Tweet On, Mr President

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President Trump is criticized from all sides for sparing with fake news media via tweets. Some say Trump’s tweets are a distraction from getting out his message. The truth is fake news media are relentlessly 24/7 distorting and misrepresenting Trump’s agenda and message. Tweeting is Trump’s direct line to the American people which is the reason his tweets infuriate and frustrate fake news media.

Some say Trump responding to attacks and lies from media hacks is unworthy of his time and below his office. I disagree. How many times must we witness the accumulative toxic effect of allowing absurd lies on Republicans to go unchallenged? Such lies take root and grow. Leftists know if they attack a Republican with a big enough lie long enough, people will come to believe it. Leftists’ unchallenged huge lie, “Bush lied and people died” eventually tanked Bush’s approval numbers.

When Mitt Romney ran for president, I laughed at fake news media’s lies launched to destroy him. Fake news media said Romney caused the death of an employee’s wife; Romney abused his dog by hauling it on the roof of his car and Romney bullied a fellow student in school. I thought these attacks were too absurd to be believed or too trivial to care about. Little did I realize these seemingly unworthy-of-a-response attacks on Romney were building a false image of this genuinely decent and kind human being in the minds of low-info voters.

I chuckled hearing Michael Jackson say in his classic “Thriller” music video, “I’m not like other guys.” When will Washington DC and fake news media realize Trump is not like other Republicans? It is not in Trump’s DNA to sit back and allow himself to be attacked and lied about without pushing back harder. Frankly, I love that about our new sheriff in town.

Trump confronting fake news media’s lies in tweets is driving Leftists crazy because they do not know how to deal with it. Leftists are accustom to Republicans cowering in fear, rolling over and taking fake news media assassinating their character.

Fake news media has a proven track record of 24/7 negative nitpicking a Republican to death. This is why fake news media made a huge deal about Trump supposedly getting two scoops of ice cream while everyone else only gets one. What appeared to be much ado about nothing was really a strategically planned attempt to further fake news media’s branding of Trump; an ego maniac mean bully.

Still, there are folks on our side who want Trump to stop tweeting and play by traditional Washington DC establishment and fake news media rules for Republicans. Why should Trump allow his unhinged morally bankrupt enemies to dictate the rules of engagement. Tweeting is a technological powerful weapon available to president Trump. I say tweet on Mr President. Tweet on.

Political experts advising Republicans to walk-on-eggshells when dealing with the first black president, Democrats and fake news media have brought us patriotic Americans nothing but frustration and the furtherance of the extreme radical left’s agenda.

I will not bore you with the long list of Obama’s unconstitutional overreaches to which the GOP response was, “That’s not legal, but we dare not oppose him.” Real regime change in DC was birthed out of the Tea Party pushing Republicans to behave outside of expert’s advised timidity. This resulted in the GOP winning the house, senate and White House.

Hypocritically, fake news media lectures Republicans about how to behave while supporting Democrats doing whatever necessary, including breaking laws, to implement their extreme liberal agenda. For example. Fake news media supports Democrats’ proven bogus narrative that allowing illegals to invade our homeland makes Americans safer. The fact that sanctuary cities are arrogantly breaking the law is of no concern to fake news media.

On a recent retreat, MSNBC was one of the few news channels I could get on TV. Folks, watching the totally propaganda network was astounding. MSNBC lies, distorts and spins against Trump practically 24/7; clearly laser focused and obsessed with taking down our president.

Not only is Trump not like other Republicans, he is not like other presidents. I am confident that I speak for millions of Americans when I say that is just fine with us as long as he constitutionally fulfills his campaign promises.

EDITORS NOTE: Lloyd Marcus is the author of “Confessions of a Black Conservative: How the Left has shattered the dreams of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Black America.”

What Is the Deep State? by Thomas Knapp

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Buzzwords come and buzzwords go. Lately, a trending buzzword – or, I guess, buzz phrase – among the politically inclined is “Deep State.” Google News returns 127,000 recent media uses of the phrase.

Every time US president Donald Trump finds himself under attack or just stymied in one of his policy initiatives, his supporters blame the Deep State. The Deep State is behind the “Russiagate” probes. The Deep State doesn’t like his Muslim travel ban or his ObamaCare replacement bill. The Deep State keeps forcing him to break his campaign promises of a less misadventurous US foreign policy.

I’m expecting reports, any day now, that the Deep State stole his limo keys and left the toilet seats up in the residence area of the White House.

So what, precisely, is the Deep State?  There’s actually both more and less to it than you might think.

Defining the Deep State

In a recent Bloomberg column, former Obama administration regulatory czar Cass Sunstein defines the Deep State as merely “the talented professionals who serve both Democratic and Republican administrations, and who are civil servants rather than political appointees.” While not incorrect as such, that definition is superficial and not especially informative.Actions of state functionaries tend to maximize the state’s growth and their own discretionary power.

Others identify the Deep State as residing completely or nearly completely in the US “intelligence community” specifically and the Military-Industrial Complex in general, or in Washington’s sprawling regulatory apparatus.

It’s in the intel/military definition that the idea tends to take on a more active, sinister connotations: Spies and generals conspiring to put over a coup of some sort, if necessary maybe even giving inconvenient political figures the JFK treatment. Without discounting that possibility, let me propose that while individuals acting in knowing concert might be a minor feature of the Deep State, they aren’t its essence.

In high school civics class theory, elections are meaningful and political government is a highly developed, well-oiled, deliberative decision-making machine in which ideas matter and the best ones win out, to the benefit of all.

In fact, it is in the nature of political government to put its own needs first, and its corps of unelected workers (greatly outnumbering the politicians who have to explain themselves to voters) closely identify its needs with their needs and vice versa.

Resistance to Change in Motion

The aggregate actions of long-term state functionaries will always tend to maximize the state’s growth and their own discretionary power. Not because they are venal or corrupt (although some certainly are), nor because they necessarily subscribe to some particular ideology (although some certainly do), but because like their actions, they themselves are an aggregate whose parts will overwhelmingly respond to the same incentives in the same ways.

You’ll never walk into a hotel and see a sign in the lobby announcing “Welcome Deep State, Conference Room 3A.” The Deep State isn’t a conscious conspiracy, even if there are conscious conspirators within it. The Deep State is a large mass with no guiding intellect. Its inertia tends to hold it in one place and/or to carry most of its members in the same direction.

Reprinted from the Libertarian Institute.

Thomas Knapp

Thomas Knapp

Thomas L. Knapp, aka KN@PPSTER, is Director and Senior News Analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism and publisher of Rational Review News Digest. He lives and works in north central Florida.

How Brexit Could Break the Cycle of Global Poverty by Joe Ware

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In the run-up to the Brexit negotiations, there were numerous calls for the Government to confirm that the rights of EU citizens living and working in the UK would be secure. With talks now officially underway the Government has moved to address this with a “big and generous” offer according to Number 10 – or something “vague and pathetic” according to some of those on the EU side.

Less widely reported, but just as important, was another announcement last week that the UK will maintain EU free trade deals with the 48 nations of the Least Developed Countries Index, ensuring that poor producers will not have to pay import tariffs in the UK after Brexit.

This is good news for British consumers; the £19.2 billion of goods from these 48 countries includes 79  percent of the tea consumed in Britain, 45 percent of our textile imports and 22 percent of our coffee.Millions of producers who rely on trade with the UK have also been left in limbo.

Like the EU citizens who have been left with uncertain futures while their status remains up in the air, millions of producers who rely on trade with the UK have also been left in limbo worrying that a slew of new taxes could imperil their livelihoods.  Thankfully, for those in the very poorest countries at least, they shouldn’t be left worse off by Brexit.

But we should be setting our sights far higher than just ensuring no harm is done; we have an opportunity to improve the EU and make the case for the transformational, poverty-busting power of trade.

For starters, why limit the tariff-free arrangements to just these 48?  There are plenty of countries, such as Kenya, that sit outside the least developed countries category but still suffer from deprivation while also playing an important role in the economic development of the surrounding region.

Secondly, Liam Fox should use his post-Brexit trade powers to end the harmful EU tariffs on higher value processed products; these effectively work to keep poor countries poor and actively stunts their development.
For example, in 2014 the entire continent of Africa earned $2.4 billion from its abundant supply of coffee, while Germany, not known for its coffee plantations, raked in $3.8 billion by processing raw coffee and re-exporting it.

Imagine the potential benefit to African farmers if they could get a piece of the action and compete with the German processors. But the EU imposes a 7.5 percent tariff on imported roasted coffee, yet nothing on the less valuable, raw green coffee.  No wonder the vast amount of African coffee imported into the EU is the cheaper unroasted variety.

This colonial approach, which treats poorer nations as sources of raw material, disincentivises the development of greater profit-making industries which would be a powerful driver of prosperity.UK now has the power to expose the cruel treatment

It suppresses technological innovation, deters outside investment, hurts employment and prevents business knowledge and skills from spreading into other sectors of the national economy.

But the UK now has the power to expose this cruel treatment by scrapping these regressive taxes and allowing enterprising producers in poor countries to compete on a level playing field. Not only would it liberate those currently under the jackboot of EU tariffs, it would also lead to greater choice for UK consumers as new products from around the world found their way to market and cheaper prices through both the freedom from import duties and greater competition.

The EU likes to burnish its progressive credentials, but if we take back control of our trade laws Britain can become a world leader in the emancipation of the world’s poor and use Brexit as a force for global good.

Originally published on CAPX

Joe Ware

Joe Ware

Joe Ware is a writer at Christian Aid.

Social Democracy Didn’t Spur Post-War Growth by Tim Worstall

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It is obviously going to be difficult to get an economic idea across to Owen Jones – the lad’s a socialist for goodness sake, one who praised Venezuela’s policy loudly for some years – but needs must, eh?

In his latest Guardian column, he tells us that Clem Attlee’s government produced the social democratic nirvana powering post-war growth:

That model – public ownership, high taxes on the rich, strong trade unions – delivered an unparalleled increase in living standards and economic growth. A surge in oil prices, and the collapse of the Bretton Woods international financial framework, helped bring that era to an end.

No, this is not how it worked. That post-war growth was coincident with those policies, as well as other controlling measures such as needing government permission to take your own money out of the country. But they were not the cause of the growth.

One useful hint here is that the burst of growth came in many countries at the same time despite those countries deploying a variety of economic policies. Hong Kong grew using the closest thing to laissez faire in modern times. Sweden was notably more market liberal than the UK in these years and Sweden grew.

It is also remarkably difficult to work out why those policies would, or even could, promote growth. Redistribute it, yes, but cause it? How?

A Flawed Model

Jones’s second point – that the model failed because Bretton Woods fell – is also wrong. The model’s fall was because of the model’s flaws.

So, if it wasn’t economic policy which caused the Glorious 30, as the French call it, then what was it? The absence of economic growth in the preceding two odd decades.

It is a standard of the economic literature that catch-up growth is easier than trying to work out what to do at the technological cutting edge. Bangladesh and India are growing at 6 and 8 percent a year these days mostly because the technologies they need already exist.

Working out how to do the new stuff is much harder and is part of the reason why rich nations struggle along at 2 and 3 per cent growth if they’re lucky.

At which point we should note that there just wasn’t much economic growth post-1929. We can’t use the war years themselves. GDP statistics compiled out of making things to then either be sunk or blown up after sinking or blowing up other things, aren’t a reliable guide to anything other than the ability to sink or blow things up.

It would take a very special level of delusion to try and insist that living standards were higher in 1945 than 1939, whatever the economic statistics say about gross production. And there wasn’t much growth in the period from 1929 to 1939 either. Britain did better than the US largely by devaluing and not bothering with any of the New Deal nonsense. The American performance over that period produced no cumulative net growth at all.

However, and here’s the important part, the technological advance continued apace. Here’s an example of the sort of plane Grandpa crashed in 1928, here’s what he was waving off his airfield in 1945. And in 1950 we’d not really exploited fully the automobile, electricity or transistor, let alone jet aircraft.

And that’s the secret of that post-war growth: there wasn’t much of it in the earlier decades, but technology had continued to move on. Meaning that the economies of almost all nations were inside the technological envelope where growth is much easier.

The Market Approach Produced Better Performance

We have one more proof of the insistence that it wasn’t those taxes, unions and public ownership which produced the growth. For Germany’s performance was rather better than that of Britain. And Germany’s economy was egged on by Ludwig Erhard, using a much more market-liberal approach. He was a member of the Mont Pelerin Society, the fount of Hayek and the sort of neoliberalism that drives us at the Adam Smith Institute.

Contrary to Jones’s claim, a less socially democratic and statist set of policies produced a better result. It isn’t, therefore, social democracy that produced the growth. In fact, statist policies hindered it.

Attlee’s controls upon the economy were coincident with good growth, not the cause of it. And that good growth isn’t going to return by bringing back the controls.

We need either a really good depression followed by a war to have those decades of above average growth or, by preference, more of that market liberalism which drove Germany’s outperformance at the time.

Reprinted from CapX.

Tim Worstall

Tim Worstall

Tim is a Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London

New Jersey lists Antifa as a ‘Domestic Terrorism’ organization

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The New Jersey Department of Homeland Security and Preparedness (DHSP) lists under the category of Domestic Terrorism the organization Antifa.

Here is the complete listing from the New Jersey DHSP website:

Anarchist Extremists: Antifa

June 12, 2017

Domestic Terrorism

Anti-fascist groups, or “Antifa,” are a subset of the anarchist movement and focus on issues involving racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism, as well as other perceived injustices.

  • Self-described Antifa groups have been established across the United States and in several major cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco. A majority of New Jersey-based anarchist groups are affiliated with the Antifa movement and are opposed to “fascism,” racism, and law enforcement. Antifa groups coordinate regionally and have participated in protests in New York City and Philadelphia. There are three loosely organized chapters in New Jersey, known as the North Jersey Antifa, the South Jersey Antifa, and the HubCity Antifa New Brunswick (Middlesex County).
  • In December 2016, a group known as the Antifascist Action-Nebraska engaged in a doxing campaign against a prominent member of American Vanguard, a white supremacist organization. The group published his personal information on several social media platforms and posted fliers on the University of Nebraska Omaha campus, calling for his expulsion.
  • On March 28, a small fight occurred between Antifa members and supporters of the US President during a rally in Seaside Heights (Ocean County).  Because of advance publicity about the event on social media, local and state law enforcement officers were able to keep altercations to a minimum.

ANTIFA: INCITING VIOLENCE TOWARD FAR-RIGHT EXTREMISTS

Violent confrontations between Antifa members and white supremacists—as well as militia groups—will likely continue because of ideological differences and Antifa’s ability to organize on social media. In the past year, Antifa groups have become active across the United States, employing a variety of methods to disrupt demonstrations.

  • On April 18, following the Patriots Day Free Speech Rally in Berkeley, California—which turned violent—an Antifa member wrote, “Every Nazi that gets punched is a victory. . . . We must realize that these days are going to become more and more common, unless we put a nail in this coffin once and for all.”  On March 29, as a response to an Antifa post on social media, a national militia group wrote in an online article, “Whenever their kind [Antifa] assumes power, individual freedom, including of speech and worship, is brutally suppressed.”
  • Beginning in March, the Philadelphia Antifa Chapter used Facebook to encourage followers to disrupt a “Make America Great Again” event in Philadelphia, resulting in over 300 participants. Antifa’s presence resulted in law enforcement shutting down the event early for safety concerns. As of May, a manual on how to form an Antifa group—posted on a well-known Anarchist website in February—had approximately 13,500 views.
  • On February 1, the University of California Berkeley canceled a controversial speaker’s appearance following a protest by approximately 100 Antifa members. In response, far-right extremists assembled at a free-speech rally, which Antifa members disrupted, resulting in 10 arrests and seven injuries. Additionally, on April 15, Antifa and far-right extremists clashed at a demonstration, leading to 23 arrests and 11 injuries.

RECENT ANARCHIST AND WHITE SUPREMACIST CONFRONTATIONS

pic 3.pngpic 4.png

  • On February 11, members of the 211 Crew/211 Bootboys, a white supremacist gang, allegedly attacked two brothers at a New York City bar after seeing a “New York City anti-fascist sticker” on the back of one of the victim’s cellphones, according to New York authorities.
  • In June 2016, 300 counter-protesters, including anarchist extremists, attacked 25 members of the white supremacist Traditionalist Worker Party with knives, bottles, bricks, and concrete from a construction site while rallying at the California State Capitol in Sacramento, injuring 10.

EDITORS NOTE: Below is an Antifa flyer provided by a reader on Facebook:

We are standing for what is right against what is wrong

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The title of my op-ed is taken from Thucydides’ Melian Dialogue. It is a dialogue between the Melians and Athenians on liberty versus the imposing of slavery by force by one culture upon another culture. I am writing this on the eve of the celebration of Independence Day 2017. A day when our Founding Fathers found themselves in the same predicament as the Melians, liberty or death.

There is a lesson to be learned: Give war a chance!

According to the Melian Dialogue:

The Athenians also made an expedition against the island of Melos. They had thirty of their own ships, six from Chios, and two from Lesbos; 1,200 hoplites, 300 archers, and twenty mounted archers, all from Athens; and about 1,500 hoplites from the allies and the islanders.

The Melians are a colony from Sparta. They had refused to join the Athenian empire like the other islanders, and at first had remained neutral without helping either side; but afterwards, when the Athenians had brought force to bear on them by laying waste their land, they had become open enemies of Athens.

In the end “the Melians surrendered unconditionally to the Athenians, who put to death all the men of military age whom they took, and sold the women and children as slaves.”

In 1776 American patriots faced an armada of British ships and the choice of liberty versus the imposing of slavery by force by one culture upon another culture.

The Founding Fathers chose liberty, which led to war, the American Revolution. The Founding Fathers gave war a chance to change the course of human history. Thomas Jefferson, the author of our Declaration of Independence, put it succinctly when he wrote, and the Founding Fathers signed, on July 4, 1776:

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Many remember this special day by its date rather than by the declaration signed on July 4, 1776. Our Founding Fathers understood that war was the only way to liberty. They understood that God is a man of war in the never ending battle between good and evil.  As Ezekiel 7:25 reads:

Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none.

Today is Independence Day. Let none forget the document which was signed on that faithful day in 1776.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

 

Camp Concentration

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Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky on the totalitarian liberal nature of seminary formation in the 1980s that has led to such absurdities as liturgical dance.

In the 1980s, I attended a Midwest seminary that was schizophrenic with respect to the Faith.  The moral theology department was very orthodox. But Scripture studies were essentially liberal Protestant. And the formation team was hopelessly dissident and liberal. One of the Scripture professors, Father Otto, was a Hungarian refugee. He was friendly, kindly, fiercely anti-Communist – and a disciple of Rudolf Bultmann, the famous (or, as I prefer, the infamous) liberal Protestant theologian whose scholarly technique of “demythologizing” Scriptures corrupted generations of students.

Since our Scripture studies were essentially divorced from the Catholic faith, it was only natural that we allowed Protestant seminarians to attend classes. I sat next to a rather charming African-American young lady who aspired to become a Methodist minister. She was also an advocate of multiculturalism. We had friendly chats.

During the semester, Father Otto asked each student to make a class presentation, usually a book report. On the day of her assignment, the young lady showed up with a slinky body suit. She placed a record player in the front of the class. After reading a passage from Saint Paul, she proceeded with an interpretative dance accompanied by a modern version of a Negro spiritual.

Her prancing was self-serious, shockingly absurd, maybe even intentionally campy (as they say in the movie biz), and very, very funny.  The seminarians sat in stunned silence.  Keith, a young guy from Pittsburgh, who looked like a steelworker, sat stiffly, with jaw dropped. Others were wide-eyed, equally startled.

For my part, I was horrified to feel laughter rising. Every passing second seemed an eternity. Our attention to the young lady arose from either horror or fascination.  So perhaps “horrified fascination” describes the effect of her camp act. And I was in mortal combat with an impulse towards uncontrolled laughter.

Click here to read the rest of Father Pokorsky’s column . . .

ABOUT REVEREND JERRY J. POKORSKY

Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky

Father Jerry J. Pokorsky is a priest of the Diocese of Arlington. He is pastor of St. Catherine of Siena parish in Great Falls, Virginia.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of a “Mass,” at St. Patrick’s Church, Seattle, WA,

University of Hawaii professor: ‘I don’t trust white people..they need to lose more…only hire white trannies’

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University Prof: ‘I Don’t Trust White People,’ They ‘Need To Lose More’

by Rob Shimshock, Daily Caller, July 1, 2017

The University of Hawaii professor who wanted universities to stop hiring white men also said “I don’t trust white people” and “cis het white people need to lose more,” according to screenshots obtained Friday by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Piper Harron, a temporary assistant math professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, made these remarks and others on Facebook in May and June 2017.

“I need to take a long break from disagreeing with white people,” Harron wrote in May. “Their Have You Considereds have worn me down and I’m showing signs of weakness. If you wanna know why I don’t trust white people, it’s because of what that trust costs me.”

(Photo Credit: Piper Harron/Facebook)

“Cis white het people need to lose more,” she commented the next day. “Cis het white people don’t know how to not be in control. They want to even control their dismantling of privilege.”

(Photo Credit: Piper Harron/Facebook)

“As long as police are trained to murder, they will never be convicted,” said Harron in another June Facebook post.

The professor equated the ideas that women might not be interested in leadership, STEM or sports and that autism warrants concern to “violence” in a lengthy June Facebook post.

“I shouldn’t have to argue at all let alone nicely against these ideas,” said Harron. “These are ‘ideas’ I shouldn’t even come across. That these ‘ideas’ are everywhere is violence. Asking me to treat them as innocent is violence.”

The professor also equated perceived failure of the justice system to perceived failure of slavery, remarking that “white justice can *never* be just. We can’t afford to forget that.”

The math professor previously said, “If you are a cis white man (meaning you identify as male and you were assigned male at birth) you almost certainly should resign from your position of power” in a May essay.

“The opinions of individual faculty members ​exercising their personal free speech rights do not represent the positions of the University of Hawaii,” said Dan Meisenzahl, spokesman for the university, in an email to TheDCNF. “Furthermore, the University of Hawaii prohibits discrimination against students and employees based on gender, ethnicity and/or religion, which is also stated plainly in our policies. Any report of discrimination will be investigated and addressed in accordance with our policies and procedures.”

Meisenzahl also directed TheDCNF to a message sent from University of Hawaii president David Lassner to the college community in which the president expressed similar sentiments.

TheDCNF reached out to Harron for comment, but received none in time for publication.

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EDITORS NOTE: Dr. Piper Harron is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Hawaii. Harron wrote an article about how white, male professors should resign or take a demotion in order to improve diversity. Harron wrote,

“If you are a white cis man (meaning you identify as male and you were assigned male at birth) you almost certainly should resign from your position of power. That’s right, please quit. Too difficult? Well, as a first step, at least get off your hiring committee, your curriculum committee, and make sure you’re replaced by a woman of color or trans person.”

She also wrote,

“What can universities do? Well, that’s easier. Stop hiring white cis men (except as needed to get/retain people who are not white cis men) until the problem goes away. If you think this is a bad or un-serious idea, your sexism/racism/transphobia is showing.”

(Source)

500,000 Syrian ‘refugees’ return home to Syria in the last 6 months!

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Here is the news being reported everywhere in the last couple of day….

So, if they were all escaping  the Syrian regime and it is still in place, why return?  Truth is they weren’t all running from Assad, but from rebels and ISIS.

How about a hotline for unhappy refugees to call in to the Department of State to get help to go home?

From Qasioun News:

Agencies (Qasioun) – The U.N. refugees agency UNHCR said that nearly half a million Syrian refugees have returned to their homes since the beginning of the year.

Andrej Mahecic, UNHCR spokesman said that humanitarian agencies recorded a “notable trend of spontaneous returns to and within Syria in 2017, with more than 440,000 internally displaced people going back to their homes in the first six months of this year.

Another 31,000 refugees have come back from foreign countries in the same period, particularly from Turkey, where authorities agreed to open the borders to allow thousands of people to celebrate the end of Ramadan with their families. Some of these refugees will opt to return to Turkey, but others will stay, according to local media reports. In total, 260,000 refugees have gone back to Syria from neighboring countries since 2015.

Most people returned to the cities of Aleppo, Hama, Homs and Damascus, over which the government has taken back control from the rebels. The reasons for their return vary: Some are looking for their missing relatives, others want to find out what’s left of their belongings and others think the security situation has improved enough for them to come home to live.

You will never hear this!

As time goes on and if the Syrian situation improves, the US Department of State (and its contractors) will never report how many Syrians resettled in America, at great expense to the US taxpayer, will opt to go home to Syria!

In fact, I previously heard from unhappy Iraqis that they wanted to go home after finding out that the streets are not paved with gold in America.

I think Wrapsnet should keep data on refugees who leave America to go home!

See my post: “Syrians are opportunists” from August 2015, here.

I guess the refugee industry must soon find some new poster children to use as propaganda for their open borders agenda!

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John McEnroe is Right: Serena Williams Couldn’t Beat Eggs on Men’s Tour

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It’s a sad time when simple truths cause serious trouble. But that time is now, and a good example is how former number-one tennis player John McEnroe is being excoriated for stating that Serena Williams, widely regarded as history’s best women’s player, would be “like number 700 in the world” on the men’s tour. The story is also further proof of how the media are infested with arrogant, ignorant fake-news fetishists.

I do place a premium on honesty, however, and thus should confess my title’s inaccuracy. McEnroe is wrong.

I don’t think Williams would crack the top 1000 men.

By the way, unlike the two-brain-cell media wonders bloviating about things they know nothing about, I’m not just a journalist: I once was a tennis professional who played the satellite circuit (tantamount to baseball’s minor leagues) and competed against world-ranked players — this included being a sparring partner for a highly ranked woman.

Williams tweeted to McEnroe to “please keep me out of your statements….” But she should have sent the message to NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro, who broached the matter — posing what could win the Stupid Question of the Month Award — while interviewing McEnroe about his new book. Here was the exchange:

Garcia-Navarro: …Let’s talk about Serena Williams. You say she is the best female player in the world in the book.

McEnroe: Best female player ever — no question.

Garcia-Navarro: Some wouldn’t qualify it, some would say she’s the best player in the world. Why qualify it? [Uh, maybe because the women and men don’t compete together and that there’s a reason for this? Just a thought]

…McEnroe: Well because if she was in, if she played the men’s circuit she’d be like 700 in the world.

For not lying while answering a dumb question, McEnroe’s reward was to be labeled guilty of “sexism” and misogyny. Question: Is it sexism to say the top female track stars couldn’t beat the best 15-year-old boys?

Because the mile record for 15-year-old lads is in fact better than the women’s world record. My, those darn misogynistic stopwatches.

For the record, Williams has essentially acknowledged the reality here. As NY’s Daily News reported Thursday, in 2013 “Williams said she considered men’s tennis and women’s tennis to be two different sports. ‘If I were to play Andy Murray, I would lose 6-0, 6-0 in five to six minutes, maybe 10 minutes,’ she said. …I only want to play girls because I don’t want to be embarrassed.”

For the record, while the 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” match in which Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs was thrown in McEnroe’s face, Riggs was a 55-year-old “jerk who dyes his hair, waddles like a duck and has trouble seeing,” as King put it at the time. King was 29 and the world’s number-two female player — and Riggs had beaten the number-one woman player, Margaret Court, earlier in the year, 6-1, 6-2.

For the record, Williams also tweeted, “I’ve never played anyone ranked ‘there’ [700] nor do I have time.” This may be true if she means a player exactly 700. But who do you think the women practice against? Highly ranked junior boys, male college players and male teaching pros — and they lose to the good ones.

I ought to know. I never lost a set to the woman, who’d been ranked 20 in the world, I sparred with (and I never had any kind of men’s world ranking).

Yet the media wouldn’t know any of this, partially because they couldn’t care less. It’s comical: In McEnroe they have a tennis legend. Yet instead of trying to learn while interviewing him — and informing their audience — they busy themselves attempting to extract an apology. I would ask them: I know you’re professional agitators, but for how many years did you play the tennis circuit? Is it at all possible McEnroe knows something you don’t?

This reflects a wider issue, though: It’s the exact same contempt for truth that brought us the CNN (Counterfeit News Network) scandal and reflects the sick, twisted world view informing that entity. The truth is considered out of bounds if it contradicts the leftist agenda, and those uttering it must be brought to heel.

Speaking of which, McEnroe did finally capitulate, not apologizing but saying he “regrets” his comments (between the lines: “because they elicited bad press”). And this is how fake-news fetishists guarantee fake answers.

By the by, on Tuesday’s “CBS This Morning,” McEnroe responded to some members of the ignorati with one of my ideas. Said he, “Why don’t you combine [the tours]…. I’m sure the men would be all for this: The men and women play together. And then we don’t have to guess.” The answer?

Because that would reveal an inconvenient truth and, again, the truth is not the media’s business.

In the final analysis, McEnroe served an ace, the media couldn’t touch it, but they’re also the linesmen and just called it out.  You see, they cannot be serious — but they sure know how to cheat.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com

President Trump and Senator Rand Paul: Pass a clean repeal of Obamacare [Video]

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Rebecca Shabad in a CBS News article titled “Rand Paul says splitting up health care bill could improve chances of Obamacare repeal” reports:

Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday that the health care bill should be split into two pieces of legislation in order to pass an Obamacare repeal.

“I think if we take this bill and split it into two pieces, we pass one that is more, looks like repeal that conservatives like. And then the other one you load up with all kinds of Christmas ornaments and gifts and money and just pile money on it that the Democrats will vote for and some of the Republicans will vote for,” the Kentucky Republican said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Paul predicts that “both [would] end up passing” if Senate Republicans pursued that path.”It may not be completely good for the country, but you at least get the repeal that way,” Paul added.

The repeal bill, he said, could repeal Obamacare’s taxes and regulations and include Medicaid reform, but he said it would be “much narrower” and “much cleaner.”

President Trump tweet on Senate healthcare bill:

VIDEO: The Vortex—Destroying Innocents

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Matthew 18:6

“If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a large millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned at the bottom of the sea.” – International Standard Version

To listen to the interview with Steven Crowder and Michael Voris click here.

EDITORS NOTE: Sign up for a Premium Membership: http://www.churchmilitant.com/user/su…

Congressman Trey Gowdy on Government and the Church

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On March 20, 2015, at Convocation, North America’s largest weekly gathering of Christian students, U.S. Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) spoke to students about the importance of communicating their desire for change.

Congressman Gowdy encouraged students that if they want to change the world, they first need to figure out what they believe and why they believe it.

Trey Gowdy gave an insightful speech at Liberty University on the role of government and the church. His remarks deal with truth or freedom. Unity or diversity. Good, bad and relative.

Congressman Gowdy’s remarks begin at the 7:55 mark:

Click here to read Thucydides’ Melian Dialogue.

RELATED ARTICLE: Welfare Currently Punishes Work and Marriage. This Bill Would End That.

The Bernie Sanders Story: Rise of the ‘Berniecrat’ Political Revolution

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Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has become the voice of the new Democrat Party. His followers are passionately engaged and willing to do whatever it takes to bring themselves and the Democrat Party back to power.

Senator Sanders has given rise to the “Berniecrat” political revolution. He and his followers have moved beyond socialism to communism. Communism is an extreme form of socialism and has historically required violence to overthrow the existing from of government in order to fully implement its ideology.

CNN’s Gregory Krieg in an article titled Sanders to faithful: Take down Trump, take over Democratic Party wrote:

Bernie Sanders’ permanent “political revolution” rolled into Chicago on Saturday night [June 10, 2017], as the Vermont senator called on progressive activists gathered here to beat back President Donald Trump’s agenda while remaking the Democratic Party.

Speaking to a crowd of buzzing supporters in former President Barack Obama’s adopted hometown, Sanders ripped Trump’s “incredible hypocrisy” and called the President a demagogue who makes “even a very conservative president like George W. Bush” appealing in comparison.

But it was his unsparing assessment of the party whose nomination he sought in 2016 that set off an audience of nearly 4,000 mostly dedicated “Berniecrats.”

Senator Sanders has used rhetoric that has inflamed his supporters such as James T. Hodgkinson who specifically targeted unarmed Republicans, their families, children and supporters at a baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia wounding five including Congressman Steve Scalise, the majority whip of the House of Representatives.

The NSA leaker Reality Leigh Winner is a Bernie Sanders supporter. Chuck Ross from The Daily Caller found,

The 25-year-old woman who stole “Top Secret” documents from the National Security Agency and leaked them to The Intercept appears to be a supporter of Bernie Sanders and other progressive icons, such as Bill Maher and Michael Moore.

Reality Leigh Winner’s apparent social media footprint also shows that she is a supporter of other liberal causes, including the Women’s March and the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim civil rights group.

She also recently referred to President Trump as a “piece of shit” because of his position on the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protests.

Winner was indicted in federal court on Monday after she allegedly stole classified documents from her employer, Pluribus International, a defense contractor that does work for the NSA from its offices in Augusta, Ga.

Another example of a Berniecrat is Jeremy Joseph Christian. The Daily Caller’s Derek Hunter reported,

Jeremy Joseph Christian, the 35-year-old Portland man who allegedly murdered two men and left another critically wounded while yelling anti-Muslim slurs in a knife attack on Friday, has been painted by the mainstream media as a “right-wing extremist,” but posts on his Facebook page indicate he was a supporter of socialist Senator Bernie Sanders and Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

According to screen captures of his Facebook page obtained by Buzzfeed, Christian was not a Trump supporter, as many media outlets claimed, but was a supporter of the idea of a Sanders/Stein ticket.

Read more.

Democrats, like Senator Sanders, are relentlessly yelling “fire” in a crowed political theater. The predictable result is assassination for political purposes.

Senator Sanders supported Representative Keith Ellison to Chair the Democrat Party. Ellison is now the Deputy Chair of the Democrat Party. Representative Keith Ellison’s background is extremist. He fits the profile of a Berniecrat. Discover the Networks reports:

As a third-year law student in 1989-90, Ellison penned four columns for the Minnesota Daily under the name “Keith E. Hakim”:

(a) In a November 27, 1989 piece titled “Minister [Louis] Farrakhan Never Claimed to Be a ‘Malcolm X’,” Ellison laid out his views about racism:

“Racism means conspiracy to subjugate and actual subjugation. That means planned social, economic, military, religious and political subjugation of whites. It cannot be intelligently argued that the Nation of Islam is doing this. In fact, blacks have no history of harming or subjecting whites as a class. On the other hand, whites have it written into their very Constitution that blacks shall be considered three-fifths of a person for purposes of taxation and representation of their white owners. Their Constitution also makes provisions for the return of runaway slaves. Their constitution is the bedrock of American law; it’s the best evidence of a white racist conspiracy to subjugate other peoples.”

(b) In a November 30, 1989 column, Ellison wrote: “The news media prints only the most sensational bits and pieces, never the whole story. This leaves people believing that the Nation of Islam is some kind of black Ku Klux Klan, and they immediately dismiss all of its laudable work.”

(c) On February 2, 1990, Ellison published “Affirmative Action Does Not Make up for Past Injustice,” an article advocating slavery reparations as well as the creation of a geographically self-contained “homeland” for black people:

“Since no one but the WASP elite really appreciates affirmative action, I have a challenge for all fair-minded middle- and working-class white people: I will urge black people to abandon white-dominated, integration-oriented, give-away programs, if you urge white people to justly compensate black people for 250 years of slavery, 90 years of Jim Crow and 25 years of neo-Jim Crow.

Read more.

Ellison is a heartbeat away from becoming Chair of the Democrat Party.

These are just four examples of supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders. There are millions more Berniecrats out there. This is a ticking time bomb that is ready to explode.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you Democrats!

RELATED ARTICLE: Court Concedes DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schulz Rigged Primaries Against Sanders

RELATED VIDEO: From “Feeling the Bern” to “Feeling the Turn.” Turning Point News sat down with former Bernie supporter Jessica Dobrinski to discuss her new allegiance to Turning Point USA.

EU ‘rattled by President Trump’s visit to ‘anti-migrant’ Poland

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Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło has shown impressive backbone in rejecting the hijrah and averting the chaos experienced by other European nations that have implemented extraordinarily irresponsible immigration policies, placing their populations at risk for crime, economic collapse and jihad attacks.

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło

The EU, although imploding under its reckless immigration policy, has been threatening to punish Poland and Hungary for not taking in their “quotas” of migrants to ease the burden on other EU nations. The two countries are to be applauded for putting their citizens first, as Trump is putting America first. It’s no wonder that the EU is rattled by Trump’s visit to so-called “anti-migrant Poland.”

“EU Rattled by Trump’s Visit to Right Wing, Anti-Migrant Poland,” by Liam Deacon, Breitbart, June 29, 2017:

European Union (EU) officials are worried U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s visit to Poland will bolster the populist, right wing government there, encouraging their defiance of the EU, and damage “European unity”.

The president’s one-day stop-off – en route to the G20 summit in Hamburg – is for a gathering dubbed the Three Seas project, bringing together leaders from Central Europe, the Baltic States, and the Balkans.

The event has been convened by Poland as it bids to garner influence outside the EU – which has clashed with its nationalist government over migrant policy and sovereignty.

“One cannot but feel a bit suspicious if it isn’t an attempt to break up European unity,” an EU diplomat said about the Three Seas project, speaking to Reuters. Another senior EU official said it was part of Poland’s push towards “self-ghettoisation”.

Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party and Mr. Trump have similar views on migration and climate change and share a suspicion of international bodies and globalisation.

The president also backed Brexit and predicted the further break-up of the EU; his dealings with the rebellious, right wing governments of Central Europe will be watched closely by Brussels.

Poland has taken a leading rolling in opening the rift between the ex-Communist, Eastern and Central EU nations (with largely right wing governments) and liberal Western European nations.

Most recently, Poland led a resistance to the EU’s forced migrant resettlement quotas – opposed by Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary – as the EU pushes to “sanction” nations that refuse to take thousands of Middle Eastern asylum seekers.

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło recently called the migrant quota policy “a madness of Brussels elites” in a speech in parliament…

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