The Racism the Left Ignores

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How appropriate would it be for a major publicly held American company to hire a person with a history of having publicly made the following statements and many others like them? In the interest of brevity, I shall list only four:

“The world could get by just fine with zero black people.”

“It’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old black men.”

“Dumbass f—ing black people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants.”

“Are black people genetically predisposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically only being fit to live underground like groveling bilious goblins?”

I think most Americans would find such blatant racism despicable and would condemn any company that knowingly hired such a person. Leftists of every stripe would be in an uproar, demanding the dismissal of such an employee. College students and their professors would picket any company that hired such a person.

I could be wrong about this, so I’d truly like any employer who’d hire such a person to come forward.

Most Americans would see such statements as racist, but consider this: Suppose we slightly changed the wording of each statement, replacing the word “black” with “white.” For example, “The world could get by just fine with zero white people.”

Would you consider that statement to be just as racist? I would hope you’d answer in the affirmative. They’re all racist statements.

The full scoop on those statements can be found in an excellent essay by William Voegeli, “Racism, Revised,” in the fall edition of the Claremont Review of Books.

The racist statements about white people were made by Sarah Jeong, one of the newest members of The New York Times’ editorial board. Jeong attended the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard Law School. She decided to become a journalist specializing in technology and the internet. She has an active Twitter account with over 97,000 followers.

One person excused Jeong’s tweets by saying they “were not racist” but merely “jokes about white people.”

Leftists have been taught utter nonsense by their college professors. The most insidious lesson taught is who can and who cannot be a racist.

Jeong was born in South Korea in 1988 and became a U.S. citizen in 2017, so she is a minority. According to the thinking of academia’s intellectual elite, a minority person cannot be a racist. The reason is that minorities don’t have the political, economic, and institutional power to adversely affect the lives of whites.

Such reasoning is beyond stupid. Here’s a test. Is the following statement racist?

“Jews are money-hungry hustlers.”

Before you answer, must you first find out the race of the person making the statement? Would you suggest that it’s not a racist statement if the speaker is black, but it is if he’s white?

Voegeli says that calling someone “racist” is one of the most severe accusations that can be made against a person, but at the same time, is among the vaguest. Years ago, one had to don a hood and robe to be a certified racist.

Today, it’s much easier. Tucker Carlson of Fox News questioned whether diversity is all that it’s cracked up to be. He asked, “How, precisely, is diversity our strength? Can you think, for example, of other institutions, such as … marriage or military units, in which the less people have in common the more cohesive they are?”

The Washington Post’s media critic declared that it was racist for Carlson to cast doubt on the proposition that diversity is good.

Voegeli’s article is rich with many other examples of how lots of Americans are losing their minds in matters of race. Muhammad Ali had it right when he said, “Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.”

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Walter E. Williams

Walter E. Williams

Walter E. Williams is a columnist for The Daily Signal and a professor of economics at George Mason University. Twitter: .

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How ‘Diversity Ideology’ Killed the University and Is Infecting America

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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. Photo: Brendan McDermid/Reuters /Newscom.

Report: Women’s March Full Of Anti-Semites, Has Ties To Nation Of Islam

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Leaders of the left-wing activist group the Women’s March have ties to Nation of Islam and believe in a variety of conspiratorial anti-Semitic tropes, according to a Monday report from Tablet magazine.

The investigation by Tablet alleges that two core members of the group who occupy leadership positions, Carmen Perez and Tamika Mallory, shared erroneous ideas about the Jewish people in a November 2016 meeting, including that they “bore a special collective responsibility as exploiters of black and brown people,” and “were proven to have been leaders of the American slave trade.

Conspiracy theories asserting that Jews were central to the slave trade are regularly shared among anti-Semites, despite being repeatedly proven false by experts.

Muslim American activist Linda Sarsour prepares to perform "Maghrib" sunset prayers during an immigration rally and Iftar "breaking fast" during the month of Ramadan outside ICE's New York field office at Foley Square in Manhattan, New York, U.S., May 23, 2018. REUTERS/Amr Alfiky - RC18A15B0F00

Muslim American activist Linda Sarsour prepares to perform “Maghrib” sunset prayers during an immigration rally and Iftar “breaking fast” during the month of Ramadan outside ICE’s New York field office at Foley Square in Manhattan, New York, U.S., May 23, 2018. REUTERS/Amr Alfiky

Mallory and other women who attended the meeting deny such theories were ever uttered.

Tablet also reports that Mallory, who currently serves as a national co-chair of the Women’s March, attended Nation of Islam events — a radical black nationalist organization led by notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan.

At one point in the piece, Tablet reports that Nation of Islam members began “acting as security detail and drivers” for the Women’s March co-chairs. A Facebook photo uploaded by founding member Linda Sarsour shows her next to men wearing typical Nation of Islam garb — suits and bowties.

The Women’s March later confirmed that its security firm “does not rule out the possibility — indeed, the likelihood — that the private security firm’s operation in Detroit, where the convention was held, employs some guards who are practicing members of NOI,” according to Tablet.

COLUMN BY

Joe Simonson | Media Reporter

Follow Joe on Twitter.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Women’s March Leader Linda Sarsour Arrested At Kavanaugh Hearing

Women’s March Leaders Spouted Anti-Semitic Theories at First Meeting

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

VIDEO: Trump Brawls Face-To-Face With Pelosi, Schumer Over Wall Funding

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President Donald Trump sparred with House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in an extraordinary Oval Office session before TV cameras.

Schumer and Pelosi visited The White House on Tuesday to negotiate with Trump over border wall funding in the next spending bill. The pair offered Trump approximately 1.3 billion dollars in funding for the wall, while the president demanded 5 billion dollars. The impasse could lead to a partial government shutdown.

Pelosi set the tone for the discussion at the beginning of her statement noting that any shutdown would be known as “The Trump Shutdown,” prompting the president to immediately interrupt her. The two continued to spar over whether Trump had the votes for proposed border wall funding in the House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate.

“If we thought we would get it passed in the Senate, Nancy, we would do it immediately,” Trump declared, adding, “It doesn’t matter, though, because you can’t get it passed in the Senate because we need ten Democrats’ vote.”

Pelosi then questioned why TV camera’s were present during budget negotiations prompting Trump to declare, “It’s called transparency, Nancy.”

Trump then turned the floor over to Schumer, who also castigated the president for declaring that he would rather shut the government down than accept the Democrats’ proposals. Trump angrily turned to Schumer and said, “you want to know something? Yes, if we don’t get what we want whether its through you, one way or the other, I will shut down the government.”

“I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck,” he continued. “People in this country don’t want criminals and people that have lots of problems and drugs pouring into our country. I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I won’t blame you for it. The last time, you shut it down. It didn’t work.”

The pair of lawmakers said after the meeting that they had no intention of meeting Trump’s demands and told him they would only offer him the option of passing existing levels of funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Schumer and Pelosi both said Trump would be to blame for any potential government shutdown.

The deadline for spending occurs Dec. 21, with no current breakthroughs on negotiations.

Transcript: The President’s conversation with Sen. Schumer and Rep. Pelosi

COLUMN BY

Saagar Enjeti

White House Correspondent

RELATED ARTICLES:

Illegal immigration costs U.S. taxpayers $155 billion per year… building a wall could pay for itself almost immediately – National Sentinel

Pentagon Confirms: DOD Could Fund Border Wall

Throwback: When Sen. Chuck Schumer believed in securing our border

‘She’s Scared’ — Ted Cruz Criticizes Pelosi For Wanting To Turn Cameras Off During White House Meeting

Get the facts: Democrat-backed policies have created a border crisis.

Trump Says ‘I’m Proud To Shut Down Government’ To Schumer, Pelosi

More than 3,000 illegals caught in one day: DHS

The Cost of Illegal Immigration to US Taxpayers | FAIR

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column with video and images is republished with permission. Video courtesy of the White House.

Obama and the Perpetual Presidency

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Former President Barack Obama recently continued his series of public broadsides against his successor, President Donald Trump.

Obama’s charges are paradoxical.

On one hand, Obama seems to believe that he, rather than Trump, should be credited with the current economic boom and the emergence of the United States as the world’s largest energy producer. But Obama also has charged that Trump’s policies are pernicious and failing.

Apparently, Obama believes that all of Trump’s successes are due to Obama, and all of Trump’s setbacks are his own.

Obama certainly forgets the old rule: Presidents, fairly or not, get both credit and blame for everything that happens on their watch, from Day One to the last hour of their tenures—even when wars abroad, technological breakthroughs, natural disasters, and market collapses have nothing to do with their governance.

Trump ran on the promise of a “Make America Great Again” economic renaissance. He pledged massive deregulation, fair rather than free trade, and tax reform and reduction.

Trump jawboned against outsourcing and offshoring, and praised rather than lectured private enterprise. He sought to reindustrialize the Midwest and promised to open new federal land to fossil fuel production, complete proposed pipelines, and lift burdensome restrictions on fracking and horizontal drilling.

In contrast, Obama had argued that the U.S. could never drill itself out of oil shortages. He advocated making the use of coal so expensive that it would disappear as an American energy resource. Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar were Obama’s vision of an America energy future.

As late as last year, Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council for two years during the Obama administration, ridiculed Trump’s boasts that he could achieve annualized gross domestic product growth of 3 percent as the stuff of “tooth fairies and ludicrous supply-side economics.”

Summers had also predicted that the U.S. economy would be in recession by now. Instead, it is likely to match or exceed Trump’s promise of 3 percent growth over a 12-month period.

After Trump’s victory, economist and Obama supporter Paul Krugman predicted that the stock market would crash and might “never” recover. “We are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight,” Krugman wrote in November 2016.

In fact, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has climbed about 7,000 points since Trump was elected. Unemployment has hit near-record lows, wage gains are up, and the economy is growing.

Still, after 22 months, no one knows what the final verdict will be on the Trump administration. So it seems wise to wait until Trump’s four-year term is over before weighing in on his legacy, or lack of one.

By the same token, the frenetic Obama should take a deep breath, stop arguing the past, and allow history to adjudicate his own eight-year economic and foreign policy record.

Given that Obama was a strong progressive while Trump surprisingly has proven to be a hard-right conservative, their presidencies offer a sort of laboratory of contrasting worldviews.

History will decide whether a more managed or more deregulated economy works best. We will learn whether a focus on traditional energy sources is preferable to an emphasis on subsidized green energy.

In recent times, Republican ex-presidents—Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush—left the limelight upon the end of their tenures. They kept silent about their successors, and they allowed history to be the judge of their relative successes or failures. Reagan and the younger Bush often were ensconced on their ranches in out-of-the-way places.

Obama would do well to buy a ranch, too.

In contrast, progressive ex-presidents such as Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Obama saw the presidency as a sort of never-ending story. Politics were a 24/7, 360-degree, all-encompassing experience. All envisioned their retirements as opportunities to re-litigate their administrations and to politick the present in hopes that future kindred presidencies would be progressive and would continue their own agendas.

Carter frequently warned that the Reagan defense buildup and tough stance toward the Soviet Union were dangerous and would lead to an existential confrontation.

Clinton became a fierce critic of the Iraq War as his wife Hillary prepared to enter the 2008 presidential race as an anti-Bush candidate.

Obama still seeks to convince the country that Trump is “unfit” to be president.

After the recent passing of George H.W. Bush, there are now four living ex-presidents: Carter, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama. There are five living former vice presidents: Walter Mondale, Dan Quayle, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, and Joe Biden.

If all ex-presidents and ex-vice presidents were to weigh in nonstop on the current president and present-day politics, the result would be as chaotic as it would be boring.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and author of the book “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won.” You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com. Twitter: .

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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. Photo: Paul E Boucher/ZUMA Press/Newscom.

‘Borderline Impossible’: Noted Scientist Tackles Sea Level Rise Alarmism

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When it comes to alarming projections of global warming-induced sea level rise, veteran climate scientist Judith Curry says people need to cool it.

“Projections of extreme, alarming impacts are very weakly justified to borderline impossible,” Curry told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Curry’s latest research, put together for clients of her consulting company near the end of November, looks in detail at projections of sea level rise. Curry’s ultimate conclusion: “Some of the worst-case scenarios strain credulity.”

“With regards to 21st century climate projections, we are dealing with deep uncertainty, and we should not be basing our policies based on the assumption that the climate will actually evolve as per predicted,” Curry told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Climate variability and change is a lot more complex than ‘CO2 as control knob,’” Curry said. “No one wants to hear this, or actually spend time understanding things,” Curry said.

That’s really the opposite message of what we usually hear from prominent scientists in the media. Much of the worry over sea level rise has centered on the western Antarctic ice melt, which studies say has accelerated in recent years.

The global average sea level has risen about 7 inches since 1900. For perspective, sea level rise has averaged about the thickness of two pennies every year.

But if warmer temperatures substantially increase melt from the world’s glaciers and ice sheets, some scientists and activists say sea level rise could be devastating. Warming also increases thermal expansion of the ocean, scientists warn.

Former NASA head climate scientist James Hansen warned in 1988 that New York City’s West Side Highway would be underwater in 20 to 40 years. More recently, Hansen warned “the planet could become practically ungovernable” from sea level rise due to melting ice forcing millions of people to flee coastal cities.

Pacific islands national leaders went before the United Nations in 2015 to warn that unchecked global warming would overwhelm them, forcing thousands to emigrate to the continents—so far, there’s little evidence of island nations being engulfed by the sea.

“Now if you ask us, we have to say maybe closer to 6 to 8 feet,” Penn State University climate scientist Michael Mann warned at a debate in June. Curry also participated in the debate in Charleston, West Virginia.

Mann said that was the “best estimate” of sea level rise by the end of the century, which is considerably higher than he said it was just five years earlier.

“We’re talking about literally giving up on our coastal cities of the world and moving inland,” Mann warned in September 2017.

Curry, however, sees estimates of sea level rise above 2 feet by the end of the century as “weakly justified,” even at high levels of warming. In fact, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change puts the likely range of sea level rise at 10 to 32 inches.

Alarming sea level rise predictions are based on “a cascade of extremely unlikely-to-impossible events using overly simplistic models of poorly understood processes,” Curry wrote in her report.

Current sea level rise is well within natural variability of the past few thousand years, according to Curry. Curry said coastal communities should base their future flood plans on likely scenarios, such as 1 to 2 feet, rather than high-end scenarios.

“There is not yet any convincing evidence of a human fingerprint on global sea level rise, because of the large changes driven by natural variability,” Curry wrote. “An increase in the rate of global sea level rise since 1995 is being caused by ice loss from Greenland.”

However, the “Greenlandic ice loss was larger during the 1930s, which was also associated with the warm phase of the Atlantic Ocean circulation pattern,” Curry wrote.

COLUMN BY

One Indisputable Takeaway From Comey Performance: Thank God Trump Won

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Insidious: Working or spreading harmfully in a subtle or stealthy manner.

Mr. Gowdy. Why is the appearance of bias as insidious as actual bias?

Mr. Comey. The appearance of bias is as important. I don’t know exactly what the word “insidious” means, so I’m not saying that one.

On Friday, Former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation James Comey met in a closed meeting with members of Congress to discuss Hillary Clinton’s email investigation and Comey’s handling thereof.

Comey’s initial response to being interviewed was to avoid a closed hearing, apparently preferring an open setting. After realizing that he was not in a legal position to demand conditions upon the conduct of the hearing, he negotiated a deal whereby he would appear for the closed-door hearing provided that a full transcript of the hearing was released to the public.

That may have been a mistake on Comey’s part.

It is apparent that Comey’s plan regarding this meeting, a link to whose transcript may be found at The Federalist Page’s Library, was to be as evasive as possible, a plan that was supported by the assigned counsel from the Department of Justice.

It seems the key tactic of Comey’s approach was to feign ignorance at the questions he was asked. As a result, he claimed he did not have knowledge or awareness of some of the most elemental aspects of the Clinton email investigation and of his duties and responsibilities as FBI Director.

For example, when Comey was asked whether FBI investigator, Peter Strzok, expressed his bias against then Candidate Donald Trump, Comey said he was not aware of any such bias. As a matter of fact, after much interrogatory wrangling with Congressman Trey Gowdy, Comey finally admitted that he likely would not have allowed Strzok to continue on the case if he had known of the investigator’s intense bias.

When asked whether a text by Strzok claiming that Hillary Clinton was going to win the presidency 100 million to zero was demonstrative of bias, Comey said he could not answer that question because he did not know what Strzok’s intent was when he delivered that text. Additionally, he maintained that he did not know whether he would have fired Strzok over his actions during the Clinton email investigation and his overt display of bias.

After continuing to be fended off by Comey’s feigned ignorance, Gowdy finally asked, “Why is the appearance of bias as insidious as actual bias?  Comey responded, “I don’t know exactly what the word ‘insidious’ means, so I’m not saying that one.”

Claiming ignorance can, under certain circumstances, be a very effective legal defense strategy. But if one is going to claim a lack of knowledge, particularly a lawyer, he best be honest about his ignorance because he is bound to be candid with the tribunal, particular (if such a higher requirement is even possible) if the attorney is under oath.

James Comey is an attorney. So, let’s take him at his word. If he truly did not know that Strzok had this intense, ingrained  bias in favor of Hillary Clinton and against Donald Trump, and if he still does not know how he would have acted in the face of such overt bias, then he is a gross incompetent who should have never held any position of responsibility within the FBI.

And if James Comey actually does not know the meaning of the word “insidious” as a lawyer, an author, and as the former Director of the FBI, then he is also just plain stupid.

In light of this continued display of stupidity, evasiveness, and corruption, the American people are left with only one conclusion.

Thank God President Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Revolutionary Act. It is republished with permission.

VIDEO: The Living Wage Makes It Harder to Make a Living

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We take big risks with people’s livelihoods when we make demands about what people should be paid.

The reality is, people don’t necessarily need a “living wage” to make a living.

EDITORS NOTE: This column with video is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash.

VIDEO: Will Seasteading Create the First Non-Violent Nations?

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An ocean-platform community voluntarily funded and organized, if successful, is a monumental event in human anthropology.

Why do the nations rage?

I don’t know. Maybe because they’re out of ammo culturally. As Joe Quirk, president of The Seasteading Institute calls them, “the 193 monopolies on government that control 7.6 billion people right now” could benefit from some peace-loving competition. More importantly, the existence of his planned seasteads, floating platform-based ocean communities, could benefit the ostensible customers of monopoly governments by modeling nonviolent, voluntary community-making.

I interviewed Quirk because I am interested in the cause of liberty and nonviolence from an anthropological perspective. I am curious about why humans group together and assent to monopolies of violence called states. I want to know how humans came to morally condone and even consecrate the violence such entities employ against nonviolent people for disagreeing with majoritarian, might-makes-right rules.

Watch the interview below:

In the news today, we are hearing reports that an elderly pundit, Dr. Jerome Corsi, is likely facing prison time for getting tripped up in a perjury trap during psychologically abusive grillings by grand inquisitor Robert Mueller. Corsi’s actions, whatever the specifics, did not produce a victim. (Robert Mueller did when he helped mislead the nation into the Iraq War, as tens of thousands of wounded or killed soldiers prove.)

Regardless of what you think of his politics, Corsi is facing the prospect of being locked in a cage merely for the impotently cathartic game of DC blood sport. Nearly half the country seems to be foaming at the mouth at the sight of a political writer being caged in his last years just because he favored their rivals’ presidential pick. Who wants to live in a society where its law and liberty are decided by these violent bouts of scapegoat ping-pong?

The Origins of Monopolized Violence

Centralized monopolies that demand the right to initiate violence against any nonviolent misfit are devolving into anarchic schisms of mad groupthink. Where do we get off this ride?

To exit the vehicle safely, we must know how we got on it and why it’s breaking down—making us sick on its way out of commission.

The enigmatic Jewish prophet Habakkuk once wrote, “Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by injustice!”

He wrote it at a time in which evidence suggests the world was filled with societies founded and mediated by controlled acts of bloodshed. Today, we call it ritual human sacrifice and tribal war campaigns for glory. As sophisticated moderns, we are embarrassed to address the seeming fluke of sacrifice so ubiquitous to human history, so we awkwardly shuffle it off to the corners of our museums. At best, the fashionable answer is that sacrifice was a quirk of religion, agriculture, proto-patriarchy, or some other such cultural institution that soiled our primal nobility.

In reality, sacrifice was a safety valve ancient communities used to channel pent-up resentment, fear, and conflict into misfit human vessels of destruction. These scapegoats were marked out from the masses by some arbitrary difference that made them unbearably peculiar to suspicious crowds looking to avert famine, disease, or other harbingers of social in-fighting and disorder. Eventually, the governing authorities streamlined the process of sacrifice to include foreign-captured slaves who first received orgies and feasts to make them tainted enough with the local spirit of the community in tension.

We think we educated ourselves out of human sacrifice, but this is a convenient myth we tell ourselves to justify its continual residue in our daily lives. Every culture that sends state agents to lock up a woman selling unlicensed tamales, a political dissident, an addict, or an Amish herbal salve seller is still very much enthralled by the one-for-all logic underlying our generative sacrificial origins.

Today, we hide our consent for coercion against misfits by telling ourselves it is for the protection of victims and children. As if, for example, another Amish farmer thrown into a violent prison cage would cause the nation to perish if he were left alone to sell his raw milk.

Beyond domestic sacrificial violence in the name of victims, it is difficult to find a single country in existence today that did not have its founding determined by self-justifying war. As another remnant of sacred ritual, war has been a socially binding agent for societies—a means of uniting restless neighbors in righteous self-sacrifice of life and wealth for the defeat of a less-than-human foreign foe. Yet recent years have shown that as the public is more frequently exposed to images of constant intervention in countries like Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Syria, whatever unifying high war has long held is rapidly dissipating.

Our increasing sensitivity to the plight of the other, be it drug-war-ravaged families or drone strike victims abroad, make the governance models built on the initiation of physical violence against nonviolent people increasingly ineffective. No wonder criminal justice reform and ending wars are now the few areas of overwhelming political unity. Yet political systems, always in a lag from cultural trajectories because of structural incentives to maintain the status quo, are dramatically slow to decisively satisfy such popular demands.

A command-and-control economy where medical innovation and scientific reform are bugs to be blocked by bureaucracies simply has too much inertia built on the foundation of sacrificial wars and regulations to change its ways any time soon.

Sovereignty through Seasteading

That’s why Joe Quirk and the seasteading project are such a fascinating case to consider. As sacrificial forms of governance continue to leave their citizens in disunity and internal resentment over who gets what spoils in a supposedly zero-sum economy, we have a real chance to see the first sovereign societies develop free from bloodshed.

An ocean-platform community voluntarily funded and organized, if successful, is a monumental event in human anthropology.

Just having a place where problem solvers and innovators can develop potential breakthroughs in science, medicine, and innovation free from deeply captured regulatory apparatuses could be a tremendous leap forward for mankind. And if these societies can maintain a thriving, non-monopoly state-managed existence, the rest of the world’s governments will be on notice to wean off of sacrificial violence or perish through increased social unrest and decline.

Competition may be a sin to John D. Rockefeller, but when it comes to bloated bureaucracies buoyed by outdated ways of treating human beings, it looks like a big beautiful blue ocean to me.

COLUMN BY

David Gornoski

David Gornoski

David Gornoski is your neighbor – as well as an entrepreneur, speaker and writer. He recently launched a project called A Neighbor’s Choice, which seeks to introduce Jesus’ culture of nonviolence to both Christians and the broader public. A Neighbor’s Choice is also the name of his weekly radio show on state violence and alternative solutions to it. Email him here.

EDITORS NOTE: This column with video and images is republished with permission.

What the Fake History of America’s Gun Culture Teaches Us

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Though one dishonest academic was exposed and reprimanded for promoting fabricated, politicized history, academia at large remains riddled with ideological biases.

In 2000, Emory University history professor Michael Bellesiles published the book Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture. The central argument of the book was that the culture of American gun ownership does not date back to the colonial era and, instead, emerged in the middle of the 19th century when technological advances made firearms more affordable.

Among the academic left, the book was wildly popular. Scholars gave glowing reviews of the book, and Columbia University awarded Bellesiles one of the most coveted prizes in the history profession: The Bancroft. Enhancing his newfound academic fame were the enemies he made, namely the National Rifle Association. Charlton Heston, to the glee of anti-gun academics, vocally criticized the book. Bellesiles reveled in the attention, telling Heston he should earn his PhD before criticizing anybody who has one.

Leftist scholars were thrilled to have an academic book that appeared to thoroughly demolish the notion, so cherished by American gun owners, that the country was founded on a culture of widespread gun ownership. They even admitted as much, with the publisher saying it was “ecstatic” about publishing it “because the book knocked the gun lobby.”

But even amid the ideological bias that plagues academia, there are still many scholars who value honesty and good scholarship more than politically appealing arguments. Even before the book was published, several historians were questioning the data upon which Bellesiles made his argument, which was originally published in a 1996 article for the Journal of American History. Trying to follow his calculations, nobody had been able to reproduce his results. The data was vague, the calculations of percentages seemed incorrect, and he left out relevant quantitative information, such as the base number of cases.

As praise turned to criticism, more historians began to look into his research. Bellesiles was now on the defensive, not just from people like the NRA, whose enmity only enhanced his academic celebreté, but also from sympathetic academics who would have liked nothing more than for his argument to be true. So Bellesiles started offering excuses for the problems critics kept discovering. He didn’t keep a record of his visits to the archives so he couldn’t point critics to the appropriate sources. The notes he took on yellow legal pads were destroyed in an office flood. But when the paperback edition of the book came out in 2001, Bellesiles apparently found the flood-destroyed data again to add new numbers to the tables, only to (apparently) lose them once more. They’d just have to trust him, as he was unable to replicate his own research.

Finally, Emory University hired a committee to investigate their rising star. Confirming what critics had already said, the investigating scholars were unable to duplicate his data tables, and they found significant evidence of ethical violations, including the outright fabrication of data. This included the citation of data that didn’t exist (such as wills that were never actually left behind or probate records that had been destroyed a century before in a fire), and even the records that he did use were grossly misrepresented. He also disingenuously quoted historical figures, including George Washington, that so egregiously took statements out of historical context that nobody was willing to argue it was unintentional.

In short, Bellesiles had committed fraud. Columbia University rescinded the Bancroft Prize (the only time that has been done to date), and under the mounting criticism, Bellesiles resigned from his position at Emory University.

The lessons about academia from this story are mixed. On the one hand, as many people quickly point out, it is encouraging to note that there are still many legitimate scholars who, even though they may agree with Bellesiles’s political positions, were willing to bring scholarly fraud to light. This is, of course, exactly how academia should operate.

However, the initial praise of the book still indicates the problems of academia’s political biases. It would be one thing if historians simply praised a book whose data and methods were not carefully scrutinized —something that is, frankly, unavoidable in book reviews, as such levels of scrutiny cannot realistically be conducted by every reviewer for every book. But even after the scandal was exposed, some of the reviewers who praised him indicated that their disappointment in his dishonesty was political. Roger Lane, who gave the book high praise in his review for the Journal of American History, said after the scandal that he “betrayed the cause.”

Jon Weiner, author of the 2005 book Historian’s Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud and Politics in the Ivory Tower, acknowledges that Bellesiles’s book is an example of academic fraud, but he argues that this and other left-biased cases of fraud only come about when historians come under attack by right-wing interest groups. With Nancy McLean’s recent book Democracy in Chains, which is essentially a hatchet job against libertarians, Weiner’s roundabout defense of Bellesiles and other fraudulent scholars effectively provides a ready-made (if laughably partisan) defense of her own scholarly dishonesty.

The question, then, is how this kind of dishonesty is supported by the confirmation bias of left-liberal academics. The Bellesiles case genuinely does demonstrate that there are honest scholars, as do the pranksters responsible for the “grievance studies” scandals, in which they are publishing hoax papers in order to expose the ability to get intellectually vapid research published by appealing to current political trends. But these academics, who are clearly trying to combat the very environment that allowed Bellesiles work to be published in the first place, are being treated as pariahs. Bellesiles is considered an outlier—an embarrassment to the profession but potentially less because of his fraud, per se, and more because he conducted his dishonesty so blatantly that he couldn’t avoid exposure. The academic trends since Arming America was published give some indication for optimism, such as the “grievance studies” professors and the legitimate critics of Bellesiles, but they also demonstrate just how far academia has fallen (or, alternatively, how bad it has always been) in the name of fashionable political agendas.

This article was reprinted from the Mises Institute.

COLUMN BY

Chris Calton

Chris Calton

Chris Calton is a graduate student of history at Marshall University.

RELATED ARTICLE: Pro-gun control Dick’s Sporting Goods sales down, will close 35 stores

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission.

My Talk On Citizenship Redux

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This is an updated version of a column I wrote some time ago. There’s a book recommendation at the end which would make a great holiday gift for a young person in High School or College.

I was recently asked to give a lecture on “Citizenship” at a local Masonic Lodge. Drawing from a couple of my past columns, I assembled the following short talk:

My biggest concern regarding citizenship pertains to how we teach history and civics in this country. In some High Schools, “American History” runs from World War II to the present. This means students are not learning such things as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the Civil War, the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark, Prohibition, the League of Nations, and much more. In other words, they only discuss the last 77 years, and not the events leading up to the founding of our country and the turmoils we had to endure. As an aside “World History” is now just World War I to the present. So much for the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Marco Polo, the Magna Carta, Ferdinand Magellan, Alexander the Great, et al. I presume they had no bearing on our civilization.

Such ignorance of our history caused famed historian David McCullough to observe,

“We are raising a generation that is historically illiterate and have a very sketchy, thin knowledge of the system on which our entire civilization is based on. It is regrettable and dangerous.”

We are also not educating youth properly in terms of “Civics”; understanding our responsibilities as citizens, such as voting, serving on a jury, how legislation is enacted, or what is included in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. No wonder young people do not grasp the significance of such things as the Electoral College, the structure of our government, or what their rights are.

Naivety and ignorance leads to apathy at the ballot box. In the 2016 elections, only 57.9% of the citizens voted (over 90 million didn’t vote at all). This is a pitiful figure when you compare it to other democracies like Australia, India, and the Scandinavian countries. Surprisingly, this was the highest voting percentage in the United States since 1968 (60.8%). The highest in recent history was in 1960 (63.1%) for the Kennedy/Nixon election. Even though Millennials (ages 18-35) are now the largest potential voting block, they continue to have the lowest voter turnout of any age group.

It is sad when legal immigrants understand the workings of the government and history better than native born Americans. Maybe all citizens should take the same oath naturalized citizens do. Since 1778, immigrants coming to this country have had to pass a test and take an oath swearing their allegiance to the United States. The current oath is as follows:

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

Not surprising, immigrants coming through this program tend to appreciate this country and are more loyal than native born Americans. Another cause for this could be because there is less emphasis on teaching American government and history in the schools than in years past. As such, the importance of being a citizen has not been impressed upon our youth.

So, as a proposal, how about administering a modified version of the immigration oath to all native born Americans, perhaps on July 4th? Better yet, how about Constitution/Citizenship Day on September 17th? All that is necessary is to simply modify the first sentence of the Immigration Oath; to wit:

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

Parents could give the oath to their children, thereby turning it into a family tradition; civic organizations and local governments could administer it in public group settings, or perhaps some other venue. Maybe even the media could get involved and administer it over the airwaves or Internet. It should be administered in some solemn way with a right hand raised and the left hand placed on either a copy of the U.S. Constitution or perhaps a holy book such as a Bible, Torah, or Koran.

The oath is certainly not the same as the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, this is instead a reaffirmation of our commitment to our country and would help promote citizenship and voting. Maybe this is something that should be given routinely as opposed to just one time; to remind people of their allegiance to this country. I cannot help but believe this simple gesture would have nothing but beneficial effects.

One last observation, during this past year, the talking heads on television recommended avoiding any talk of politics at the dinner table, particularly during Thanksgiving, Christmas and other holidays. I disagree. We do not do enough talking at the table in a calm and reasonable manner. Instead of leaving citizenship to the school educators and the media, parents should spend more time discussing it around the dinner table, not in a dictatorial manner, but in a frank and open discussion. I believe our youth would better understand the virtue of the Electoral College if it came from their parents as opposed to an entertainer or athlete.

Maybe then, youth will appreciate the need for “Citizenship.”

P.S. – Here are some reading resources that should be useful:

“Elementary Catechism of the Constitution of the United States” (1828) by Arthur J. Stansbury – for many years, school children learned this catechism. It is just as relevant today as it was nearly 200 years ago. It is available free of charge as a PDF file on the Internet.

Also on the Internet, the U.S. Citizenship and Naturalization Service has a page describing “Constitution Day and Citizenship Day,” along with links to other free resources.

My favorite book for young people is, “The 5000 Year Leap: A Miracle that Changed the World” by W. Cleon Skousen. It sells for about $16-$18 and is available from Barnes and Noble, and Amazon. This makes an excellent holiday gift suitable for students in High School and College. In my humble opinion, all young people should be given a copy of this book as it describes the mechanics of our government. Think of it as a crash course in Civics. Enjoy!

Remember, education is the key to our political future.

Originally published: March 8, 2017

Keep the Faith!

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. The modified featured photo is by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash. All trademarks both marked and unmarked belong to their respective companies.

Major Concerns with Florida’s Marjory Douglas Stoneman HS Public Safety Law (SB 7026)

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Florida Senator Kelli Stargel

Winter Haven 912 is meeting with Florida Senator Kelli Stargel on December 17th, 2018 and to say the least, we feel the same way as she does.  We citizens feel totally betrayed by the passage of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Act.  We all feel strongly about this law, but personally I am now and have been outraged since this law was even brought out of committee.

I am providing a pre-meeting discussion sheet (below), which may interest you. 

You are welcome to post it and or send it to your Florida state legislators and other activists to use as they see fit in order to trigger grassroots activism. It is imperative that legislators feel the ire of Floridians who support the U.S. Constitution and the Second Amendment and make serious changes to this law or better yet, scrap it and start over.

Concerns with (SB 7026) Marjory Douglas Stoneman HS Public Safety Law

The citizens of the Winter Haven 912 are extremely concerned about SB7026. We have openly expressed our concerns about this law since it was introduced. This law directly violates the Constitutional rights of citizens and we are frankly amazed that legislators who we knew to be conservatives, voted yes without serious scrutiny/work to make corrections before voting.  When SB 7026 was introduced, we (foolishly) assumed such a blatantly offensive law would never be considered in a strong Republican-led legislature.

The Constitutional rights that have now been compromised for law abiding citizens due to the paid-for riots of high school youth allowed to take over the Capitol in Florida is unimaginable. We now have $400,000,000 added to the Florida budget, ANOTHER bureaucracy that now saddles Florida taxpayers, bad law that will likely be struck down in court, and waste money and time after a law-abiding citizen’s rights are blatantly violated by law enforcement thanks to legislators that were once trustworthy in our eyes.

It has been obvious that something needed to be done about school security and ensuring that law enforcement, school boards and lawmakers do their jobs. The Parkland massacre although unimaginably tragic, provided an excellent opportunity to create a sensible piece of legislation that could TRULY make Florida kids safe in school. Politicians threw this opportunity away like trash.

An organized “movement”, driven and paid for by left-wing activists manipulated and used the children of Florida to move us a step closer to the socialist dream of gun control. The Left had a field day and used our children as tools to achieve their end – to the everlasting shame of Florida. The leftists who paid for this outrage could care less about those kids. They do not care about the children who died or were injured during the Parkland event. They have a political agenda and that is all they care about.

The left demonstrated that organized rioting works with weak politicians in the State of Florida.  Rather than taking charge of the situation and leading, Republicans in Tallahassee bent to the will of socialists focused on the destruction of a Free American Society. It is rumored that the bill was already written by leftists anticipating a horrific event, that educational policies put in place by leftists led to this incident, and the Parkland Shooting triggered the filing of this bill. Republican politicians in Florida bent to the will of socialism.

We are aware that most democrats voted against this legislation. Their reasoning was the bill was not restrictive enough. We were horrified to see this bill even make it out of committee. Law abiding citizens across Florida are now being punished for the failures of government in the egregiously corrupt Broward county. A republican legislature passed SB7026 and a Republican Governor signed it.

Republican legislators correctly assuming they would win the November election, betrayed supporters that believed in them and trusted their judgment but as it turns out conservatives were sadly mistaken. Florida lawmakers could have called a special session to deal specifically with this law and created a model for the nation, instead they abused our trust and failed the citizens of Florida.

It is our contention that this legislation caused the near destruction of the Florida elections in November.  There is no doubt that if Florida Republican lawmakers had voted this law down solidly, taken leadership in this situation and come out with a SERIOUS BILL in special session that would ACTUALLY SOLVE PROBLEMS rather than exacerbate them, Republican support across Florida would have been overwhelming and we would have seen a very different election season.

One can assume that Florida Republican leaders are not truly interested in protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens in Florida given consistent failures of a Republican led legislature to put in place SOLID safety measures for children, failure to expand 2nd Amendment rights in Florida and habitually put people in key leadership positions who block 2nd Amendment measures from reaching the floor.

Florida conservatives are looking for leaders, thinkers, problem solvers with a spine, not politicians who bend to the political will of socialists who have nothing but the destruction of Florida and the nation on their mind. The excuse that the “pressure” was serious to “do something” is simply that – an excuse. Legislators are LEADERS and expected to do their job on behalf of citizens-not work against them because they are “under pressure”.  Politicians that voted yes on this bill had no problem listening to rioting children acting like wild animals, but there was NO legislative request for input from conservative voters, the driving force for putting them into office. Passing this law was a betrayal to conservative citizens, the backbone of support for the Republican party.

Our concerns with this law are as follows:

  1. We are not aware of statistics on the practice of this law although it is quite clear that seizures are taking place especially in Broward and Polk Counties. We would like to know the following:
  • How many RPO seizures to date have occurred across the state?
  • How many seizures have proven unfounded?
  • How many unfounded RPO’s came about as the result of false allegations?
  • How many engaged a lawyer?
  • Did damage occur to defendant’s property during seizure process?
  • How long before weapons were returned?
  • Did they lose work time or experience other damage to reputation, etc?
  • In what condition were weapons returned?

Sheriff Judd provided the 912 group a series of six cases where he saw seizure of weapons as necessary, however there have been 152 seizures to date since this law was enacted in Polk County alone. Polk is outpaced only by Broward County. For the purposes of transparency FDLE website statistics regarding RPO seizures should be available.

  1. We have not heard any updates on progress of the ongoing investigation into the Parkland shooting. We would like to know when the investigation is expected to end, how much it has cost tax payers to this point and who is being investigated.
  2. How has the $400,000,000 been spent thus far and what are plans for this money and the new bureaucracy that is now in place. Citizens apparently have no say so in how this bureaucracy will be conducted.
  3. We are concerned about the Constitutional Violations that are blatant in this bill, including infringing the rights of individuals otherwise considered adults to purchase long guns, privacy rights and due process rights of every gun owner in Florida. We would like to know what plans are in the works for the 2019 Legislative Season to make corrections to these violations.
  4. Who authored this bill? Who introduced it for consideration? Who sponsored it?
  5. Was there discussion regarding the flagrant violation of Constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens during discussion of this bill before voting? How many legislators read this bill before voting for it?
  6. How many County or City entities across Florida have their Policy and Procedure in place for the practice of this law as required by 1/1/2019? Are these entities including measures that protect the rights of citizens who are subject to this law?
  7. In RPO situations, why, if this is a civil action as described by Sheriff Judd, do targets of seizure have their information registered on a national criminal database? How are targets then assured that name has been removed from this database post RPO? It is well known that the federal government collects/ retains information that it is not legally allowed to possess.
  8. Is there opportunity given to targets for a hearing prior to seizure unless the target is openly acting in a threatening manner, has violated injunctions, etc.

We recommend that this law be repealed and re-instituted in a way that will truly protect the children who attend school in the State of Florida, protect the rights of law-abiding citizens and deal effectively with people who suffer from mental illness/become a threat to society. Each of these concerns is better dealt with individually.

Suggested solutions from our group.

  1. The law is written much too ambiguously leaving room for abuse by law enforcement personnel, lawyers, politicians with a grudge against a citizen or political enemy, exes angry with an ex, neighbors who don’t like the politics of their neighbor, etc. The RPO law should be completely re-written with complete protective measures in place for innocent/law abiding citizens.
  2. There should be no seizure of weapons for anyone who has no law violation record without evidence presented by a complainant, an attachment presented to the judge showing absence of any prior law violations on the part of the defendant, statements by requesting officer and supervisor stating why they believe a seizure is necessary in this case and a full hearing before the seizure hearing to determine whether the seizure hearing is necessary, and whether other remedies could be taken into consideration.
  3. There should be penalties in place that are equitable for both complainants and defendants. The law states at this time that a false accusation by a complainant can result in a 1st degree misdemeanor. A violation of a seizure order by a defendant will result in a 3rd degree felony, effectively ruining the defendant’s life. This is NOT equal treatment under the law and another violation of Constitutional rights.
  4. Complainants who provide false accusation, should receive stiff punishment. Complainants including LEO, politicians, and anyone who files false information for RPO seizure should receive a felony charge, up to 5 years in prison and $10,000 in fines. The complainant may also be subject to paying reparations should the defendant lose his/her job, hire an attorney, or otherwise incur damages. The State of Florida should provide settlements for making victims of law-abiding citizens who have their weapons wrongly removed. If a defendant has weapons seized and it is found later that the weapons were wrongly seized, the seizing agents did damage to the location the weapons were seized from or weapons returned are damaged or not properly cared for, the State of Florida should make reparations to the defendant.
  5. There are currently no guidelines in place for jurisdictions throughout Florida to create policy/procedure for the seizure process. This is another ambiguous problem with SB7026 that will create trouble for law-abiding citizens across the state. Policy between jurisdictions should be reasonably similar to prevent unnecessary seizures or the courts will soon be laden with cases of suits by people who had weapons seized when they believed they were exhibiting reasonable behavior. These cases will waste time and resources in overcrowded courtrooms and damage Florida citizens.

Law enforcement now has the ability to create whatever RPO procedures they wish without informing citizens of nearby jurisdictions. We can be sure that this problem will mushroom and become a very effective deterrent for law-abiding citizens who have followed every letter of the law in carrying and transporting their weapons. A solution will be to provide guidelines as to what actions different jurisdictions are RESTRICTED to concerning the RPO process. The Polk county process laid out by Sheriff Judd would be a good basis for these guidelines. The process to be Constitutionally based, should provide the highest level of protection for law abiding citizens and place necessary restrictions on LE, Lawmakers and officials to deter them from attempting to use the law as a personal or political weapon, or to further infringe on the rights of citizens because of the personal beliefs of the person/people authoring the policy/procedure.

  1. If RPO is a civil action, then information should not be entered into a federal criminal database. There can be no assurance from the State of Florida that this information is removed from federal databases when requested. RPO information should not be entered into a federal system unless a person having had weapons seized is clearly shown to be a threat to him/herself and/or others. The State of Florida can hold information at the State/FDLE for cases that are resolved within 30 days with no further action necessary. Those who are determined to be a threat after 30 days can have their information entered into a national database until they are deemed safe to operate in society again.
  2. Measures that will truly protect children as they attend school should be enacted into law and NOT left up to School Boards. Specific guidelines on how and what schools will do to provide adequate security should be in writing and enforced by FDLE. School boards that fail to meet these standards should be removed from their seats and/or brought up on charges should a child or school employee be injured or killed because standards set by FDLE were not being practiced as outlined by Florida law.
  3. Teachers and other school personnel should be allowed to be highly trained and armed as they wish. Security guards should be hired at every school in the state and funds should be provided by the FL DOE to pay these guards. Highly trained/armed school personnel in schools during operational hours and hired security teams present during key times, such as opening and closing hours, will minimize the chance of another Parkland type incident.
  4. Money from the $400,000,000 should be dedicated to physical security including fences, locked gates, security measures for classrooms such as bulletproof barriers that can be quickly erected by classroom attendees and training for students including reacting to volatile situations in a calm manner to save lives, effective self defense and reacting to terrorist incidents.
  5. There should be NO students in public schools who have dropped out/are attempting to obtain GED, committed a felony, become a parent, or bullied others. Such students should be relegated to tightly controlled classrooms where parents are required to be heavily involved in the education, discipline and life skills training of their child. Parents should also be required to stand with their child at disciplinary hearings and subject to arrest/prosecution if they are found to have neglected the educational requirements of their child. All students in this environment should undergo periodical mental health evaluations provided by the school system to determine mental state. They should be required to undergo regular drug tests as should their parents. There should, under any circumstances, be NO students in Florida schools who cannot prove citizenship.

Students who engage in problem behavior should be moved from the main population of the school and sent to an environment within the school heavily monitored by security personnel and/or SRO and subject to arrest if they cause problems in class. Parents should accompany them to and from school and stand with them during disciplinary hearings. Should unacceptable behavior continue, the student should be relegated to the environment stated above. Discipline in schools should be reinstated in an effective manner and the rules for such discipline should be outlined by the State Dept of Education NOT local school boards.

  1. Sheriff Judd stated that most of the cases of weapons seizures he encounters could also be considered Baker Act Material. Most of these cases have long histories of mental health problems and long histories of improper attention from authorities. In the Parkland Case, the school system and law enforcement failed at every level to react to a credible threat. Other law enforcement agencies and education systems should be put on notice, in writing that they will be held accountable if they fail these children and the citizens of Florida. Procedures should be put in place for dealing with these cases up to the point where it becomes necessary for procedures such as the RPO to be put in place. If this happens, we will have very few cases become necessary for Baker Act and/or RPO in the future. If we create truly safe and secure learning environments, we will never have another Parkland type incident in Florida.

Those who do not like these standards put in place to protect Florida Citizens who wish to live under the law and provide a safe, good and effective education for their children are welcome to leave the state and go to a State that does not care about these things and REPUBLICAN/CONSERVATIVE lawmakers should be proclaiming this publicly and loudly while they right this wrong they have done to Florida citizens.

For conservative voters across Florida the answers to these questions and attention given to this law in the upcoming legislative session will give considerable weight to who wins primaries and who retains or gains seats in offices that come up for election.  It is a tragedy that citizens in a nation like ours are forced to keep a watchful eye on a government that cannot be trusted to defend our rights. We faithfully elect Republicans because we believe that they will protect our Constitutional rights. We understand inherently that democrats have little to no interest in protecting citizen rights unless the exercise of those rights will cause destruction i.e. paid rioters in the Capitol, destroying property and causing bodily harm, which is the reason they are not in power in the State of Florida.

PODCAST: The New Conservative Media Empire

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Jon Miller, the White House correspondent for the new Blaze Media, joins us to discuss the new venture’s reach and goals, as well as what it’s like covering the Trump White House as a conservative reporter. Plus: Daily Signal and Heritage producer Thaleigha Rampersad joins us to explain why she doesn’t think “It’s a Wonderful Life” is a good Christmas movie.

We also cover these stories:

  • Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California who is expected to be the next chair of the House Intelligence Committee, says he could see “jail time” in President Donald Trump’s future.
  • Trump is brushing off claims that an alleged hush money payment made by his lawyer violated campaign finance laws.
  • The Trump administration is taking action to promote scientific research that doesn’t come at the expense of unborn babies lives.

The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at letters@dailysignal.com. Enjoy the show!

PODCAST BY

Portrait of Katrina Trinko

Katrina Trinko

Katrina Trinko is managing editor of The Daily Signal and co-host of The Daily Signal podcast. She is also 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 Signal and co-host of The Daily Signal podcast. Send an email to Daniel. Twitter: @JDaniel_Davis.

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Signs The Global Financial Reset Has Begun

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The reset has already begun and once implemented will have a profound impact on each and every one of us, here and across the globe. I have written about the Global Financial Reset before and have provided links to these and related articles at the bottom of this post. We will see in this post, the Signs The Global Financial Reset Has Begun. This content below in this post was contributed by my good friend Dr. Kirk Elliott, PhD, ThD

SIGNS THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL RESET HAS BEGUN

Dr. Kirk Elliott, PhD, ThD

I recently read an article by market analysts Jim Willie.  He is a brilliant analyst, and I wanted to pull out a few things from his research that stood out to me in regards to a global financial reset.  I went back to the source documents behind some of his projections and I concur with his analysis.  Links to the source documents are provided below.

After and economic recession/depression DEBT IS ALWAYS REDUCED.  In the US, the recession of 2009 did not eliminate debt, in fact the opposite—IT EXPLODED not just in the US but globally.  In fact, debt has been exploding since then and REAL GDP has been CONTRACTING by -2 to -4% a year in real terms according to John Williams of Shadow Stats.

SOURCE: https://www.silverdoctors.com/headlines/world-news/jim-willie-the-global-currency-reset-has-begun-now-watch-these-two-key-events/

CIPS (Cross Border Interbank Payment System (started Oct 2015), but is now gaining much momentum.  Now commands $6-$8 TRILLION portfolio of funded projects.  This is designed to replace the SWIFT system in the eastern hemisphere.

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-Border_Inter-Bank_Payments_System

MARCH 2018 the Chinese rolled out a new gold-backed yuan oil contract next month as part of its attempt to replace the US dollar’s dominance of that commodity trade.  This could spell the end of the petro dollar trade.  This built in demand for the US$ is pretty much all the demand there is for it.  In time, the dollar sinks, and an alternative petro-dollar HAS ALREADY BEEN FORMED—no need to even speculate.

SOURCE: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4148232-yes-petro-yuan-threat-u-s-dollar

BRICS 2.0.  By this time everyone is aware of the BRICS nations and the coalition to form a strength based union to counteract the west.  BRICS 2.0 is that movement on steroids.  Gold is one of the last commodities controlled by the west (NY and LONDON exchanges).  This initiative will co-align the BRICS nations to replace that as well.  This is my opinion is not a bad thing, as London has allowed naked shorts on futures contracts of metals for a long time, thus limiting the growth through manipulation.  People who own gold and continue to acquire it should benefit AMAZINGLY as a true market will be established without the manufactured suppression of prices. Sadly, for us as Americans, this one is on us.  Our regulators allowed the manipulation to happen, and people seek truth and transparency. This is another nail in the coffin of US financial dominance.

SOURCE: https://www.miningreview.com/brics-gold-new-model-multilateral-cooperation/

WHAT TO LOOK FOR MOVING FORWARD FOR FURTHER SIGNALS

According to market analyst Jim Willie, he has categorized upcoming triggers that would indicate that a global financial reset will be here before any of us could possibly imagine.  Look out for any of these events:

LIST OF POTENTIAL KEY EVENTS

VERY SERIOUS MAJOR GLOBAL GAME CHANGERS

  • Deutsche Bank failure, talk of restructure, with rupture of derivative complex
  • Italian banking system collapse, complete with numerous bank runs
  • Italian sovereign currency announced as new Lira currency in EU exit
  • London Metals Exchange launches RMB-based metals contracts
  • COMEX & LBMA rupture from lost control of integration with oil & currencies
  • Formal launch of Gold Trade Note atop the Shanghai G-O-R contracts
  • Saudi oil sales in RMB to China, adopted by other Arabs and other Asians
  • London flips East, with RMB Hub development, following their AII Bank membership

DEEP IMPACT DISRUPTIONS

  • Flourishing non-USD platforms, led by Chinese design and efforts
  • Germans and French formally end Russian sanctions, thus flipping East
  • CIPS bank transaction system gains wider adoption, even among Western nations
  • BRICS Gold Platform announces conversion of sovereign bonds to Gold
  • China pre-announces gold-backed Yuan in form of convertible Gold Trade Note
  • China announced Yuan backed by basket of currencies, Gold, other commodities
  • Introduction of a new IMF SDR basket that includes gold, crude oil, iron
  • EU opens door to Euro payments in external trade with trading partners
  • Emerging Markets rupture on debt defaults, due to currency crisis
  • NATO fractures in the open and EU pursues independent military security

SOURCE: https://www.silverdoctors.com/headlines/world-news/jim-willie-the-global-currency-reset-has-begun-now-watch-these-two-key-events/

The time is now to prepare and safeguard your assets.

Closing Comments

John Michael Chambers

The Global Financial Reset is not some conspiracy theorists fantasy but rather a currency, monetary, financial and economic fact. It is one in a series of must occur events if we are to truly MAGA. There are many players involved in this great change. And with this change we shall see changes made to the Federal Reserve (finally) as well as the Rothschild World Banking Cartel and others. Dangerous indeed. But there is a plan.

Now we cannot prevent this great and perhaps long and painful transition from occurring but we can continue to remain informed. And like a category five hurricane coming into town, you just don’t operate business as usual. You plan and prepare to minimize the damage. There is a category five economic hurricane rapidly approaching. The time for such planning is now. You can survive and perhaps thrive.

Dr. Elliott’s firm will be holding a series of live Roundtable Public Briefings in the state of Florida in 2019 of which I will be a co-presenter. Perhaps we will meet somewhere out there on the road. Please visit these informative articles linked below.

Dr. Kirk Elliott, PhD, ThD

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Bretton Woods Agreement

Formation Of The Fed

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Wall I Want for Christmas…

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When President Trump meets with Minority Leaders Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) tomorrow [December 11th], it won’t be to exchange Christmas cookies. With two weeks left on the government’s spending clock, the only thing Congress wants to wrap up is a deal on leftover appropriations bills.

At this point in negotiations, though, Democrats might be hitting a wall. A $5 billion one.

Lately, the threat of a government shutdown is about as synonymous with December as figgy pudding. But this time around, liberals are in a staring contest with a president who doesn’t blink. Donald Trump wants a border wall, and if that means giving federal employees a little extra time off at Christmas, so be it. Unlike other politicians, who might quake in their boots at the thought of turning out a few lights, this White House isn’t sweating it. If anything, they welcome the opportunity for a fight over promises and principles.

“This would be a very good time to do a shutdown,” Trump has insisted. In a conversation with Politico, he made it quite clear that he was “willing to do anything” to deliver on his border wall promise. And besides, playing hardball on a campaign pledge he made to voters is exactly the sort of thing his supporters have come to expect — and admire. “I don’t do anything… just for political gain,” the president said. “People look at the border, they look at the rush to the police, they look at the rock throwers and really hurting three people, three very brave Border Patrol folks — I think that it’s a tremendous issue, but much more importantly, is really needed. So we have to have border security.” As far as he’s concerned, a shutdown over an issue this vital would be a “total winner.”

Based on history, he may be right.

Back in 2013, the last real shutdown of any consequence, Americans may have blamed the GOP for closing the door on some government departments, but “by next year’s midterms,” the Washington Post points out, Republicans actually gained power. They “expanded their majority in the House and took over the Senate.” If voters held it against the GOP for going to the mat to defund Obamacare, the Post says, they “didn’t hold it against them for long.”

Part of that may be because no one is still falling for the big shutdown myth — that Great Harm that Will Come to All People. While thousands of federal workers are furloughed, they almost always get paid later. By now, most Americans realize that “just because the government ‘shuts down’ doesn’t mean everything grinds to a halt.” As the Associated Press’s Andrew Taylor pointed out at the height of the 2011 panic, the government will never really shut down. “Social Security checks would still go out. Troops would remain at their posts… And virtually every essential government agency, like the FBI, the Border Patrol and the Coast Guard, would remain open.” The only real casualty is usually the National Park Service.

To the GOP’s credit, they already did the heavy lifting on five of the most expensive spending proposals — Defense, Labor-HHS, Education, Energy, and Veterans Affairs. That means more than 70 percent of the government’s discretionary funding is sorted out and signed into law. Of the seven remaining bills on the table, it’s mainly Homeland Security’s that’s causing all of the heartburn. As both sides will tell you, Congress has basically worked out most of its funding. Even Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said there were “very few” outstanding issues left. If leaders could come to some sort of agreement on the border wall, he thinks, the House and Senate could “wrap this up in no time.” If they can’t, it’ll be a long 14 days before Christmas.

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

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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission.

We Hear You: How to ‘Wield the Most Effective Weapon Against Tyranny’

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Editor’s note: We begin selections from the mailbag this week with a letter from a reader in Georgia that gets at why The Daily Signal exists. See for yourself. Be sure to write us at letters@dailysignal.com.—Ken McIntyre

Dear Daily Signal: Thanks to The Daily Signal and The Heritage Foundation for presenting articles such as Rob Bluey’s podcast interview with Sebastian Gorka on the threats, both foreign and domestic, to our great country (“Sebastian Gorka on the Biggest Threat Facing America and What Trump Is Doing About It”).

I have supported and will continue to support The Heritage Foundation in its efforts to wield the most effective weapon against tyranny—a well-informed electorate through education and protection of basic freedoms of speech, expression, and the press.

My dad landed on Red Beach on the Pacific atoll of Iwo Jima as a 19-year-old Marine in February 1945. Though he was wounded twice and survived for 30 days of combat before being medically evacuated, he never talked about his experience until his later days, when he realized the importance of sharing.

One day as we sat in the yard swing trying to stay comfortable in the stifling heat of a west central Georgia summer, just out of the blue, he felt compelled to share something with his 25-year-old son that I will never forget. No, it wasn’t specifically about his combat experience. It was about modern-day warfare, the combat we find ourselves locked in today.

He said: “Son, the very freedoms I risked my life to defend will slowly disappear in your lifetime.” I had no clue why he said that and what he meant by what he said. He said it most emphatically and with a tone of regret.

My dad was not the type you questioned or asked to repeat things. Even though it completely went over my head, I did not dare ask him to explain. I am 70 now and we lost dad at 88 in 2013. Yet I still hear those fateful words. Now, 50 years later, I see very clearly what he was trying to warn me about as I was engaged to be married.

Though I now see clearly the motive of his warning, he left me the tools to resist, to persevere, to triumph over the tyranny that would steal freedom from my heritage: “Pray, work hard, work honest, never give up the fight, never give in to evil. Remember that truth and good will prevail in the end.”

Thanks, Dad.—Phillip Lee White, Warm Springs, Ga.

Dear Daily Signal: Sebastian Gorka, speaking with Rob Bluey on your podcast, is absolutely correct: China is plotting to take down the U.S. economy by replacing the dollar as the international currency of trade with its own.

As part of this, the Chinese are attempting to steal technology from others to accelerate their way to worldwide hegemony. Thank God we now have a president who loves this country and is unafraid to push back against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

However, we have an equally sinister enemy within this country—the radical left. They too seek to destroy the country so they can rebuild (transform) it to enable their tyrannical control.

The extreme hatred spouted by their leadership has driven their base insane and allowed them to be taken over by evil. Yes, evil. It is why they promote and engage in violent behavior without regard to the damage they cause to either people or property.

Our government will deal with China, but the rest of us are going to have to be the tip of the spear in the battle against leftist tyranny. Our primary weapon should be the power of the ballot to drive leftists and their cohorts in the Washington establishment, which does contain Republicans, out of power.

I found it amazing that Sen. Lindsey Graham came out of his shell after the death of Sen. John McCain and during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings taught the GOP what it means to have a spine.

I for one have been getting tired of all of the milquetoasts in the GOP who appear to fear their shadows. We desperately need a few good men and women to lead the battle.—Randy Leyendecker, Kerrville, Texas

***

China and other nations may pose problems for the U.S. from time to time, as will random acts of terrorism, but we can deal with these. The real threat to America will come from within, from our own people who want to “fundamentally transform America” into something it never was and was never meant to be.

The appeal of “free stuff” is a powerful attractant. It comes from some people who come from poor or low-income families who are envious of what others have.

It also comes from some people who have been given everything they needed and wanted who believe they are entitled to things they don’t earn and now face the prospect of having to earn the things they see other people have that they want. (Oh, the horror!)

Real life scares them, and frightened people will grab on to promises of salvation (socialism) like a drowning man will grasp at a straw.

This is the real “clear and present danger” to our republic and our way of life. Socialism doesn’t bring the equality of prosperity to everyone, only the equality of misery.—Drew Page

***

Gorka says of a recent poll: “They find 42 percent of millennials would like to live in a socialist or communist America.”

Well, let’s give them the opportunity to do so, in another country. Perhaps they could observe firsthand the way I did, through military service. This has got to be the result of our failed education system and its extreme liberal bias.—Herman Mueller

Standing Firm Amid the Blows of Gender Politics

Dear Daily Signal: God bless Isabella Chow for standing for righteousness, as Rachel del Guidice reports (“Why This California College Student Is Choosing to Stand Up for Her Beliefs on Gender”). If they kick you out of your seat as a senator, Isabella, consider yourself blessed.

You shouldn’t keep casting pearls before swine. They don’t know what to do with them.—Jim Dandi

***

The left officially has become the largest hate group in U.S. history. There is no debate on this.

The “left” comprises about 25 percent of the population, and all people who do not support their (often radical) views are harassed, intimidated, and excluded.

They have become the very hate groups that they claim to have always disdained. So now we will get to see what it felt like for the Jews in Germany and for blacks in the U.S., as they confronted hate. Progressives are the new Nazis and KKK.—Anthony Alafero

***

Isabella Chow is very brave. I thank her for taking a stand for Christianity. I am sure it has cost her a great deal. Her courage is inspiring.—Helen Hunt, Columbia, Miss.

***

I am always puzzled by the decision of Christian young people and their parents to attend liberal indoctrination centers posing as institutions of higher learning.

That their core beliefs and worldview will be viciously attacked is a given constantly, until they agree to surrender them and embrace the degradation of the mob. So many better alternatives for real learning will build up faith in God and equip one for a life of service to him.—Michael Waters

***

Isabella Chow, you are an inspiration! You hang in there, and I will be praying for you.—Tonya Acre Merrill

Calling Out the Progressive Agenda

Dear Daily Signal: It is amazing that most leftists cannot explain what socialistic and democratic forms of government are, as Jarrett Stepman’s commentary suggests, nor do they realize the long-term effects of those systems (“Progressives Want to Burn Down Any Institution That Doesn’t Favor Them at the Moment”).

In conjunction with that, leftists do not understand America’s constitutional republican form of government, why it was created, how it works, the protections it offers the entire populace, and how it enhances philanthropy while supporting capitalism.

However, like any organization, it can be corrupted—when those at the higher and highest levels of our government stop working for its citizenry (the foundational mandate of our Constitution), and instead work to support their personal motives. Religion and politics should be kept out of government.

The executive branch leads. The legislative branch creates laws. The judicial branch judges, according to the Constitution. Together they govern of, for, and by the will of the people—not vice versa.—Dan Dean

***

Jarrett Stepman, you are amazing. Your journalistic viewpoints are always spot on.

The left are idiots. Sorry to be so blunt, but it’s true. They are crybabies and brats who act out every time they don’t get their own way. Why anyone pays any attention to Joy Behar or Whoopi Goldberg at all is beyond my ability to comprehend.—Tonya Acre Merrill

***

Since this is not your America, lefties, then you are welcome to leave it. I prefer the old days of law and order, which your kind is attempting to change. Don’t like the rules? Please, go find yourselves a better place to be and leave my country alone!—Donald Leegh, Augusta, Ga.

***

The left is a treasonous movement. The Democrats became a treasonous organization when they fell under the sway of a movement that rejects our system of government, its laws, and its elections.

Now their treason is coming to a head. They are engaged in a struggle for power against the government. That’s not protest. It’s not activism. The old treason of the ’60s has come of age. A civil war has begun.

This is a primal conflict between a totalitarian system and a democratic system. Its outcome will determine whether we will be a free nation or a nation of slaves.—Wes Potts

***

The sign “This is not our America” is unfortunately correct. In that light, I think that they, and all other progressives, should leave. May I suggest Wakanda? Just go to Kenya and walk west. I’m sure you’ll find it.—John Palmer

***

Just move to a country where illegal immigrants come from, leftists. Or Venezuela is up and running; go there. Leave your citizenship behind. We don’t want you back.—Suzy Jules

Defending the Peace Cross 

Dear Daily Signal: Despite the words from residents who’ve joined the suit against the Peace Cross, as Troy Worden reports, the word “offensive” is not listed in the lawsuit at all (“What Veterans Say About Effort at Supreme Court to Remove Peace Cross War Memorial”).

The issue is maintenance and upkeep of a religious symbol on public property using taxpayer dollars in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This has nothing to do with rewriting history, forgetting the past, or dishonoring veterans.

The American Humanist Association has stated that they are in favor of a memorial to honor vets as long as it doesn’t involve religious imagery. Quoting veterans is disingenuous and particularly ironic when they invoke the First Amendment.

Next time quote lawyers and constitutional scholars, people who are qualified to discuss the First Amendment and the Establishment Clause therein, for that’s the main argument against this memorial.—James Webb

***

I’d like to point out to the Supreme Court a 1892 case known as Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, which I learned about in the book “The Rebirth of America,” edited by Nancy Leigh DeMoss and published by the Arthur S. DeMoss Foundation.

The court decided then that we were emphatically a Christian-based nation. Therefore, removing this 120-year-old cross monument in Bladensburg, Maryland, would be a destruction of our historical values.

The attorneys in defense of that World War I memorial would be wise to review this book, specifically the chapter titled “One Nation Under God.” It is full of quotes by Founding Fathers and others who envisioned a nation not run by religion, but one that held the Christian faith in deep respect.—Dail F. Melton, Braselton, Ga.

***

Public property is what it says; it belongs to the republic, to everyone. Monuments should not be threatened by the someones who just want to be noticed as crusaders for something they and a few others want to force on the majority.—Henry Vance, Waynesboro, Va.

***

Look at the courthouse where the Supreme Court makes its decisions. There is a lot of symbolism there for Christianity. We have forgotten why this country was founded as people come here to live, even with different value systems.

We as a culture need to remind children of their gift of living in this county. Please let us protect our culture so that we may maintain our freedoms and worship the Lord thy God.—Barbara A. Drabek, Fort Myers, Fla.

***

Nothing in our Constitution mentions God or the Bible or Jesus Christ.

There is only one clause in our Constitution that is similar to what is written in the Bible (Article IV, Section 2). Everything else in our Constitution is not at all like anything in the Bible, and some of it directly contradicts what is in the Bible.—Alan Turner

***

Even though atheists are an increasing percentage of the population, they shouldn’t be allowed to impose their views on the rest of us.

According to a recent World Values Survey, 4.4 percent of Americans self-identified as atheists. So why should this small segment of the population have a right to take away religious symbols, when 70 percent of the population claim to hold to some form of Christianity?—Wes Potts

Democrats’ King of Election Recounts

Dear Daily Signal: Having Democratic lawyer Marc Elias anywhere near the vote gathering and counting centers is akin to allowing the fox to live in the hen house (“6 Big Election Hits by Marc Elias, Democrats’ Recount King”).

Where is the Republican lawyer who knows how to fight bare-knuckle style? We must get in the gutter where the Democrats have always stolen elections, to keep Elias and similar slimeballs at bay.—Terry Dwyer

***

One illegal vote will disenfranchise a single legal vote. Disenfranchise! One of the favorite words of Democrats everywhere.

Here’s my take: Either Democrats are too stupid to know how to vote correctly or they’re too stupid to know how to properly take custody of ballots once they are posted or received. Which is it?

If you’re this stupid, you shouldn’t be allowed to vote. If you take a test and can’t color in the box properly, your answer doesn’t count. Neither should your vote.—David Lisk

***

It has become perfectly normal since the 1990s that elections are lost and then manipulated so a recount is necessary, so the winner (almost always a conservative) becomes the loser.

This year alone, within a week, election fraud or vote manipulation has been cited in very similar circumstances in Florida, Georgia, Arizona, and Illinois.

There are other potential cases, but the closeness of those races cannot merit the same scrutiny that these do.—Ken McDonald

***

Widespread voter fraud is a lie to inspire a fear-and-outrage narrative. How many have taken even one minute to consider what the logistics of pulling it off would be, let alone no one getting caught?

Certainly among individuals caught who’re facing real prison time, many would sing like a bird for a plea deal providing proof and hard evidence.

Any actual research shows it a lie. Even The Heritage Foundation’s own data show it to be a rare occurrence and usually committed through ignorance and the occasional idiots trying manipulate some local seat.—William Robert

***

One idea to eliminate a lot of these shenanigans is to separate the accounting for the ballots from the counting of the ballots.

After all ballots are received and accounted for, then and only then does the counting begin. Sure, it will delay the process for a few days, but I’d rather wait a couple of days. We’ve already endured a year or more of campaigning, what’s a few more days?

Once all parties agree that all the ballots are in, any recount will only count those ballots, not “found” ones.—Roger Zegers

***

If you’ve watched, researched, and compared as long as I have, you know the gangsters admitted they’ve always done what needed doing for the Democrat Party. They, and movie stars, mostly donated money to the Dems.

The immoral beat goes on and on. All things are seen and known … and have their consequences. Those in charge of voting need to follow the law, and our government needs to see that they do.—Bonnie McGuire

***

Fraud, deception, activist judges, political cowardice, and failures of law enforcement. It’s all pretty disgusting and does not bode well for our once-revered republic.—Steve Fowler

The Origins of Birthright Citizenship

Dear Daily Signal: I would agree with Ed Feulner’s commentary on birthright citizenship that the intent of the authors of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment was clear in their minds and in their debates (“If Trump Ended Birthright Citizenship by Executive Order, He’d Be Enforcing Existing Law”).

Unfortunately, the language they used when they wrote the amendment does not clearly express their intentions. The Supreme Court came to that conclusion in 1898 in the case of U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark.

It doesn’t matter what Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan noted in the 19th century. It doesn’t matter what “constitutional scholar” Edward Erler said. There are lots of constitutional scholars, with lots of varying opinions.

It doesn’t matter what Matthew Spalding of Hillsdale College opined, and it does not matter what President Trump thinks, or what you or I think. It doesn’t matter what the Supreme Court justices thought in the decisions prior to that of 1898.

What does matter is the last high court decision on birthright citizenship (U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark). This decision set the precedent for determining that anyone, with a few limited exceptions, born on U.S. soil (or soil under the jurisdiction of the U.S.) is a citizen of the United States.

Was the language used in Section 1 of the 14th Amendment misinterpreted by the Supreme Court in its 6-2 decision? Possibly. Certainly the two dissenting justices thought so.

Lots of people—including current justices, former justices, constitutional scholars, and law professors—who believe that many of the court’s decisions were wrong due to “misinterpretation” of the written law.

As I see it, there are but two remedies:

1. Pass another amendment to the Constitution that more clearly defines “birthright citizenship,” and to whom it does and does not apply.

2. Let anyone born on U.S. soil who was denied birthright citizenship file suit in federal court and, if denied in court, file an appeal with the Supreme Court, which can render a decision.—Drew Page

***

We have to understand what that phrase—”subject to the jurisdiction of”—meant in 1868.—Kate Ratigan

***

I don’t believe it’s up to Congress to clarify this law. The Supreme Court should be the final say. And if the court determines that the president is right, it’s up to Congress to change it. President Trump is correct in enforcing the laws.—Wayne Mayer

Learning About the First Thanksgiving

Dear Daily Signal: What is missing from your podcast discussion of the Mayflower Compact with historian Robert Tracy McKenzie is that the compact set up a commune in which all would give whatever they raised into communal storage, from which each person had an equal draw on the resources (“Podcast: The Surprising Story of the First Thanksgiving”).

As human nature would dictate, many did not work very hard because it offered no individual reward. Some worked little at all; why work if you are to be given everything you needed?

That caused the colony to fail in spite of help from the Indians. They nearly starved to death. William Bradford then originated a new compact that gave each family a plot of land that they could work on and keep the fruits of their labor.

This was basically a case of capitalism replacing socialism/communism. It stimulated trade within the colony and with the Indians. The colony thrived under the new system and had a major banquet to honor and thank God for delivering prosperity. That was the original Thanksgiving.—Randy Leyendecker, Kerrville, Texas

***

Early American history is absolutely grand. It’s relatively recent, so in many cases we can understand with some certainty who did what when.

Today I’m grateful to be born in the U.S. and to have attended school before major and negative revisions set in. Your podcast guest, historian Robert Tracy McKenzie, might be surprised that we nonelites were taught generally right along the lines of his interpretations.

Our dinner table was filled with historical discussions about major figures and events in American history: the black, the white, and the gray. Both parents enjoyed history and read endlessly in that context. We were taught not to apply today’s mindless cultural perspectives against yesterday’s occurrences.—Samuel Mazzuchelli

***

Not to be a stickler for details, but the first Thanksgiving was in 1619 at Berkeley, Virginia. Next year will be the 400th anniversary of that Thanksgiving—Greg Knapp

***

I’m not falling for this version of the first Thanksgiving for one second. Is Robert Tracy McKenzie such a genius that all of America’s historians for the past couple-plus centuries got it wrong until he came along?

This is utter hogwash and reflects the hubris of those in academia. To me, this version is just one more effort to rewrite American history, but coming from an institution that our side, and The Daily Signal, would trust.

My suspicions were highly raised when Dr. McKenzie enlightened us with his version of why the Pilgrims came.

Could any sensible person with a modicum of wisdom believe that such puddle-deep motivations as those proposed by Dr. McKenzie prompted a band of sober-minded and grounded Christians to embark on such an arduous, perilous journey, putting themselves and their children at risk? A boat full of 16th-century adrenaline junkies, whooping it up to the New World …

This is another attempt at rewriting our magnificent history by some young punk who thinks history began at his birth. I’ll have none of it.—Jane Blacksmith

This and That

Dear Daily Signal: I am a longtime reader. I greatly appreciate the quality journalism, reporting, and commentary that The Daily Signal provides.

However, I am writing to express grave concern regarding your practice of releasing the names of suspects in mass-casualty incidents, such as in the articles “11 Dead in Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting; Gunman Faces Hate Crime Charges” and “Multiple Men Were ‘Ready to Take a Bullet for Any Single One of Us,’ Says Woman Who Survived California Shooting.”

Each time your editors allow these names to be included, they actively make the decision to contribute to the frenzy of media attention that draws other unstable individuals into committing these types of atrocities. While I expect nothing better from the mainstream media, The Daily Signal has demonstrated a commitment to a higher standard, and this practice seems a grave violation of that standard.

Perhaps there is a rationale in this decision that I am overlooking. If so, I’d appreciate an explanation.—Timothy de Laveaga, Philadelphia

Editor’s note: The Daily Signal’s policy generally is not to use a photo of the gunman or other perpetrator in such a crime, and to minimize use of his or her name in our coverage. We picked up both of the cited articles from The Daily Caller News Foundation, however, and our agreement with that organization doesn’t allow us to delete such facts. 

***

I hope President Trump will open up the report on the Steele dossier by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif. This would clear up a lot of material that seems to be always in question about how it was designed.—Adam Schwartz, Honesdale, Pa.

***

Why would businessman Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, not give that $1.8 billion to pay down the national debt instead of giving it to Johns Hopkins University? Or give it to the migrants to help them settle in Mexico. Start a fund for medical care. A college will support only the left’s agenda.—Windle White

Sarah Sleem and Troy Worden helped to compile this edition of “We Hear You.”

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Ken McIntyre

Ken McIntyre

Ken McIntyre, a 30-year veteran of national and local newspapers, serves as senior editor at The Daily Signal and The Heritage Foundation’s Marilyn and Fred Guardabassi Fellow in Media and Public Policy Studies. Send an email to Ken. Twitter: .

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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission.

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