded the existence of “many great reporters” while noting his administration’s accomplishments after one year:

However, traffic was so heavy that the page crashed. It later was restored.

The Republican National Committee announced the prizes for questionable journalism shortly after two former Obama administration lawyers warned against the involvement of White House staff in deciding the “winners.”

Such activity would constitute an ethics violation because it would involve government time and money devoted to helping or hurting a private corporation, they said.

The “winners” are:

—The long-running “Russia collusion” story, of which the RNC asserted, echoing Trump: “There is no collusion.”

—CNN’s report that the Trump campaign and Donald Trump Jr. had access to hacked documents from WikiLeaks.

—A CNN report suggesting Trump overfed fish during a visit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

—CNN’s report, later retracted, claiming short-term White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci had ties to Russia.

—A CNN report that fired FBI Director James Comey would dispute Trump’s claim that Comey told the president he was not under investigation. (Comey actually confirmed this point.)

—The New York Times’ report that the Trump administration concealed a climate change study.

—An assertion by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, an economist, that financial markets “never” would recover from Trump’s 2016 election victory.

—Washington Post columnist Dave Weigel’s tweet saying a Trump rally in Pensacola, Florida, was sparsely attended before many in the crowd had shown up.

The Republican National Committee also noted:

—An incident in which “ABC News’ Brian Ross CHOKES and sends markets in a downward spiral with a false report,” referring to Ross’ later retracted story about former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn.

ABC News suspended Ross for reporting that Flynn would tell prosecutors that Trump directed him to contact the Russian government.

—A reporter for Time mistakenly asserted in a pool report that Trump had removed a bust of King from the Oval Office.

—Newsweek incorrectly reported that Polish first lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda didn’t shake Trump’s hand during his visit to Poland.

Portrait of Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal. Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.

RELATED ARTICLE: Mystery and Controversy Loom Over Trump’s ‘Fake News Awards’

A Note for our Readers:

Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.

Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.

Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.

Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.

The Daily Signal’s mission is to give Americans the real, unvarnished truth about what is happening in Washington and what must be done to save our country.

Our dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts rely on the financial support of patriots like you.

Your donation helps us fight for access to our nation’s leaders and report the facts.

You deserve the truth about what’s going on in Washington.

Please make a gift to support The Daily Signal.

SUPPORT THE DAILY SIGNAL

VIDEO: Twitter Security Engineer, ‘It is a creepy big brother.’

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Before you watch Part III of our investigation into Twitter, I have to warn you that the discussions held by these Twitter employees IS NOT family friendly.

If you’re at the office, turn down your speakers or put on your headphones.

If the children are in the room, ask them to cover their ears.

With that warning out of the way, here’s what you should be really worried about . . .

If you have held a private conversation on Twitter, and possibly any other social platform, your conversation was NOT private.

Even if you deleted sensitive discussions you held privately online, not only are they still there, the information you discussed — attached to your personal profile — is being traded like a commodity.

Have you discussed personal family matters with others over private messages?
Have you talked about your health or the diagnosis of a loved one?
Have your vented relationship challenges to a close friend?
Have you expressed intimate sentiments to your spouse or partner?

If you’ve done any of those things, and again, even if those messages have been deleted, they are now attached to your personal “virtual profile” and bought and sold thousands of times over.

As one Twitter employee called it, “it’s creepy big brother.”

WARNING GRAPHIC LANGUAGE BY TWITTER EMPLOYEES:

witter has over 300 million users across the world and in essence has turned itself into a giant database of virtual personalities with preferences, likes and dislikes all attached to each and every one of us . . . . even if you don’t use Twitter!

Clay Haynes, Twitter’s Senior Network Security Engineer, admits that “You leak way more information than you think… Like, if you go to Twitter for the first time, we have information about you.”

I’d guess that 99.8% of people never read Twitters terms and conditions, and those that do have a 99.9% chance of not understanding the depth and implications of them.

That’s why, as an avid Twitter user myself, I was shocked to hear what is really going on behind the closed doors of this tech giant.

Watch this video and tell others to do so, and we will wait and see how Twitter responds to this one.

Our video is already being featured at the top of the Drudge Report site, which has had over 890 million site visitors over the past 30 days alone.

Drudge Report

Thanks again for everything and as always . . . stay tuned.

In truth,

James O’Keefe
Project Veritas

Here Are the 5 Worst ‘Fake News’ Reports on Guns in 2017

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President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress are strongly pro-Second Amendment, which means new gun control laws were dead on arrival in 2017.

But the mainstream media, not to be quietly defeated, exposed its anti-gun bias more than ever this year.

The national newspapers and left-wing TV networks continued to churn out unbalanced reports on gun crime and laws, while refusing to learn accurate terminology. Here are the top offenders.

1. USA Today

Anyone with common sense knows a chain saw weighs more than a rifle and its weight would pull it down, much less be stuck to an electric socket.

Readers immediately mocked the absurd getup by posting mockups of other “possible modifications” to an AR-15—laugh-out-loud things like a nuclear missile and a full-size F-16.

Andrew Wilkow added increasingly smaller AR-15s under the full-size one, like one of those Russian wood dolls of decreasing sizes.

2. CNN

After the horrifying shooting of Republican members of Congress on a softball field, CNN published a story in June titled “Where does the GOP baseball shooting leave the gun control debate?” It was not a news report by any definition.

The entire article is an interview—conducted by email—with the president of the (mostly irrelevant) Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

The reporter did not “email interview” any pro-Second Amendment group or activist for any balance. CNN didn’t even include that House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., who almost died in the politically motivated shooting, had not changed his views on protecting the Second Amendment from any further infringement.

Also, there seems to be no one employed by CNN who has any knowledge of firearms statistics. Jim Acosta, the senior White House correspondent, tweeted: “Since Sandy Hook there have been at least 1,552 mass shootings, with at least 1,767 people killed and 6,227 wounded.”

Acosta, who has almost a half-million followers on Twitter, was not actually citing CNN, but an article in the left-wing outlet Vox.

Click through the article and you’ll see the data it contains is riddled with errors. It takes statistics from a group called “Gun Violence Archive,” which makes up out of whole cloth the definition of “mass shooting” to include people who are shot, but not killed. The group includes “news reports” for media sources instead of citing law enforcement agencies.

Nowhere in the article does Vox mention that there is an official government definition of “mass shooting,” which is four or more people killed outside the home in one incident.

In fact, the number of people killed annually in mass shootings has been an average of 23 over the last 30 years.

Don’t believe me?

That statistic is from leading gun control voice in Congress Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who gets her data from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Acosta never explained his promotion of the bad reporting. The tweet remains on his account, giving the fake news legitimacy to CNN viewers.

3. NBC News

In this story, published five years after the Sandy Hook massacre, NBC reports that Congress has passed no new gun control laws, even when President Barack Obama was in office. That was true (aside from regulations through the White House), but NBC gives every reason for this, except a fact-based one.

The reason Congress doesn’t pass more gun control laws is that not one has ever been proven to reduce gun crime.

Instead, NBC puts the blame on anti-gun groups not being unified against the powerful NRA. (That would come as big a surprise to the Second Amendment Foundation, Gun Owners of America, and other pro-Second Amendment groups.)

NBC also nonsensically reports that gun control groups can’t compete with the resources of the NRA. It leaves out that those groups receive tens of millions of dollars from billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, while the NRA is funded by its grassroots members.

To cap off the bias in this story, NBC violates journalism rule 101, which is to ask a representative from the other side of the issue for a response.

4. The Economist

The Economist was once a reliable source of information on economics and finance. But, as this gun story makes clear, the magazine is now a partisan tool of the left.

In a November story about the tragic church shooting in Texas, The Economist cites “mass shooting” data from Mother Jones, a far-left outlet, rather than government agencies. Then the reporter writes that the shooter used an AR-15, which “was prohibited in 1994, but legalized in 2004 when America’s assault-weapons ban expired.”

That’s true, but not the whole story. The ban expired because Congress determined it was not effective in decreasing the number of homicides by rifle. The reader is left with the false impression that lack of a gun ban was directly responsible for the horrific church shooting.

The Economist does not even include data from the FBI, which would illuminate readers about the issue of gun violence. The most recent statistics available are from 2016. The FBI data show that there were 11,004 homicides by firearm. Of those, only 374 were by rifles of any kind.

5. The Associated Press

Almost every media outlet in the country—TV, print, and online—pays the Associated Press to use its wire service to supplement or replace its own reporting. This means AP has an outsized impact on news reports because its work appears in everything from local newspapers to network news.

Eagle-eyed Cargar Dolor recently tweeted to me: “This AP story from today claims that authorities recovered a ‘40mm pistol.’”

Clearly, the reporter knows nothing about the basic ballistics of firearms, and neither do the editors.

I tweeted to AP to correct this to a .40 caliber pistol, which it eventually did. Meanwhile, the more educated public tweeted to me that “40mm” is the size of a cannon or a grenade launcher.

Many of these mistakes would be funny if they weren’t rooted in ideological narrowness. They show how the mainstream media deliberately attempts to confuse the public in order to build support for more gun control laws.

At a higher level, the repeated bad reporting in just one area of public debate that shows the top editors and managers in mainstream media assign reporters to cover gun crime, without any expertise on the subject, research into data, or fact-checking.

If it weren’t for conservative media and informed social media users, the average American might walk the streets in fear of being attacked by someone wielding a rifle with a chainsaw attached to the bottom.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Emily Miller

Emily Miller

Journalist and the author of the book “Emily Gets Her Gun” about gun control policies. Twitter: 

Emily Miller is an award-winning jour

THE LAST JEDI: Are Whites Getting The Message – That Disney Doesn’t Want Them?

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The Left dominates the culture, but it does not (yet) completely control it—hence, for example, the War On Christmas Resistance, Gamergate, and of course the election of Donald J. Trump. Now Star Wars Episode VIII (The Last Jedi), released in mid-December to resounding applause from Main Stream Media reviewers is tanking, well behind the 2015 Star Wars movie The Force Awakens[Fans Speak with Closed Wallets as “The Last Jedi” Now $175 Mil Behind “Force Awakens”, ShowBiz411.com, December 24, 2017]. It may not be a border wall, but it’s something.

According to RottenTomatoes.com, 92 percent of critics loved The Last Jedi, compared an audience score of only 52 percent. the lowest audience score of any Star Wars film. The MSM is blaming the Alt-Right, although this debacle is far beyond the power of a still-nascent movement. [‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’: Alt-Right Group Claims They Messed With Rotten Tomatoes Score, ComicBook.com, by Joseph Schmidt, December 22, 2017] Toy sales–which brought Lucas a surprising amount of money for the first Star Wars films–are also tanking. The simple truth: the primarily white fan boys, whose repeat viewings of prior entries in the series drove box office records, just don’t like the new movie. [‘The Last Jedi’ had a historic $151 million decline in its 2nd weekend at the box office, by Jason Guerassio, Business Insider, December 24, 2017]

Not surprising. An astonishing New York Times article makes clear the anti-white direction the Star Wars franchise is headed, after Disney took over originator Lucasfilm in 2012:

Five days a week, in the foggy hills of San Francisco, 11 writers and artists discuss the minutiae of storm troopers. This is the Lucasfilm story group, and its members hold the keys to everything “Star Wars”: Under their guidance, the franchise’s narratives are linked no matter the platform, whether it’s television, games, theme parks, publishing, merchandise or, of course, film. With their ideas shaping each character and setting, they don’t see themselves as gatekeepers but as partners furthering the stories their creators want to tell.

[Disney brand manager] Kathleen Kennedy founded the group in 2012 when she succeeded George Lucas as president of Lucasfilm, putting Kiri Hart [right] a former film and TV writer, in charge of the unit. Ms. Hart’s first move was to make the story group entirely female, starting with Rayne Roberts and Carrie Beck. Both women had experience in film development but had also worked in other arenas — Ms. Roberts in magazine publishing, and Ms. Beck with the Sundance Institute.

[The Women Who Run the ‘Star Wars’ Universe, by Nathalia Holt, December 22, 2017]

The Holt article is nothing more than a celebration of these multiracial SJW commissars and their drive to de-whiten the Star Wars universe: “In addition to maintaining the continuity of the “Star Wars” universe, they aim to increase its diversity. This goal has sometimes led to struggles over their female characters.” Holt exults:

…women spoke 6.3 percent of dialogue in “A New Hope,” the 1977 film that kicked off the franchise. In contrast, women accounted for 27.8 percent of all dialogue in “The Force Awakens” in 2015. Even more promising, in “Rogue One” (2016) nonwhite characters accounted for 44.7 percent of all dialogue, a marked increase from zero in the 1977 original.

Diversity and racial quotas are now an exact science in the Star Wars cosmology.

Los Angeles Times film writer Jen Yamato tweeted about the significance for fans of color on Twitter, noting:

“The Last Jedi is so beautifully human, populist, funny, and surprising. I cried when one POC heroine got her moment because films like these leave their mark on entire generations — and representation matters”

Representation does matter, Ms. Yamato, which is why Disney mandated the evil First Order, previously known as the Empire, be cast as almost entirely white males—because we must constantly reinforce white males are the bad guys, right?

When Star Wars first came out in 1977, America was a far different country.  A far whiter country. Back in the days of the original trilogy–Star Wars: A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, the Rebel Alliance was just as white as the Empire/ First Order. But as the cultural war changed to being overtly anti-white, so the good guys of Star Wars became more diverse and non-white.

Indeed, the multicultural, diverse band of seemingly Social Justice Space Warriors (a pink haired Laura Dern assuming control of the Resistance forces is perhaps a gratuitous embodiment of the Left in 2017) occupying a galaxy far, far away was clearly a primary selling point to MSM reviewers: Star Wars: The Last Jedi Will Bother Some People. Good, by Angela Watercutter, Wired, December 15, 2017]. The message of the new Star Wars franchise since Disney purchased the rights from George Lucas can be distilled into this formula:

  • White = bad
  • Nonwhite (white females are honorary nonwhites, until they aren’t) = good

The problem with this was very clear in the opening week’s demographics—primarily white males:

Men 25 and older made up 42% of the opening weekend audience, according to PostTrak polling, and 89% rated “Last Jedi” positively. Women younger than 25 represented the smallest segment of the audience at just 10%; women 25 and older were 23% of the audience, and men under 25 accounted for 25%.

About 62% of all ticket buyers were white; 15% were Latino, 10% Asian and 9% black, according to PostTrak.

[‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ dominates the box office with second-largest opening — ever, Los Angeles Times, by Sonaiya Kelly, December 17, 2017]

And regardless of what these young white men told pollsters, it’s now clear they’re not coming back.

One of the last to understand the new racial hierarchy is Luke Skywalker himself, the actor Mark Hamill. He has very publicly denounced the new direction , saying “I fundamentally disagree with virtually everything you’ve decided about my character.” Obviously, Hamill does not understand that the blond, blued-eyed Jedi Knight he portrayed on film is a unacceptable in our more tolerant, SJW-approved world [Mark Hamill Rips His Role In ‘Last Jedi’: ‘He’s Not My Luke Skywalker’, Huffington Post, by Ron Dicker, December 22, 2017]

Since Hamill’s character told Princess Leia in A New Hope, “I’m Luke Skywalker, I’m here to save you,” whiteness has been completely deconstructed to be the embodiment of evil, an unforgivable microaggression itself.

In our more enlightened era, diversity is here to save us, Mr. Hamill. This is why your beloved Luke Skywalker was cast so indifferently in The Last Jedi.  (No doubt wanting to remain employed, Hamill has since groveled: Mark Hamill Regrets Criticizing ‘Last Jedi’ Version of Luke Skywalker, by Ryan Parker, Hollywood Reporter, December 26, 2017)

Stefan Molyneux, one of the more interesting thinkers on the Right (see interview with VDARE.com’s Peter Brimelow), noticed something about Skywalker’s status in The Last Jedi: he’s one of Newsweek’s gloatingly-named Beached White Males:

 “So Luke Skywalker has checked out of society—ha, isn’t that interesting? He’s a white male who’s checked out of society. And we see this all over the place with white males, right? I mean, they’re not happy. Neither is Luke Skywalker happy. He’s got this bitter, gristled, half-homeless kind of determination to survive another day but for no particular purpose other than to watch the slow extinguishing of his own possibilities and his own life.”

[Molyneux: The Last Jedi Is About the Oppression of White Men, Patheos, by Ed Brayton, December 20, 2017]

This Star Wars trend, developing for some time, was exacerbated by Trump Derangement syndrome. When Rogue One: A Stars Wars Story was released in December 2016, a month after Trump’s victory, its writers directly said Donald Trump and white people are the embodiment of evil:

In the wake of this week’s U.S. election, the symbol of Star Wars’ Rebellion had been adopted by many fans protesting the victory of Donald Trump — and now, two of the writers of next month’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story have referenced the relationship between that movie and the current political reality on social media. Chris Weitz tweeted the following Friday morning: “Please note that the Empire is a white supremacist (human) organization.” Gary Whitta, the original writer on the project, responded in kind, tweeting: “Opposed by a multi-cultural group led by brave women.”

Weitz’s tweet followed his praise for this op-ed piece from CBR.com, which explicitly connects Rogue One to this week’s U.S. elections, with writer Brett White calling the movie “the most relevant movie of 2016,” explaining, “When I look at the Rogue One trailers, I see what I want from America. I see a multicultural group standing strong together led by a rebellious and courageous woman.”

[‘Rogue One’ Writers Subtly Protest Trump With Rebellion Safety-Pin Logo, Hollywood Reporter, 11-10-16]

White Americans see what Brett White wants from America too. The fact that they seem to be are tuning out and rejecting this message is cause for hope.

I love One America News Network — Here’s why!

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There’s a new cable news network that actually reports the news, not opinion. Pope Francis called fake and sensationalised news “a very serious sin.”

The only cable news channel that is not sinning is One America News Network or OAN.

Here’s an OAN video titled “This is an apple” a parody in response to the CNN “Facts First” commercial:

OAN describes itself as “adding credibility back into news.” OAN provides “a credible source for the day’s top headlines, both nationally and internationally – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

The reporting is crisp, broad based and credible. The reporters do not interject opinion, they just report what is happening globally in short bursts of understandable reporting. OAN has two opinion shows.

The Daily Ledger hosted by Graham Ledger which “looks at the day’s top political stories through a Constitutional prism, while refusing to embrace the mainstream media’s and pop knee culture’s knee-jerk, low-information response and spin on current events.” Here’s Ledger on gun control:

The second opinion show is Tipping Point with Liz Wheeler. Tipping Point “provides informative, meaningful discussions from all sides of the political spectrum along with fresh analysis of political races.” Here is just one segment of Tipping Point.


OAN is growing and fast becoming the “4th rated national cable news channel.”

I suggest you given them a try. You’ll be glad you did.

Please check out One America News on YouTube.

Jewish Agency to Begin Closing Refugee Resettlement Sites

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As I mentioned yesterday, when I reported that true-believer, Lawrence Bartlett, Director of Refugee Admissions at the U.S. State Department, had been reassigned to Puerto Rico (voluntarily we assume), resettlement contractors are in a panic.

At Jewish Telegraphic Agency (hat tip: ‘badboylookout’) we learn that the State Department is in talks with its contractors about which sites to close—the smaller ones first.

(Go here to see HIAS sites near you.)

This is a far cry from the heyday (Hillary on the horizon!) in mid-2016 when the State Department was reportedly working on a secret list of 40-plus NEW sites. (emphasis below is mine)

Mark Hetfield

(JTA) — HIAS, the Jewish refugee aid agency, will be closing resettlement programs in several cities due to a sharp reduction in the total number of refugees let into the country in the next fiscal year.

The group’s Chicago chapter announced in an email Friday that it would be shuttering its refugee resettlement program.

The same day, HIAS President Mark Hetfield told JTA that programs in other cities would likely follow, though nothing has been finalized. HIAS runs refugee resettlement programs in 21 large to midsize metropolitan areas.

“It is true that smaller resettlement sites are being closed, and we’re in negotiations with the State Department right now as to which those will be,” he said. “We want to keep open as many sites as we can. Chicago has a lot of resettlement agencies there, and that was a smaller site.”

Just think about that above—negotiations with the US State Department—once again confirming that state and local opinions are not considered (when opening or closing sites).  A non-profit group accountable to no voters and the US State Department are making decisions about your home town!

For the fiscal year 2017, HIAS resettled about 3,300 refugees after being approved to resettle nearly 4,800 refugees. The organization has been approved for about 3,300 this year, but Hetfield expects to resettle fewer. He said the reduced number will make it a challenge to engage 380 synagogues nationwide that had signed up with HIAS to help with welcoming refugees to their cities. [Of course no mention of the loss to their wallets!—ed]

More here.

That last bit really gets me hopping angry!

Here is an idea for the 380 synagogues:  Have we run out of needy people? Why not help the poor people where you live!  And, if it’s refugees you want to help, then find the ones who came in previous months and years who are STILL STRUGGLING to find housing, food, jobs, etc. Are only the newest ‘Americans’ more attractive to you, more worthy of your charity?

Go here to see my entire Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) file.

These are the nine resettlement contractors (six are ‘religious’ charities) that can’t survive without federal funding (your tax dollars). They work jointly with the US Dept. of State to change America by changing the people. Maybe it’s time they shifted their focus and take care of poor, homeless, needy Americans! Wouldn’t that be refreshing this holiday season!

RELATED ARTICLES: 

Director of Refugee Admissions at Dept. of State reassigned to Puerto Rico

Refugees joyful about going home!

MPR working overtime to make Trump look bad with ICE Somali deportation flight

Syrian refugee in Canada claims discrimination in drivers’ license case

Podcast: Is Facebook Destroying Our Culture?

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Is a former Facebook executive right about the evils of social media? We debate. Plus we talk about transgenderism and children, the Democrats’ attempts to get the Dreamers legalized, Lois Lerner’s ongoing fight, and whether Netflix shamed Christmas movie fans.

Portrait of Katrina Trinko

Katrina Trinko

Katrina Trinko is managing editor of The Daily Signal and a member of USA Today’s Board of Contributors. Send an email to Katrina. Twitter: @KatrinaTrinko.

Portrait of Daniel Davis

Daniel Davis

Daniel Davis is the commentary editor of The Daily. Twitter: @JDaniel_Davis.

A Note for our Readers:

Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.

Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.

Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.

Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.

The Daily Signal’s mission is to give Americans the real, unvarnished truth about what is happening in Washington and what must be done to save our country.

Our dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts rely on the financial support of patriots like you.

Your donation helps us fight for access to our nation’s leaders and report the facts.

You deserve the truth about what’s going on in Washington.

Please make a gift to support The Daily Signal.

SUPPORT THE DAILY SIGNAL

VIDEOS: The Rise and Fall of the ‘New World Order’ — From George H.W. Bush to Donald J. Trump

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On October 19th, 2017  former President George W. Bush in New York at a forum put on by the George W. Bush Institute stated, “Our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication.” Former President Bush in his speech referred to “the norms and rules of the global order.”

It is prophetic that former President George H.W. Bush is not only the father of George W. and Jeb Bush but he is also the father of the “New World Order” in America.

Lawrence Freedman in his 1991 Foreign Affairs article, “Order and Disorder in the New World” interprets the phrase New World Order in two ways:

“The first [interpretation] is that the slogan reflects a presumption that international institutions and, in particular, the United Nations, will be taking a more active and important role in global management… [T]he second interpretation…[is] that the phrase ‘New World Order’ is merely descriptive, requiring no more than acceptance that the current situation is unique and clearly different in critical respects” from the past.”

Today the New World Order is best defined as “globalism.”

It is prophetic that then President George H.W. Bush unveiled the New World Order to America in a speech before a joint session of Congress on September 11th, 1991. This speech was ten years before the attack on the World Trade Center in New York city in 2001. Listen to former President George H.W. Bush’s remarks carefully:

Candidate Trump defeated 16 opponents to obtain the nomination as the Republican candidate for President of the United States. One of his opponents was Jeb Bush. It is prophetic that Donald J. Trump was not only defeated Jeb Bush in the Republican primary race but he’s also the unraveler of Jeb’s father’s New World Order, which has changed its name to “globalism.”

Now listen to then candidate Donald J. Trump’s remarks aimed directly at the New World Order known as “globalism”:

The media has portrayed former President George W. Bush’s speech as anti-Trump. Rather, it appears that G.W. Bush is on the side of President Trump. Bush said, “We’ve seen nationalism distorted into nativism [identity politics]… To renew our country, we only need to remember our values [belief in God not government].” Bush went on to say this about two of the Trump administration’s major initiatives, “First, America must harden its own defenses [increase military spending]. Our country must show resolve and resilience in the face of external attacks on our democracy [vetting of immigrants and border security]. And that begins with confronting a new era of cyber threats [President Trump’s May, 2017 Executive Order on cyber security].”

Globalism and the New World Order is dying. Elections in Austria, Germany, England, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia and even in France, as well as BREXIT, have shown the rise of national sovereignty over what Robert Royal has labeled “authoritarian liberalism.” Royal in his column “Something Stirring in the West” notes:

We’re seeing a remarkable if disorganized reaction in the developed world to the ways that what might be called “authoritarian liberalism” has come to dominate us. Trumpism, of course, is the most obvious example. But even in Europe, the place that seems to have gone the furthest down the liberal path, something remarkable is underway.

The decline and fall of the New World order’s globalism is happening. It appears the globalists cannot stop it because they cannot stop the human spirit, as former President George W. Bush said, “We should not be blind to the economic and social dislocations caused by globalization. People are hurting. They are angry. And, they are frustrated. We must hear them and help them.”

This is why Donald J. Trump is now President of the United States, he heard the American people and is now helping the American people.

RELATED ARTICLE: Trump Ran an Independent Campaign From the Start

The Truth vs CNN

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In a  July 2nd, 2017 FIREWALL, host Bill Whittle recounted a CNN scandal, describing the masterful way the videos were released and showed what incredible — almost unbelievable — harm is caused by media bias.

RELATED ARTICLE: Why Rosaries Scare the Media

EDITORS NOTE: Media Bias/Fact Check writes, “The Cable News Network (CNN) is an American basic cable and satellite television channel that is owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner. It was founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner as a 24-hour cable news channel; however, by April 2016, a CNN executive officially described the channel as “no longer a TV news network” and instead as “a 24-hour global multi-platform network.” CNN has a left bias in reporting and sometimes uses sensational headlines.  CNN typically sources its news sources. Do not confuse CNN’s talk shows with actual reporting of news. Further, they have failed numerous fact checks from Politifact. (5/16/2016) Updated (6/4/2017)

Why Americans Hate the Media

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I’ll make this quick and easy. The mainstream media is not trusted by a large part of the country because they have an entrenched liberal worldview bias they refuse to acknowledge or make any attempts to ameliorate.

The mainstream media is hated by an also large part of the country because of the sharply different ways it covers Republicans and Democrats and now how it covers President Trump and everyone else…and a heavy dose of disconnected arrogance. This has resulted in abysmal trust ratings among Americans.

A recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found fully 37 percent said they trust the media “not at all.” Another 31 percent said they have “not very much” trust in the news media. But more telling is the worldview breakdown on “How much do you trust the media?”:

Worldview                    A great deal   A good amount   Not very much   Not at all

Very liberal – Liberal               15%               40%                 27%                   17%

Moderate                                   5%                25%                 40%                   28%

Conservative –                           5%                9%                   28%                   57%
Very conservative

So the more liberal a person, the more they trust the media and the more conservative the less they trust the media. Among moderates, more distrust than trust.

This trust goes to the brink of absurdity in this strange poll question by Fox News Poll, which was largely negative about Trump — so hardly biased. When asked who was a bigger threat to the country, white supremacists or the media, 47 percent of respondents said white supremacists, while 40% said the media and 9 percent said they were the same. So half of Americans say the media is an equal or bigger threat to America than white supremacists. That is absurdly close, and even 24 percent of non-whites said the media.

Yet, when you break it down by Republican and Democrat, 12% of Democrats said the media while 69 percent of Republicans said the media. Independents were split evenly, within the margin of error — about half with an opinion said it was the media. See the chart below for more

(Apologies for the stupid small chart.)

And yet, with these straightforward, shocking numbers staring them right in the face, the media still does not see it’s liberal media bias as a problem — or even a real thing!

This plays out obviously in news coverage — obvious unless you are liberal, as the data shows. So liberal media consumers — and journalists — are the only two groups that see no obvious issue. It’s like the final scales should be falling, and yet the media remains utterly blind.

Here’s how it looks in coverage during Obama

In the eight years of President Obama’s presidency, we saw:

  • North Korea miniaturized its nuclear weapons and reached the point of delivering them on ICBMs, meaning they can reach at least half of the United States with nuclear weapons. Media yawned.
  • The creation of the worst treaty since Munich with the signing of the Iran nuclear accords and providing the avowed enemy of the United States with billions of dollars in cash — flown to them on an airplane! Media covered glowingly.
  • The precipitous and disastrous pullout from Iraq and red-line waffling in Syria that opened the door to the world scourge that is ISIS and the cleansing of Christians and Yazidis from the region. Media pointed out George W. Bush started the Iraq War and ISIS is really bad. Was Obama president then?
  • The weakening of the United States military through funding cuts and the emboldenment of Russian aggression in Crimea, Ukraine and Syria, leaving the free West in an overall weaker position. Media reported that Russia is bad!
  • The worst economy since the end of World War II, a “recovery” that was so weak that virtually no one could feel it as wages were stagnant, jobs below population growth and a sharp rise in income disparity. Media reminded us how terrible things were when Obama took office and that Republicans blocked all these good ideas.
  • The ruination of the healthcare system in the country to the point that even Democrats know that Obamacare has failed and needs dramatic changes. Media reported how hard it was for people to get good healthcare. The system’s broken! Was Obama president then?
  • Scandals such as the IRS targeting conservative groups, a la Richard Nixon; Obama’s knowing about Hillary’s private and unprotected email server; Obama seizing AP reporters’ phone records; Benghazi; gun-running Operation Fast and Furious; and so many more were big yawners to the media. Nothing to see here.

For eight years, the coverage was soft and largely positive. Many press conferences were downright fawning.

Here’s how it looks in coverage during Trump

But almost overnight, the media found its fangs again. Compare the Obama coverage to just the first few months of the Trump presidency.

  • Protest! Protest! Protest! Protest! Protest! But the unending protests and favorable coverage seem to have one point: Undermine the President. The obvious agenda and funding behind the protests go unreported in the mainstream media. But any similar protests of an Obama presidency would have been greeted with racism, racism, racism. In fact, that is what the media turned the Tea Party image into: Racists.
  • Russia! Russia! Russia! Russia! Russia! Hysterical coverage of the longed for collusion between Trump and Russia has come up empty. Months of coverage and wild, irresponsible speculation meant to undermine the President has resulted in…the equivalent of finding Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster. Lots of nothing.
  • Nazi! Nazi! Nazi! Nazi! Nazi! And of course the media hyper-focuses on a few hundred white supremacist Nazis and does everything possible to tie Trump to them, then all Trump supporters to them, then all Republicans. The media makes the overt attempt to delegitimize the President, his supporters and the Republican Party. At the same time, they call the violent, masked mix of Marxists and anarchists that make up Antifa the good guys. Why? Because they oppose Trump and his supporters. The fact that Antifa was being violent against conservatives long before Charlottesville, and before Trump goes largely unreported. The media only noticed them at Charlottesville and called them merely “counter-protesters.”

The media has played the biggest role in polarizing Americans and breaking our ability to communicate with each other — more than the two parties and even the protesters. And for that, a very large chunk of Americans hate them or simply dismiss them as untrustworthy.

Few options to the deep media damage

Major Garrett, now with CNN, recently said on the Hugh Hewitt radio show that his colleagues need to cover the president straightforward and honest. Just report what he says and does, and avoid all of the opinionating and pontificating that has erupted since January.

Good for him. That’s true…as far as it goes. But the media needs to step back much further and choose to cover the same types of stories with the same news judgment as it did with, say, Barak Obama. Otherwise, the above comparisons show that even following Major Garrett’s recommendation, coverage would still be terribly slanted.

The traditional media may well have passed the point of no return on this front with their deeply entrenched biases, incapable of seeing both the error of their way and the damage it has done to their industry. (See poll results above.)

The hatred and distrust of the mainstream media will just continue to feed the division between a left-leaning media establishment and a right-leaning media establishment and Americans choosing which meal they will dine on.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The Revolutionary Act.

Gun Control Lobby Seeks to Thwart SHARE Act with Hysteria, Fear Mongering

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Earlier this month we reported on the introduction of H.R. 3668, the Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) Act. Within weeks of its introduction, the bill had a hearing before the House Natural Resource Subcommittee on Federal Lands and passed out of the full Committee on Natural Resources. The panic is now starting to set in amongst the gun control lobby, which is desperately searching for ways to smear a bill that has been around for years in various forms without attracting much attention from the usual anti-gun extremists.

The true reason for their discontent is not so much the bill’s content – concerned as it is with hunting, land access, and law-abiding gun owners – but with how the bill’s success threatens to expose as lies the narratives they’re pushing about the current administration and America’s attitude toward guns. Trump has been a disaster for the gun industry, they crow. The NRA is a paper tiger, they insist. America is over guns, they exclaim.

None of it, of course, is true. 

Nor is most of what the media has said about the bill’s content accurate or enlightening.

As is typical when pro-gun legislation is on the move, newspaper writers who in many cases have never owned or shot a firearm conjure up indignant talking points about subject matter of which they have no understanding.

That’s why, for example, you had Dana Milbank of the Washington Point making claims about suppressors that the fact-checker of the very paper that employs him had already contradicted. And it’s why Gail Collins of the New York Times is shocked that long gun ammunition with non-lead projectile components (which she refers to as “armor piercing bullets”) is already on the market.

Even people who should know better are displaying their ignorance … or maybe just their opportunism to latch onto lucrative anti-gun consulting agreements.

A former ATF agent turned gun control lobbyist insisted at the bill’s recent hearing that several provisions of the SHARE Act would endanger law enforcement officers. Some of the same policy initiatives that he cited, however, were endorsed by ATF’s current second ranking official as opportunities to reduce regulatory burdens “without significantly hindering ATFs mission or adversely affecting public safety.”

A writer who claims to have been a park ranger also criticized a portion of the bill that seeks to standardize rules for carrying firearms on certain federal waterfront recreational areas with those already in place at national parks and national forests, among other federal lands. “Why does a hunter need to carry a firearm on Hoover Dam or Lake Mead, which gets 7 million visitors a year?” he asks. “Are there really good hunting opportunities on a lake filled with thousands of recreational boaters?”

The provisions in question, however, are aimed at carrying for self-defense, not hunting, which is already allowed on many of the areas that would be affected by this portion of the bill. That’s why the title he cites (and apparently didn’t bother to read) is captioned, “RECREATIONAL LANDS SELF-DEFENSE ACT.”

The same writer goes on to claim: “And then there are the provisions eliminating all restrictions on the purchase of silencers, eliminating restrictions on armor-piercing bullets, and eliminating restrictions on carrying firearms across state lines.”

The bill doesn’t do any of these things. Under the SHARE Act, the purchase of suppressors would remain subject to the same federal regulations as firearms themselves. Regulations on “armor-piercing bullets” would remain on the books but focus more clearly on the handgun ammunition that most threatens law-enforcement officers. And the bill does nothing to change rules about “carrying” firearms across state lines. It merely makes a current law protecting the transport of secured, unloaded firearms enforceable against anti-gun states and localities that have openly defied it.

But the primary concern of pro-gun Americans should not be the usual elites who are predictably criticizing legislation they don’t understand, but members of Congress who need to understand that law-abiding gun owners support it.

Please contact your U.S. Representative NOW and ask him or her to vote YES on H.R. 3668, the SHARE Act. You can call the Congressional Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your representative’s office, or you can send an email using our Take Action tool.

Your representative needs to hear from you TODAY to ensure the momentum building behind this historic legislation continues to grow.

Ask Your U.S. Representative to co-sponsor H.R. 3668, the SHARE Act.

Please contact your U.S. Representative NOW and ask him or her to co-sponsor H.R. 3668, the SHARE Act. You can call the Congressional Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your representative’s office.

TAKE ACTION TODAY

RELATED ARTICLES:

Reuniting The United States With Reciprocity

Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll Throws Wrench in Anti-gun Agenda

Anti-Gun Politicians: Blocking Out The Facts About Suppressors

Wall Street Journal gets it wrong Trump still out of Paris Climate Agreement

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The Wall Street Journal caused quite a kerfuffle over the weekend when it reported that “the Trump administration is considering staying in the Paris agreement.”

They got it wrong.

The WSJ based its reporting on statements by attendees at a climate conference in Montreal and by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who said the President is “open to finding those conditions where we can remain engaged with others on what we all agree is still a challenging issue.”

However, nothing had changed in the President’s position.

President Trump spotted the inherent flaws in the UN’s Paris Climate Agreement for himself and vowed to pull the U.S. out while he was still a candidate.

White House Economic Adviser Gary Cohn corrected the record saying, “We are withdrawing, and we made that as clear as it can be. I don’t know how to say it any more clearly.”  We posted details at CFACT.org.

While the UN and American climate establishment would like nothing better than for Trump to reverse course on Paris, this appears to have been wishful thinking on their part.  The conditions under which President Trump might reconsider his approach to international climate politics that Secretary Tillerson reiterated presents no small hurdle.

The President is absolutely correct that Paris is a bad deal for America.  It would limit U.S. emissions now, while allowing countries such as China and India to dramatically increase theirs.  At the same time the U.S. would be expected to pay out huge sums of money to UN programs while again China, India and the rest get a pass.  President Obama sent the UN $1 billion for its Green Climate Fund on his way out the door.

The Paris Agreement is and always was a bad deal for America.  If the President sticks to his guns there’s no way back in.

Copyright © 2024 DrRichSwier.com LLC. A Florida Cooperation. All rights reserved. The DrRichSwier.com is a not-for-profit news forum for intelligent Conservative commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own. Republishing of columns on this website requires the permission of both the author and editor. For more information contact: drswier@gmail.com.