VIDEO: The Vortex — McCarthy was right!

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TRANSCRIPT

I was talking with a priest friend the other night, and the discussion came up about various Vortex topics. He offered — correctly — that there are so many insane things going on in the Church, which then spill over into the culture, that there’s no shortage of things to talk about. That’s true.

While all of that can have the effect of depressing people because it just seems overwhelming, allow us to suggest another approach. This could be called the “Age of the Great Enlightenment,” as opposed to the phony, prior “Age of Enlightenment.” That Enlightenment, in short, was based on the false premise that religion was no longer needed and man was self-sufficient.

Entire philosophical schools arose around that foundational approach. In truth, there was nothing “enlightening” about it. In fact, like all things of the diabolical, it said one thing, but the reality was exactly the opposite. No, this current “Enlightenment” is something very different — 180 degrees different. Far from ignoring reality, this one is revealing reality — the depth of the corruption in the Church and the world.

It’s like a doctor opening up a patient complaining of some mild symptoms, only to find a huge, cancerous tumor strangling every organ. It’s a horrible thing to look at, but if the patient’s life is going to be saved, there is no choice but to stare headlong at the tumor and come to grips with what needs to be done.

Now granted, not everyone has the stomach to handle blood and gore. That’s fine — we’re all different. And looking at the massive diabolical tumor spreading throughout the Church and culture can be extremely off-putting.

But like it or not, this tumor must be looked at and understood, grasped, talked about, made known and attacked. Closing your eyes to the lies, corruption, abuse, theft, malfeasance, cowardice and so forth will not make it go away. In fact, it will only increase all that.

This is what President Trump has run headlong into in his attempt to “drain the swamp.” The swamp is a lot wider and deeper than even he realized — just like the “swamp” in the Church. But the Church swamp is deeper and darker than almost anyone wants to face.

But, what’s the alternative? To do nothing? To shoot the messenger? To behave as though all the information being surfaced is not real? We, as Catholics, have to own up to the reality that the Church and the culture have been infected with sweet poison and that poison is killing souls and civilization. That is the very top of the mountain — the big picture, the 60,000-foot view!

All the rest is merely detail, footnotes and fine distinctions. Back in the 1950s, a Catholic U.S. senator from Wisconsin, Joe McCarthy, deeply suspicious that Communist spies from the Soviet Union had penetrated various levels of the U.S. government, began a campaign to identify them. It was dubbed “the Red Scare” and resulted in congressional hearings, loads of testimony, etc.

Educational elites as well as Hollywood producers, directors and studio giants were among those labeled as “commies.” He accused the Democrats of 20 years of treason and said he had a list of over 200 names of people serving in the government who were Communist plants.

It was (eventually) the liberal media that began the derailing of McCarthy, specifically the famed CBS prima donna Edward R. Murrow, who, in 1954, began a series of reports hammering McCarthy. Back then, the media was actually trusted. Fast forward 35 years to the collapse of the old Soviet Union and the exposing of the KGB files. (The KGB was the secret police and spy agency of the former communist nation.)

It turns out, as revealed in those files, that a project called the “Venona Project” proved what McCarthy had been saying all along. The only thing he got wrong was the number of spies and subversives. He had undercounted them. There were far more than he had known about.

So look around today and ask yourself, “The educational elites, Hollywood, a large percentage of political leaders — are these people Marxists? Have they infected the institutions as part of a master strategy to destroy Western civilization?”

The answer is obvious, but the proposition is incomplete. It’s not just academia, Hollywood and Congress, but also the law schools, along with the courts and most especially, the media — and most importantly, the Church. McCarthy was right; he just didn’t go far enough.

A major aim of the Marxist subversion was not necessarily to co-opt the Church (although in many ways that has happened) but, at a minimum, just to neutralize it — take it out of the game. Mission accomplished.

Through a succession of unfaithful men — many sexually active homosexuals, or at least sympathetic and silent — the Church has become irrelevant in any modern-day calculus for the culture at large. The U.S. hierarchy is little else than a bunch of feckless, money-grabbing men either unaware of their own cowardice or complicit in the cultural destruction.

What’s left of the Church in the United States is little else than a small band — maybe a few million scattered about the country — who still live trying to be faithful to the Church’s teachings, with all the sacrifice that entails. They have been abandoned by their spiritual fathers, just as children have been abandoned by their biological fathers.

The only time the bishops (collectively) even give a nod to the faithful is when the annual fundraising campaign kicks in. They are exploited and de-formed and left to fend for themselves otherwise. They are exposed to the vilest of men (many in collars or miters) preaching spiritual poison wrapped up in nice-sounding platitudes like “We have a reasonable hope all men are saved,” or “God would never throw a soul into Hell,” or “God understands” — which is meant to convey, without actually saying it, not that God doesn’t understand your weakness or sin (which, of course, He does) but that He actually approves of it.

So back to the opening point: Why is it bad to understand that this is the lay of the land — that this is the tumor infecting the body and leading it to death? Yes, it’s horrible. It’s awful. It’s frightening. It’s scary. And … so what? That’s what evil is — all of the above and more.

McCarthy was right. But more importantly, Our Blessed Lord was right.

EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant video is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Lt. Col. Allen West Elected Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas

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AUSTIN, Texas /PRNewswire/ — Following a tumultuous convention, Lt. Col. (Ret.) Allen West has been elected Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas. He will immediately assume the responsibilities of the role and begin to implement his strategy to hold Texas.

“I am honored and privileged that Republicans of Texas have selected me to Chair their party and to be at the helm during this coming election cycle,” declared Allen West. “We need to focus on maintaining the conservative policies that made Texas strong and drive voter outreach across the state.”

By electing Allen West, the Republican Party of Texas has shown that a new direction is here. The grassroots will no longer let watered down conservatism be the guiding light. The focus on conservative principles and expanding the tent of the party is the future.

Chairman West also extends an invitation to Gilberto Hinojosa, the current Chairman of the Democrat Party of Texas, to a debate where they can educate the public on key policy differences between the parties. Additionally, Allen will be traveling to the Rio Grande Valley next week to meet with local officials and leaders. Over the next few months, Chairman West will be all over the state of Texas to rally the base and spread the conservative message to new voters.

Learn more about Allen West, his campaign, and how to keep Texas red by visiting www.west4texas.com.

SOURCE: West4Texas

©All rights reserved.

WATCH Joe Biden speaks to Million Muslim Votes Summit: “I wish we taught more in our schools about the Islamic faith.”

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As if there wasn’t enough proselytizing, obfuscating and dissembling about Islam to American school children.

Can you imagine if any politician, let alone a Presidential candidate suggested with teach more Judaism or Christianity in the public schools. All hell would break loose.

“Hadith from the Prophet Muhammad instructs, ‘Whomever among you sees a wrong, let him change it with his hand. If he is not able, then with his tongue. If he is not able, then with his heart.’” Joe Biden

Biden wishes American schools ‘taught more’ about Islamic faith

by Naomi Lim, Political Reporter | Washington Examiner | July 20, 2020:

Joe Biden lamented the lack of Islamic education in American school curricula at a Muslim voter outreach forum.

“I wish we taught more in our schools about the Islamic faith. I wish we talked about all the great confessional faiths. It’s one of the great confessional faiths,” Biden said Monday.

Biden, the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee and two-term vice president, told Emgage Action’s Million Muslim Votes Summit that he would end President Trump’s “vile” travel ban targeting Muslim nations on the first day of his administration should he win the White House in 100 days on Nov. 3.

The 36-year Delaware senator added that he would work with Congress to pass anti-hate-crime legislation and reiterated his support of a two-state solution in the Middle East.

“I’ll continue to champion the rights of Palestinians and Israelis to have a state of their own — as I have for decades. Each of them, a state of their own,” he said.

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

Republican Senate panel seeking subpoenas in Biden, Ukraine Burisma probe

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The effort to seek subpoenas appears to be intensifying after panel’s unsuccessful attempts to get voluntary testimony.

So what took so long?

Republican Senate panel seeking subpoenas in Biden, Ukraine Burisma probe

The effort to seek subpoenas appears to be intensifying after panel’s unsuccessful attempts to get voluntary testimony

By: Joseph Weber, Just The News, July 2020:

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson is considering subpoenas to get testimony regarding his probe into the connection between the Ukraine gas company Burisma and Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, is considering subpoenas for current and former Joe Biden advisers because they won’t comply with his request for them to give voluntary depositions, as reported by Politico. 

Republicans’ focus on Biden and his son has intensified as Election Day 2020 is now about 100 days away.

GOP leaders and others want to know more about the relationship between Burisma and Blue Star Strategies, a Democratic public affairs firm that did consulting work for the gas company, for which Hunter Biden was a board member.

Blue Star reportedly wanted to leverage Hunter Biden’s board membership to get a meeting at the State Department under the Obama administration, for which Joe Biden was the vice president.

The Bidens have denied wrongdoings.

Johnson, Wisconsin, is seeking testimony from former Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a senior foreign policy adviser on Biden’s campaign; former special envoy for International Energy Amos Hochstein; and former senior State Department officials Victoria Nuland and Catherine Novelli, according to Politico.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Primary Subsource’s’ for Bogus Russia Dossier: Igor Danchenko – Soros Connected Associate of Lying Schiff Star Witness Fiona Hill

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

PODCAST: How is the Fight for Florida Shaping Up?

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It’s time for me to begin making preparations to do my annual statistical analysis on voting in Florida. This is when I dust off my spreadsheets and ready myself for the influx of voting data from the state. August 18th is the Florida Primary, and early voting for it is August 8th – 15th. As I’m sure you are aware, Florida is a swing state, just as it was in 2016.

In preparation for the primary, I wanted to check on registration by party affiliation to get a sense of who will be voting in the Fall. Not long ago (June 16th) I read a report titled, “Florida Among Group of States Seeing Decline in Voter Registration.” I would really like to know how the reporter came to this conclusion as I found just the opposite, as there are more people registered as of today than in all of 2016.

As usual, I visited the web site of the Florida Division of Elections (under the Secretary of State), which is the agency charged with maintaining such data. Here is what I found:

GOP DEM INDEPENDENT  
2020 4,851,116 5,127,920 3,595,208 as of April 30th
2016 4,577,406 4,914,593 3,129,277 Total
+6% +4% +15%

Note: The registration deadline to vote in the Florida primary ended yesterday (July 20th) and I do not yet have the final numbers.

The data reveals an upswing in registration by Republicans (up 6%), the Democrats (up 4%), and Independents (up a whopping 15%). Similarly, my county (Pinellas) is also showing a slight upswing in registration by both parties.

From studying the data, I can make the following observations:

  • Even though Republicans were behind the Democrats in terms of 2016 registrations, the state went to Donald Trump for two reasons; first, actual voting by Democrats lagged behind Republicans, and; second, Mr. Trump won the vote of the Independents.
  • Today, both parties are making gains over 2016 and will likely set new records in voting, but the biggest increase is that of Independents. The big question in 2020 is, “Will the Independents still support President Trump?” The Democrats say No, but I believe otherwise. In 2016, they went with Mr. Trump as they knew the nation’s capitol is broken and, instead of electing another politician, they gave an outsider a try. To his credit, the president kept many of his campaign promises, including moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, exterminating ISIS, energy independence, reducing government bureaucracy thereby allowing America to go back to work in record numbers, and, an overall improvement in the economy.
  • In 2020 though, the Independents are fed up with the helter-skelter of the congressional Democrats, and the hate emanating from the far-Left anarchists, including an attempted elimination of our history and sweeping changes to our culture. Independents will likely say, “Enough is enough!” at the ballot box. In other words, the Silent Majority, which includes Independents, will carry the day.
  • Next, the press contends Republicans are gravitating away from Mr. Trump and turning to former VP Joe Biden. I hear just the opposite; moderate Democrats have had it with the socialist agenda of the far-Left and have no faith in Mr. Biden’s abilities to govern. I have personally heard this on multiple occasions from older Democrats who would like to see the party turn the clock back to the 20th century.
  • The last thing I learned from studying this, is how wrong the “Fake News” can be. Finding the actual data from the State is incredibly easy, so why does the reporter in the article claim Florida is “experiencing a major decline in new voter registration numbers compared to this time in 2016.” This is just plain sloppy reporting. It also means “Fake News” is still alive and well in the Tampa Bay area, as well as across the United States. This is why we created “Tampa Bay Conservatives” (TBC) web site to report REAL news. The site can be found at: TBCtampa.com

So, how is Florida shaping up for the 2020 election? If the Republicans and Independents continue making gains in registration, President Trump should have no problem in being re-elected. And as Florida goes, so goes the country.

Keep the Faith!

P.S. – Also, I have a NEW book, “Before You Vote: Know How Your Government Works”, What American youth should know about government, available in Printed, PDF and eBook form. This is the perfect gift for youth!

EDITORS NOTE: This Bryce is Right podcast is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. All trademarks both marked and unmarked belong to their respective companies.

11 Incidents in Which Lawful Gun Owners Made a Difference

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As the Supreme Court continued its decadelong silence in protecting the Second Amendment, Americans last month nevertheless proved that they understand the importance of the right to keep and bear arms.

The FBI conducted a record-high 3.9 million background checks for firearms sales and transfers in June. The previous record of 3.7 million was set just this past March.

It is little surprise that, during these difficult and uncertain times, many Americans who never before considered the prospect of gun ownership are coming to appreciate their Second Amendment rights. Even in “normal” times, Americans often rely on their firearms to protect themselves and others.

According to a 2013 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost every major study on the issue has found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times a year. There’s good reason to believe that most of these defensive gun uses never are reported to police, much less make the local or national news.

Two regimes are fighting an ideological war in America today. But what side are you on? And how can you sharpen up on how to defend your position? Learn more now >>

For this reason, The Daily Signal each month publishes an article detailing some of the previous month’s many news stories on defensive gun use that you may have missed—or that might not have made it to the national spotlight in the first place. (Read accounts from 2019 and 2020 here).

The following examples of defensive gun use represent only a small portion of the stories we found in June. You can explore more examples in The Heritage Foundation’s interactive Defensive Gun Use Database.

  • June 1, Edinburg, Virginia: A Virginia pastor drew his handgun to protect himself from five trespassers who assaulted him on his property. Police said the pastor had noticed two of them apparently disposing of large items illegally in a dumpster at an apartment complex he owns, and asked the two to leave. They became angry and returned with three others, surrounding the pastor. The five threatened him with racial slurs, and one head-butted him. The pastor defended himself with his handgun and called 911. After an unfortunate mix-up in which police initially detained the pastor, officers arrested the threatening individuals and charged them with hate crimes.
  • June 4, Gustavus, Ohio: A homeowner spotted a man underneath a car in his driveway late at night, and grabbed a shotgun to confront him. The man, who police suspect was trying to steal car parts, rushed at the homeowner, who shot and wounded him. Investigators later discovered that the would-be thief possessed several power tools and had put a jack under the homeowner’s car.
  • June 5, Dudley Shoals, North Carolina: When two armed men tried to rob a convenience store, the clerk drew his own gun and fired at them until they fled. The store’s security camera captured the drama, police said.   
  • June 6, Lake Elsinore, California: A store owner intervened with his firearm to protect a woman from an assailant, police said. The store owner had seen the man punch and kick the woman. The attacker left when the store owner attempted to stop him, but returned minutes later holding a metal object. When the store owner stood between the man and the woman, the assailant pushed him to the ground and began to beat the woman again. The store owner retrieved his firearm and shot the man, who fled. Police later arrested him.  
  • June 13, Ogden, Utah: A vengeful ex-boyfriend drove to the residence of his former girlfriend shared with her new boyfriend and, after an argument, opened fire on them. The woman, who police said was the past victim of domestic violence by him, drew her own handgun and fired in self-defense. Police later arrested the man and charged him with numerous felonies.
  • June 14, Rome, New York:  A good Samaritan with a shotgun came to his neighbors’ rescue when he realized their apartment had been broken into by an armed intruder, police said. The intruder entered through a bedroom window and pistol-whipped a woman. The neighbor went into the apartment and fired at the intruder, who fled.
  • June 16, Delta Township, Michigan: A concealed-carry permit holder intervened to defend himself and other motorists when a mentally distressed man began firing a handgun at cars on a highway. Emergency dispatchers received at least 10 calls about the man before he jumped in front of the permit holder’s car and pointed a gun at him, police said. The permit holder, who had been on his way to enjoy a round of golf, shot and killed the man.   
  • June 20, Turner, Maine: A homeowner held two suspected burglars at gunpoint until law enforcement could arrive and arrest them. The homeowner, who had noticed a back door was forced open and a lock ripped off, saw the two leaving the residence with items in their hands. He drew his handgun, detained them, and called police.
  • June 23, Spokane, Washington:  An armed mother used her firearm to protect her teenage son after a meet-up to buy a cellphone turned into an attempted robbery. Her son had agreed to meet the[MK1]  sellers in a grocery store parking lot, but the cellphone was not as advertised. When he declined to buy it, the men assaulted the teen and tried to take money from his pocket. Police said the boy’s mother, who had parked nearby, saw what was happening, drew her firearm, and fired at the men—who promptly got into their vehicle and fled.
  • June 27, Louisville, Kentucky: When a man opened fire on a crowd protesting the police shooting of Breonna Taylor in her apartment, armed bystanders fired back, wounding the shooter. Eventually, several protesters were able to hold the shooter at gunpoint and convince him to drop his weapon. Police said the shooter had been arrested twice in previous weeks on riot-related charges. Earlier that day, other protesters had asked the man to leave because of his “disruptive behavior.”
  • June 29, North Freedom, Wisconsin: Parents shot their adult son in self-defense after he fired rounds at their home and broke in during the early morning hours.  Police said the parents called 911 to report that someone was shooting at their bedroom windows. They attempted to retreat to the basement when their son entered the home, but ultimately shot and wounded him. Police charged the son with attempted murder and other felonies. He already was facing charges for other violent offenses.

Sometimes, lawful gun owners get it wrong and end up in the national news for using their guns irresponsibly. But more often, they get it right and few of us hear about it.

Many of us don’t hear about mothers defending their sons, or good Samaritans coming to the rescue of innocent neighbors.

Many of us don’t hear about the protesters whose Second Amendment rights saved the lives of those exercising their First Amendment rights.

Many of us don’t hear about the countless others whose lives and livelihoods were protected because of lawfully owned firearms in the hands of law-abiding citizens.

As the silence from the Supreme Court reaches deafening levels, we promise to keep telling these stories and highlighting the importance of protecting the right to keep and bear arms.

COMMENTARY BY

Amy Swearer

Amy Swearer is a senior legal policy analyst at the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Twitter: .

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In America, the System Trends Toward Justice

These are trying times in our nation’s history. Two regimes are fighting an ideological war in America today, with polar opposite viewpoints on public policy and the government’s role in our lives.

Our friends at The Heritage Foundation asked world-class speaker, educator, and researcher David Azerrad to walk you through his research and outline the differences between the “two regimes” in our society today—conservatism and progressivism—and their primary differences.

When you get access to this course today, you’ll learn key takeaways like what it means to be a conservative, what “modern progressivism” is, how a conservative worldview differs from a progressive one, and much, much more.

You will come away from this online course with a better understanding of the differing points of view, how they align with your principles, and how to defend your beliefs.

Don’t wait—start taking “The Case for Conservatism” course online now.

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

Vandalizing American History: A List of 64 Toppled, Defaced, or Removed Statues

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The list of American statues and other monuments that have been toppled, decapitated, defaced, or removed since the May 25 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis grew longer almost daily through June and into July.

A mob cheered as it pulled down a statue of Christopher Columbus in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In Washington, D.C., rioters used ropes to tear down a bronze depiction of Albert Pike, a Confederate general, and then set the 11-foot statue on fire.

Vandals have not discriminated among the monuments they target, defacing statues of Confederate and Union soldiers alike, and going after those that have no association with racism, such as an 120-year-old statue of an elk in Portland, Oregon.

Vandals defaced—and/or officials removed—at least four statues and monuments in each of three states: Alabama, New York, and Texas. Five such incidents occurred in North Carolina, nine in California, and 11 in Virginia.

Two regimes are fighting an ideological war in America today. But what side are you on? And how can you sharpen up on how to defend your position? Learn more now >>

Here is a list of 64 statues and other monuments vandalized or removed since May 30, according to news reports. The list may not be complete, so numerous are the incidents.

1. May 30: Edward Carmack, Tennessee 

Rioters pulled down a statue in Nashville, Tennessee, depicting 19th-century newspaper editor Edward Carmack. According to the Tennessee State Museum, Carmack criticized Ida B. Wells, an African American journalist and civil rights advocate who wrote against racial injustice.

2. May 30: Confederate monument, Mississippi

Vandals painted red handprints on the University of Mississippi’s Confederate monument in Oxford, Mississippi, along with the words “spiritual genocide.”

3. May 31: Charles Linn, Alabama 

A mob toppled a statue of Charles Linn, a Confederate navy captain who was one of the founders of Birmingham, Alabama. The vandals set afire and defaced the depiction of Linn once it was on the ground.

4. June 1: Gen. Robert E. Lee, Alabama 

Police arrested and charged three men and one woman in connection with toppling a statue of Robert E. Lee outside a high school in Montgomery, Alabama, that bears the name of the celebrated Confederate general. Authorities dropped charges of first-degree criminal mischief against all four June 11.

5. June 2: Gen. Robert E. Lee, Maryland 

Someone applied graffiti to deface the plaque in front of the statue of Lee at Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Maryland.

6. June 2: “Appomattox,” Virginia

The United Daughters of the Confederacy removed the “Appomattox” statue in Alexandria depicting a lone soldier to commemorate all of the city’s Confederate soldiers. The bronze statue had stood in Old Town Alexandria since 1899.

7. June 3: Confederate Cemetery, South Carolina

A vandal or vandals defaced a Confederate monument at a cemetery in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, by painting a swastika, the letter “X,” and the letters “USA” on it.

8. June 3: Mayor Frank Rizzo, Pennsylvania 

Workers removed a statue of Frank Rizzo, the Democratic mayor of Philadelphia in the 1970s, from the steps of the Municipal Services Building. Someone had spray-painted the bronze statue of Rizzo, also a former Philadelphia police chief. Rizzo allowed violence against black Americans while mayor from 1972 to 1980, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

9. June 4: Gen. Robert E. Lee, Virginia 

A judge blocked the efforts of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, to remove a 60-foot statue of Lee from Monument Avenue in Richmond. Vandals had covered the statue in graffiti, and its location has been the site of numerous protests since Floyd’s death.

10. June 5: Orville Hubbard, Michigan 

Officials in Dearborn, Michigan, removed a statue of Orville Hubbard, the city’s mayor from 1942 to 1978. Hubbard was a firm advocate of racial segregation, accrding to the Detroit Historical Society. The family of the late mayor now possesses the statue, which had stood outside the Dearborn Historical Museum.

11. June 5: Adm. Raphael Semmes, Alabama

Crews removed a statue of Raphael Semmes, an admiral in the Confederate navy, in downtown Mobile, Alabama. “Moving this statue will not change the past. It is about removing a potential distraction so we may focus clearly on the future of our city,” Mayor Sandy Stimpson, a Republican, said.

12. June 6: Williams Carter Wickham, Virginia 

Demonstrators toppled a statue of Williams Carter Wickham, a Confederate general, in Richmond’s Monroe Park. Graffiti reading “BLM” (an acronym for Black Lives Matter) covered the base of the statue, which had stood in the park since 1891.

13. June 8: Confederate monument, Virginia 

Rioters littered a Confederate monument in Norfolk,  Virginia, with toilet paper and graffiti, including the letters “BLM.” City officials said they planned to remove the monument.

14. June 8: Confederate monument, Indiana 

Indianapolis city workers removed a monument dedicated to Confederate soldiers who died in a Union prison camp in Indianapolis during the Civil War. “We must name these instances of discrimination and never forget our past—but we should not honor them,” Mayor Joe Hogsett, a Democrat, said.

15. June 8: John Breckinridge Castleman, Kentucky 

City crews in Louisville, Kentucky, removed a statue of John Breckinridge Castleman, a Confederate officer, from the center of the Cherokee Triangle neighborhood. Castleman became a brigadier general in the U.S. Army after the Civil War and was instrumental in setting up Louisville’s segregated park system, The Courier-Journal reported. Officials planned to move the statue to Cave Hill Cemetery, where Castleman is buried.

16. June 8: Confederate monument, North Carolina 

The City Council of Rocky Mount, North Carolina, approved removal of a Confederate monument featuring a soldier standing atop a tall pillar.

17. June 8: Confederate statue, Florida

Crews removed a statue of a Confederate soldier from Hemming Park in Jacksonville, Florida. “We’ve got to find a way to come together,” Mayor Lenny Curry, a Republican, said the next day. “We’re not going to agree on everything—that’s just not human history, human nature. We’ve got to find common ground.”

18. June 9: Lawrence Sullivan Ross, Texas

A man spray-painted the word “racist” and the acronyms “BLM” and “ACAB” (an acronym for “All Cops Are Bastards”) on a statue of Lawrence Sullivan Ross, a Confederate general, on the Texas A&M campus in College Station. The man also placed a rainbow wig on the statue’s head.

19. June 9: Confederate monument, Texas

A small group of demonstrators used black spray paint to cover a plaque at a monument reading “In memory of our Confederate patriots 1861-1865,” outside the Walker County Courthouse in Huntsville, Texas.

20. Early June: Matthias Baldwin, Pennsylvania

Vandals defaced a statue of inventor, manufacturer, and abolitionist Matthias Baldwin in Philadelphia with graffiti reading “COLONIZER” and “MURDERER” on an unknown date in early June. They also covered the face of the statue with red paint.

21. June 10: Jefferson Davis, Virginia 

Demonstrators used ropes to pull down a statue of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, in Richmond, Virginia, which was the capital of the Confederate States of America. The bronze depiction of Davis originally was placed along Monument Avenue in 1907.

22. June 10: Confederate monument, Virginia 

A large crowd beheaded statues of four Confederate soldiers, all part of the same monument, in Portsmouth, Virginia. Rioters covered the monument with graffiti and pulled down one figure, which hit a man in the head, landing him in a hospital.

23. June 10: Christopher Columbus, Massachusetts

Vandals beheaded the statue of Columbus in Boston’s North End, prompting the city to remove it. Vandals previously had defaced the statue with paint in 2015 and beheaded it in 2006.

24. June 10: Christopher Columbus, Virginia

Rioters pulled down the statue of Columbus that had stood in Richmond, Virginia, since 1927. They placed a burning American flag on top of the statue before throwing it into a nearby lake.

25. June 10: Christopher Columbus, Minnesota

Protesters gathered outside the Minnesota State Capitol in Saint Paul used rope to pull down a 10-foot bronze statue of Columbus.

26. June 10: Christopher Columbus, Florida 

Rioters spray-painted black-power fists, a hammer and sickle, and the initials BLM over a plaque beneath the statue of Columbus in Miami. They also covered the statue’s face and hands in red paint. Police arrested seven suspects shortly afterward.

27. June 10: Juan Ponce de León, Florida 

Vandals spray-painted a statue of Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León in Bayfront Park, the same Miami park where someone defaced the Columbus statue. Authorities said a protest began peacefully, but quickly grew violent.

28. June 10: Confederate monument, Alabama 

The Madison County Commission voted to remove a Confederate monument outside the courthouse in downtown Huntsville, Alabama.

29. June 11: Don Juan de Oñate, Texas 

Vandals spray-painted obscenities and other words on a sculpture of Spanish conquistador Don Juan de Oñate outside El Paso International Airport in Texas.

30. June 11: “One Riot, One Ranger,” Texas

A city work crew removed a statue of a Texas Ranger entitled “One Riot, One Ranger” that had stood at Love Field airport in Dallas since 1963.

30. June 11: Philip Schuyler, New York 

Officials decided to remove a statue of Philip Schuyler, a Revolutionary War general, from in front of Albany City Hall. In a tweet, Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan, a Democrat, said Schuyler reportedly was “the largest owner of enslaved people in Albany during his time.”

32. June 12: Christopher Columbus, Pennsylvania

Vandals defaced the base of a Columbus statue with red handprints and graffiti reading “MURDER” and “OG PIG” in Pittsburgh’s Schenley Park. The incident marked the third time the statue has been defaced in recent years.

33. June 13: Christopher Columbus, Rhode Island

Workers removed a statue of Columbus in Providence, Rhode Island, after rioters splashed red paint across it and hung a sign reading, “STOP CELEBRATING GENOCIDE.” The city officials were determining whether they would relocate the statue.

34. June 13: Christopher Columbus, Illinois 

A vandal or vandals spray-painted the acronym BLM on a statue of Columbus on Chicago’s Museum Campus.

35. June 14: George Washington, Illinois 

Vandals defaced a statue of the Founding Father and first president in Washington Park, covering the base in red spray paint reading “SLAVE OWNER” and “GOD BLESS AMERIKKKA.” The perpetrators also placed a white gown and hood on the sculpture.

36. June 14: John Greenleaf Whittier, California 

A vandal or vandals spray-painted a statue of 19th-century Quaker poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier in the city named after him, writing “BLM” and “— Slave Owners” on it.  Whittier was a delegate to the first meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Convention, the Whittier Daily News reported.

37. June 15: Don Juan de Oñate, New Mexico

Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, a Democrat, announced the removal of a statue of Spanish conquistador Don Juan de Oñate after the shooting of a man during rival protests around it. The next day, crews removed the statue from outside Albuquerque Museum.

38. June 15: John Sutter, California 

Workers removed a bronze depiction of California settler and businessman John Sutter from Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento after vandals defaced it with graffiti. Sutter abused and enslaved Native Americans in the 1840s, according to HistoryNet.

39. June 16: Howitzer Monument, Virginia 

Rioters toppled Richmond’s Howitzer Monument and littered it with graffiti. The monument, built in 1892, commemorates a Confederate artillery unit known as the Howitzers, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

40. June 19: Francis Scott Key, California 

Rioters toppled a statue of Francis Scott Key, author of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” on the day known as Juneteenth, which commemorates the day in 1865 that slaves in Texas learned Lincoln had freed them a year and a half earlier.

41. June 19: St. Junipero Serra, California  

A mob pulled down a statue of St. Junipero Serra, an 18th-century Roman Catholic priest and missionary, that had stood in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park for over a century. Some sources say the Spanish missionary abused Native Americans on the West Coast and subjected them to forced labor.

42. June 19: Ulysses S. Grant, California

Rioters toppled a bust of Ulysses S. Grant, the Union general and later president who played an integral role in ending slavery in America. A crowd of 400 gathered and watched in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park as vandals pulled down the monument. Police were present, but made no arrests.

43. June 19: Albert Pike, District of Columbia

A crowd cheered as rioters toppled a statue of Albert Pike, apparently the only Confederate statue in Washington, D.C. The group gathered around the fallen statue shouting, “Black lives matter” before setting it on fire with lighter fluid.

44. June 19: Confederate monument, North Carolina

Demonstrators pulled down statues of two Confederate soldiers from a monument just outside the State Capitol in Raleigh. They dragged a bronze depiction of a cavalryman down the road with a rope around its neck and hung the statue from a lightpost. They dragged the statue of an artilleryman to the front of the Wake County Courthouse. Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, ordered work crews to remove what was left of the monument.

45. June 20: Henry Lawson Wyatt, North Carolina

Crews removed a statue of Henry Lawson Wyatt, believed to be the first Confederate soldier killed at the start of the Civil War, from its location in Raleigh. Gov. Roy Cooper ordered the statue removed in the interest of public safety.

46. June 20: Women of the Confederacy, North Carolina

By the governor’s order, workers removed a monument dedicated to the women of North Carolina who lived during the Civil War.

47. June 20: St. Junipero Serra, California 

A crowd shouted “Take it down! Take it down!” as rioters toppled a bronze depiction of St. Junipero Serra in Father Serra Park in downtown LA. The Los Angeles Times reported that Native Americans of various ages gathered around the face-down statue as some doused it with red paint.

48. June 22: Andrew Jackson, District of Columbia

Rioters attempted to tear down a statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square near the White House, but police intervened. Vandals did succeed in defacing the base of the statue with graffiti reading “KILLER” and “RACIST SCUM,” among other things. The Justice Department on July 2 charged four men with defacing the statue, including a man identified as a ringleader.

49. June 24: John C. Calhoun, South Carolina 

Workers removed a statue of former Vice President John C. Calhoun from Marion Square in Charleston. The City Council had voted unanimously June 23 to remove the statue.

50. June 29: George Washington, New York 

A man and a woman threw balloons filled with red paint on two statues of Washington that stand on either side of the famed arch at Washington Square Park in Manhattan. One depicts Washington as president, the other as a Revolutionary War general.

51. June 30: Lincoln Emancipation Statue, Massachusetts

Boston’s Art Commission voted to remove a statue of President Abraham Lincoln holding the Emancipation Proclamation while a freed slave rises from a kneeling position with broken shackles on his wrists. Citizens began a petition drive to keep the statue at its Park Square location.

52. June 30: New York City Hall, New York 

Rioters used black spray paint and tape to deface statues of three figures standing on the side of New York City Hall in Manhattan. On and around the statues, they wrote phrases such as “ALL COPS LIE,” “You f— a— cops are getting abolished,” and “NO JUSTICE NO PEACE.”

53. July 1: Elk statue, Oregon 

A mob set fire to an iconic, 120-year-old statue of an elk atop a fountain in Portland, which also had been covered with graffiti in recent weeks. The city removed the statue the next day, citing safety concerns.

54. July 2: Matthew Fontaine Maury, Virginia

Work crews in Richmond removed a graffiti-covered statue of Matthew Fontaine Maury, a Confederate naval officer during the Civil War who is more broadly known as the “Father of Oceanography.”

55. July 4: St. Junipero Serra, California 

Rioters toppled and set fire to a statue of St. Junipero Serra, an 18th-century Roman Catholic priest, outside the California State Capitol in Sacramento. They also pounded the statue with sledgehammers.

56. July 4: Christopher Columbus, Connecticut

Someone decapitated a statue of Columbus outside Waterbury City Hall.

57. July 4: “El Soldado,” California 

Someone spray-painted the words “F— Colonizers” on the base of a statue honoring Mexican-American soldiers in Sacramento. The act was a “hate crime,” Chris Marzan, spokesman for the California Mexican American Veterans Memorial Foundation, said.

58. July 4: Christopher Columbus, Maryland 

Rioters toppled a white marble statue of Columbus and threw it into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Crews lifted the remains of the sculpture from the water the following Monday.

59. July 5: Frederick Douglass, New York 

Someone ripped a statue of Frederick Douglass from its base in Rochester on the 168th anniversary of the celebrated abolitionist’s famous speech there titled “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” The statue suffered significant damage, authorities said.

60. July 7: Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, Virginia 

Workers used a crane to remove a statue of J.E.B. Stuart, Confederate general, from Richmond’s Monument Avenue. Rioters had spray-painted the bronze monument of the general atop a horse.

61. July 7: Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella, California

Crews removed a statue known as “Columbus’ Last Appeal to Queen Isabella” from the rotunda of the State Capitol in Sacramento. The sculpture had been on display since 1883.

62. July 7: Confederate monument, North Carolina 

Police arrested three suspects in connection with the vandalism with graffiti of a 111-year-old Confederate monument in front of a United Methodist church in Cornelius.

63. July 8: Confederate Soldiers and Sailors, Virginia 

Workers removed a 100-foot monument known as “Confederate Soldiers and Sailors” from Libby Hill Park in Richmond. Vandals had covered the base of the monument—featuring a Confederate soldier atop a pillar—with graffiti.

64. July 11: The Virgin Mary, Massachusetts 

Someone set fire to artificial flowers in the hand of a statue of the Virgin Mary at Saint Peter’s Parish Church in Dorchester. Flames charred the statue’s face and upper body.

COLUMN BY

Virginia Allen

Virginia Allen is a news producer for The Daily Signal. She is the co-host of The Daily Signal Podcast and Problematic Women. Send an email to Virginia. Twitter: @Virginia_Allen5.

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A Note for our Readers:

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When you get access to this course today, you’ll learn key takeaways like what it means to be a conservative, what “modern progressivism” is, how a conservative worldview differs from a progressive one, and much, much more.

You will come away from this online course with a better understanding of the differing points of view, how they align with your principles, and how to defend your beliefs.

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

NEW YORK CITY: “IDOL” painted on 100-year-old statue of Virgin Mary

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Leftists have been indulging in an orgy of destroying statues lately, but their favored graffiti for statues is “RACIST” and the like, not “IDOL.” A Leftist may have done this, or conceivably some fanatical Protestant, although that is extremely unlikely. But could it have anything to do with the introduction into Miami of a large population of people who believe that Christianity is a false, indeed idolatrous, religion, and that they are commanded to fight unbelievers so that Allah may punish them by the hands of the believers (cf. Qur’an 9:14-15)?

Could it have anything to do with the Qur’an’s suggestion that the destroyed remnants of ancient non-Muslim civilizations are a sign of Allah’s punishment of those who rejected his truth? “Many were the Ways of Life that have passed away before you: travel through the earth, and see what was the end of those who rejected Truth.” (Qur’an 3:137) The ruins of non-Muslim civilizations thus bear witness to the truth of Islam. What ensues from that idea? The creation of more ruins.

Watch the video. Is the perpetrator wearing a robe or thobe? Or is this the work of a Leftist who is unwittingly (or knowingly) advancing the same agenda as that of the Islamic State and the Taliban?

“Vandals Allegedly Target Statues of the Virgin Mary in Boston, Queens,” by Amy Furr, Breitbart, July 12, 2020 (thanks to the Geller Report):

Two statues of the Virgin Mary were reportedly vandalized over the weekend in Boston, Massachusetts, and Queens, New York.

At around 10:00 p.m. Saturday, officers responded to a call about a fire in the area of 284 Bowdoin Street in Dorchester, the Boston Police Department said in a Facebook post.

“On arrival at Saint Peter’s Parish Church, officers observed a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary which had been set on fire,” the department noted…

In a similar instance on Friday, the Diocese of Brooklyn said the New York City Police Department (NYPD) was investigating the vandalization of another statue of the Virgin Mary at the Cathedral Prep School and Seminary in Queens.

“Security footage shows an individual approaching the 100-year-old statue shortly after 3 a.m. Friday morning and daubing the word ‘IDOL’ down its length,” the Catholic News Agency (CNA) reported.

Friday, the Brooklyn Diocese Press Office tweeted video footage of the alleged incident:

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

Nearly 50% Of Americans Believe Mail-In Voting Is Vulnerable To Significant Levels Of Fraud: Poll

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Nearly 50% of American voters believe mail-in voting is likely to result in significant fraud as officials search for ways to secure the electoral system amid the coronavirus pandemic, a Washington Post/ABC poll published Sunday found.

Only 43% of people surveyed in the poll think there are adequate protections against potential instances of fraud. The WaPo/ABC poll also showed that 38% of Americans say they prefer to vote through mail, while another 59% want to vote in person.

By contrast, 24% of Americans voted by mail in 2016, ABC reported, citing data from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

The poll, conducted between July 12-15, randomly sampled 1,006 adults and carries a partisan divide of 30-24-39% for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, respectively. It has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.

Voters’ concerns appear to mirror those expressed by President Donald Trump in recent months. Twitter flagged one of the president’s tweets for suggesting in May that California’s mail-in ballots will be “substantially fraudulent.”

The WaPo/ABC poll also show Vice President Joe Biden making major gains as the pandemic surges. Polls from three months ago showed Trump and Biden in a virtual tie on ways to approach the pandemic, ABC reported Sunday.

A recent increase in coronavirus cases in the South resulted in a change in fortunes, with Biden now leading the president on the issue, 54-34%, according to the poll.

There have been reported problems related to mail-in ballots in New York and New Jersey.

New York officials have not yet counted mail-in absentee ballots tallied during three New York primary election, The New York Times reported Friday. The count has been slow and hard to track, with no account of the vote totals, according to the TheNYT.

Such reports come amid news of mail-in ballot fraud stymying election results in New Jersey.

Only 13,557 of the 16,747 vote-by-mail ballots in Paterson, New Jersey, were counted, a local NBC affiliate in New York reported in May. More than 800 ballots in the city were invalidated for appearing in mailboxes tethered together. One mailbox reportedly had hundreds of ballots tied together.

New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal consequently filed voter fraud charges in June against two Paterson city officials who allegedly engaged in a mail-in ballot scheme during a special election in May.

“Today’s charges send a clear message: if you try to tamper with an election in New Jersey, we will find you and we will hold you accountable,” Grewal, a Democrat, said in a statement to InsiderNJ. “We will not allow a small number of criminals to undermine the public’s confidence in our democratic process.”

COLUMN BY

CHRIS WHITE

Tech reporter.

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

Ken Blackwell: Democratic Mayors Avoiding Responsibility For Cities ‘Wrecked By Violence And Lawlessness’

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Ken Blackwell, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and currently a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, spoke with the Daily Caller’s Vince Coglianese about violence in Democrat-run cities, the Black Lives Matter movement and more.

Civil unrest and violence continue throughout the nation, including in many major cities such as Portland, Oregon.

“The lawlessness and the unrest that we now see that prevails in these cities,” Blackwell said, “are not only crippling these cities and putting public lives at risk, what they’re doing is — it’s becoming killing fields. At a time when we have the resources and the history to convert killing fields into fields of dreams, these mayors have basically tried to blame the lawlessness that’s happening on their watch on COVID-19 or the president. Never accepting the responsibility that they have.”

Blackwell also commented on the leadership of cities across the country.

“If you take a hard look at the cities that are now wrecked by violence and lawlessness,” Blackwell said, “many of these cities are lead by blacks. Their police chiefs are blacks, their police forces are representative of the communities.”

“When these mayors and these safety forces retreat, that’s just a signal to the anarchists, to the petty criminals, to the disrupters that the field is theirs,” Blackwell said.

“There is not a systemic racism problem in the police forces across the country,” Blackwell explained. “Yes, they have bad actors, bad apples that need to be rooted out and the president and the attorney general are speaking to that. But to say there is  a systemic racism problem is following suit of the 1619 Project of the New York Times.”

Blackwell also discussed the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s definition of “whiteness,” President Trump and the 2020 election and more.

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

SOUND FAMILIAR? The Communist Goals as read into the Congressional Record on January 10, 1963

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The following was entered into the Congressional record by Albert Sydney Herlong Jr. who was an American politician from Florida who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1969 as a member of the Democratic Party.

Congressional Record–Appendix, pp. A34-A35
Current Communist Goals
EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, January 10, 1963

Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.

At Mrs. Nordman’s request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following “Current Communist Goals,” which she identifies as an excerpt from “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen:

CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev’s promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, and policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, and healthy.”
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.” (Remember these goals were published to expose them in 1958) Coincidence?
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture–education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures, which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use [“] united force [“] to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.

©All rights reserved.

De-what the police?

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These days we often hear and see the slogan “Defund the Police”. I would like to draw our attention to the word “defund”. And I would encourage the sloganeers to heed the words of the famous swordsman Inigo Montoya (from that wonderful film The Princess Bride): “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

My friend and former colleague Tim Perry, PhD, adds refreshing clarity: “Now that I know that ‘Defund the Police’ means ‘Stop treating every social problem as a police problem’, I’m all for it. Just don’t understand why the people who pick slogans picked this one. Because what it says is not what they tell me they mean.”

To back up Dr Perry’s observation on “what it says”, consider the following dictionary definitions of “defund”:

  • to withdraw funding from (Merriam Webster)
  • prevent from continuing to receive funds (Google search result)
  • to withdraw financial support from (Dictionary.com)
  • to stop providing the money to pay for something (Cambridge English Dictionary)
  • to remove the funds from (a person, organisation, or scheme) (Collins English Dictionary)
  • prevent from continuing to receive funds (Oxford Dictionary)
  • to withdraw financial support from (The Free Dictionary)
  • to stop providing funds, esp. government funds, for (a program, group, etc.) (YourDictionary)
  • to cancel funding for (Wiktionary)
  • cancel continued funding  (WordWeb Online)
  • to stop the flow of funds to (Definition.org)

Also, consider why (besides the lexicon’s definitions of “defund”) many English-language users might take “Defund the Police” to mean what the dictionaries say it means, i.e., to stop funding the police:

  • When I derail a train, I get the train off the tracks
  • When I decaffeinate coffee, I take out the caffeine from the coffee
  • When I deforest an area of land, I get rid of the trees
  • When I deactivate something, I make it inactive or ineffective
  • When I defrost my windshield, I get rid of the frost
  • When I debone a fish, I remove the bones from the fish
  • When I debug/delouse my cat, I get rid of its fleas and lice
  • When I dealcoholize a substance, I remove the alcohol from it
  • When I decongest my sinuses, I get rid of the congestion
  • When I declog the drain, I get rid of whatever clogs it up
  • When I dehorn a bull, I remove its horns
  • When I decolonialize, I make a nation free from colonial influences
  • When I dekulakize, I get rid of prosperous peasants
  • When I dematerialize, I disappear by becoming immaterial
  • When I dehydrate something, I remove the water/hydration from it
  • When I deinvest, I withdraw my investment
  • When we defrock a priest or judge, we remove them from a position of honor or privilege
  • When the government defunds Planned Parenthood (which many of us hope they will do!), the government stops providing funds for it

Also, consider why many reasonable people are legitimately concerned about defunding the police (when the word “defund” is understood in its normal lexical usage as canceling/ withdrawing financial support). That is, consider these observations from Steven Pinker, PhD, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University:

When law enforcement vanishes, all manner of violence breaks out: looting, settling old scores, ethnic cleansing, and petty warfare among gangs, warlords and mafias. This was obvious in the remnants of Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and parts of Africa in the 1990s, but can also happen in countries with a long tradition of civility. As a young teenager in proudly peaceable Canada during the romantic 1960s, I was a true believer in Bakunin’s anarchism. I laughed off my parents’ argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose. Our competing predictions were put to the test at 8:00 A.M. on October 17, 1969, when the Montreal police went on strike. By 11:20 A.M. the first bank was robbed. By noon most downtown stores had closed because of looting. Within a few more hours, taxi drivers burned down the garage of a limousine service that had competed with them for airport customers, a rooftop sniper killed a provincial police officer, rioters broke into several hotels and restaurants, and a doctor slew a burglar in his suburban home. By the end of the day, six banks had been robbed, a hundred shops had been looted, twelve fires had been set, forty carloads of storefront glass had been broken, and three million dollars in property damage had been inflicted, before city authorities had to call in the army and, of course, the Mounties to restore order. This decisive empirical test left my politics in tatters (and offered a foretaste of life as a scientist).

—Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (Penguin Books, 2003).

Happily, there is some calm in the sloganeering storm. Enter: Calgary Chief of Police Mark Neufeld.

Here is a portion of a recent news report Defund the Calgary police: Need to define it first, says chief:

While Black Lives Matter movements have spurred calls for cities to defund the police, Calgary’s police chief said defund needs to be defined first.

In a meeting earlier this week with media, Calgary’s Chief Constable Mark Neufeld said everyone has a different idea of what defunding police means.

“For some, this is about diverting money, for some this is about dismantling police and for others, it’s about disarming police,” he said.

“I think we’re talking about defunding the police before we define what we want them to do, and what we don’t want them to do and perhaps exploring legitimate options for addressing the demand in a practical and effective way.”

Permit me to close with a heavily embellished paraphrase of our earlier quote from the famous swordsman Inigo Montoya: Protesters keep using the slogan “Defund the Police,” but I don’t think the slogan means what many protestors claim it means—and I’m deeply troubled and even suspicious that those protestors continue to use the slogan because there are also many protestors who do think it means what it clearly says it means.

Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is a retired philosophy professor who lives in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada.

Hendrik van der Breggen

Hendrik van der Breggen received a B.A. in Philosophy from University of Calgary, an M.A. in Philosophy from University Windsor, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from University of Waterloo. His study and writing… More by Hendrik van der Breggen

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10 Planks of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto

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1. Abolish private property.

Translation: Communist Government owns your home, everything.

2. Levy high progressive income tax.

Translation: Pay higher and higher taxes until you have not enough to live on. Everyone equally poor.

3. Abolish inheritance.

Translation: All families lose family inheritance to government.

4. Confiscate private property of emigrants & rebels.

Translation: Anyone can be an enemy of the state.

5. Centralize & monopolize credit & banks.

Translation: Centralized banking government.

6. Control of communication, transportation & media.

Translation: Already controlling the media. Mind-thought control.

7. Remove private ownership of factories & business.

Translation: Communists Government owns all businesses. No personal ownership.

8. Equalize labor.

Translation: Everyone paid same, equally poor, except the controlling powerful parties.

9. Monopolize & subsidize agriculture & industry.

Translation: Greedy, power-hungry communist heads control food and business.

10. Control education socialist indoctrination in schools.

Translation: (Control people through gov’t health, education & welfare). Indoctrination in schools. Remove true history and rewrite to their advantage and goals through lies.

This can be easily solved.

Just vote Republican on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020 for America to keep its freedoms and Constitution and keep Communism out of America.

H/T to BC

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Congressional Record–Appendix, pp. A34-A35
Current Communist Goals
EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, January 10, 1963

Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of
communism in America.

At Mrs. Nordman’s request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following “Current Communist Goals,” which she identifies as an excerpt from “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen:

CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev’s promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, and policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, and healthy.”
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of
“separation of church and state.” (Remember these goals were published to expose them in 1958) Coincidence?
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a
minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture–education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures, which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use [“] united force [“] to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.

VIDEO: Minneapolis Police Officer Rich Walker testifies before Senate, ‘Officers afraid of going TO JAIL’

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VIDEO: Sovereignty over Judea & Samaria — Israel’s Urgent Imperative & Puzzling Reticence

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My recent interview on Israel sovereignty, AJA Zoom event. Israel news reports that plans to extend sovereignty into Judea-Samaria have stalled.

What’s going on? Why?

WATCH:

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