Taxpayer Lawsuit Filed over Racially Discriminatory Minneapolis Teachers’ Contract

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(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it filed a lawsuit on behalf of a Minneapolis taxpayer over a teachers’ contract that provides discriminatory job protections to certain racial minorities. The lawsuit was filed against the superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools, the Minneapolis Public Schools, and the Minneapolis Board of Education for violating the Equal Protection Guarantee of the Minnesota Constitution (Clapp v Cox et al. (No. 27-CV-22-12454))

The controversial contract was agreed to in March 2022 to end a 14-day teacher strike. The Minneapolis Federation of Teachers ratified the contract shortly after the agreement was reached. The Minneapolis Board of Education ratified it in May of this year.

The Judicial Watch lawsuit states:

Among other things, the contract provides preferences, protections, and privileges for MPS teachers of certain races and ethnicities under a section entitled “ARTICLE 15. PROTECTIONS FOR EDUCATORS OF COLOR.” There is no similar provision covering educators who are not “of color.”

Under the contract, teachers of color are exempt from Defendant MPS’s seniority-based layoffs and reassignments, which means, when layoffs or reassignments occur, the next senior teacher who is not “of color” would be laid off or reassigned. In addition, the contract mandates that Defendants reinstate teachers of color over more senior teachers who are not “of color.”

Upon information and belief, prior to the contract, teachers were laid off or reassigned in order of seniority, with the least senior teachers laid off or reassigned first, without regard to race or ethnicity. Similarly, teachers were reinstated in order of seniority, with the more senior teachers reinstated first, without regard to race or ethnicity.

Article 15’s preferences, protections, and privileges for certain public-school teachers on the basis of race and ethnicity violates Minnesota’s Equal Protection Guarantee, which states that “no member of this state shall be disenfranchised or deprived of any of the rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof, unless by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.” Minn. Const. art. 1, § 2. The Equal Protection Guarantee is analyzed under the same principles and mandate as the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit asks the court to enter a judgement that will declare that all actions taken to implement the racial and ethnic preference provisions of Article 15 of the contract to be illegal. They are also asking that the court declare it illegal to use any taxpayer dollars to implement these provisions of the contract, and the defendants be prohibited from taking any actions to implement these racial and ethnic provisions.

“It is incredible that in this day and age a school system would engage in blatant racial discrimination in employing teachers,” stated Judicial Watch Tom Fitton. “The courts can’t move soon enough to shut down this extreme leftist attack on the bedrock constitutional principle that no one can be denied equal treatment under law on account of race.”

Judicial Watch is being assisted in the lawsuit by Daniel N. Rosen of Rosen LLC in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

In a separate case, the city of Asheville, NC, in January 2022 settled a Judicial Watch federal civil rights lawsuit after agreeing to remove all racially discriminatory provisions in a city-funded scholarship program. Additionally, the city also agreed to remove racially discriminatory eligibility provisions in a related program that provides grants to educators.

In May 2022, Judicial Watch won a court battle against California’s gender quota law for corporate boards. The verdict came after a 28-day trial. The verdict followed a similar ruling in Judicial Watch’s favor in April finding California’s diversity mandate for corporate boards unconstitutional.

RELATED ARTICLE: Teachers Union President Defends School District That Will Lay Off White Teachers First

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

Equity: Nice Smile, Teeth of Iron

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The Minneapolis Public Schools and school board just got sued over a teacher contract exempting minority teachers from seniority-based layoffs and favoring them in reinstatement.  The lawsuit cites the Equal Protection clause of the Minnesota state constitution which is analyzed the same way as the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The teacher contract is a perfect summary of the shift in civil rights thinking from ‘equality’ to ‘equity’.  Under equality, an objective standard like seniority would generally carry the day. But under ‘equity’, disadvantaged groups always win, objective standards be damned, no matter who gets hurt in the process.  This is basically communist thinking.  Declare certain groups to be class enemies who always lose, henceforth, and other groups who automatically win, regardless of the merits of the case.  Under Lenin, the Soviet Union confiscated houses from class enemies and gave them to the hero worker class.  Maybe you like that idea, but Lenin also killed peasant land owners by the thousands just because they were land owners, class enemies.  If you can’t see the injustice in that, you are very far gone and there’s no hope for you.   Lenin called them bloodsuckers, vampires, and plunderers.  Today, class enemies are called racists, bigots, and homophobes in a similar effort to justify injustice.

Hopefully, you can see the shift in civil rights thinking to ‘equity’ is poisonous and manifestly unjust.  The lawsuit against Minneapolis schools is new, so we’ll have to wait awhile to see what happens, but Judicial Watch – the group that brought the suit – has prevailed in Equal Protection cases in the past.  Asheville, North Carolina settled one case by removing racial favoritism from scholarships and teacher grants.  Judicial Watch also won in California, knocking down gender quotas for corporate boards.

I’ve commented on other situations where the poisonous diversity narrative ran smack-dab into Equal Protection principles.  Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot only gave interviews to “black and brown” journalists and doubled down when criticized, but eventually backed down entirely.  A U.S. civil rights official warned two colleges that segregated graduation ceremonies for Black, LGBTQ, and other minority students violate federal anti-discrimination laws.  A Texas law requiring out-of-state students to pay higher tuition than illegal aliens was knocked down.  But justice doesn’t always prevail in these situations.  Utah public health officials were warned dispensing COVID drugs based on race was illegal, but did it anyway with the Biden administration cheering them on.

Other instances where equality under law is threatened have come up, recently.  Another watchdog group that opposes “radical, divisive, and discriminatory ideology” in healthcare brought a civil rights complaint against the Emory University med school for granting scholarships to students who “self-identify as an under-represented minority.”

The American Bar Association abandoned a plan to yank accreditations from law schools that failed to boost enrollment of ‘underrepresented groups’ to the ABA’s satisfaction, that is, schools that failed to meet the ABA’s totally subjective diversity standards.

A New Jersey parent took dead aim at the Woke policies at her son’s school and sued the school for creating a hostile environment for whites with its programs to indoctrinate students about institutional racism and white privilege.  The suit argues such indoctrination is straight out of totalitarian reeducation camps, which reinforces my point about all of this going back to communist thinking.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration is institutionalizing racism, racial payback, and so-called ‘equity’ in every corner of the government.  It is favoring racial and LGBT groups with quotas and other goodies in contracts, grants, benefits, hiring, apprenticeships, and in a dozen other ways, regardless of individual qualification or merit.  All this is being done on the sly to avoid legal challenges.

Whatever you call this, you can’t call it equal protection of the laws.  Class enemies everywhere, beware, Lenin lives.  Kill the Kulaks!  But before you sign up to pull the trigger, you should know Lenin had to reverse himself and let peasants own land again after communism wrecked the economy.  Poisonous policies have a way of self-destructing, so can we get through the Wokism phase quickly, please?  We need to get back to the thinking that made the Civil Rights Era great – true equality before the law – before civil rights thinking went off the rails.

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

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

Biden Reclassified the Russia Collusion Docs That Trump Declassified To Aid/Abet DOJ’s ‘Criminal’ Probe Against Trump

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“Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.” — Lavrentiy Beria, the most ruthless and longest-serving secret police chief in Joseph Stalin’s reign of terror in Russia and Eastern Europe …

‘Show me the man, and we’ll create the the crime.‘ — Democrats in post-Trump America.

The Biden White House worked directly with the Justice Department and National Archives to instigate the criminal probe into alleged mishandling of documents and still  Biden’s spokeswoman has repeatedly claimed Joe Biden had no knowledge of the raid and that he found out about it in the media.

Biden White House facilitated DOJ’s criminal probe against Trump, scuttled privilege claims: memos

“I have therefore decided not to honor the former President’s ‘protective’ claim of privilege,” acting National Archivist Debra Steidel Wall wrote Trump’s team in May.

By: John Soloman, Just The News,  August 22, 2022:

Long before it professed no prior knowledge of the raid on Donald Trump’s estate, the Biden White House worked directly with the Justice Department and National Archives to instigate the criminal probe into alleged mishandling of documents, allowing the FBI to review evidence retrieved from Mar-a-Lago this spring and eliminating the 45th president’s claims to executive privilege, according to contemporaneous government documents reviewed by Just the News.

The memos show then-White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su was engaged in conversations with the FBI, DOJ and National Archives as early as April, shortly after 15 boxes of classified and other materials were voluntarily returned to the federal historical agency from Trump’s Florida home.

By May, Su conveyed to the Archives that President Joe Biden would not object to waiving his predecessor’s claims to executive privilege, a decision that opened the door for DOJ to get a grand jury to issue a subpoena compelling Trump to turn over any remaining materials he possessed from his presidency.

The machinations are summarized in several memos and emails exchanged between the various agencies in spring 2022, months before the FBI took the added unprecedented step of raiding Trump’s Florida compound with a court-issued search warrant.

The most complete summary was contained in a lengthy letter dated May 10 that acting National Archivist Debra Steidel Wall sent Trump’s lawyers summarizing the White House’s involvement.

“On April 11, 2022, the White House Counsel’s Office — affirming a request from the Department of Justice supported by an FBI letterhead memorandum — formally transmitted a request that NARA provide the FBI access to the 15 boxes for its review within seven days, with the possibility that the FBI might request copies of specific documents following its review of the boxes,” Wall wrote Trump defense attorney Evan Corcoran.

That letter revealed Biden empowered the National Archives and Records Administration to waive any claims to executive privilege that Trump might assert to block DOJ from gaining access to the documents.

“The Counsel to the President has informed me that, in light of the particular circumstances presented here, President Biden defers to my determination, in consultation with the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, regarding whether or not I should uphold the former President’s purported ‘protective assertion of executive privilege,’” Wall wrote. “… I have therefore decided not to honor the former President’s ‘protective’ claim of privilege.”

The memos provide the most definitive evidence to date of the current White House’s effort to facilitate a criminal probe of the man Joe Biden beat in the 2020 election and may face again as a challenger in 2024. That involvement included eliminating one of the legal defenses Trump might use to fight the FBI over access to his documents.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee and the committee’s likely chairman if the GOP win control of Congress in November, called the Biden White House’s involvement and privilege waiver “amazing news” with implications for past and future presidents.

“Look, the left, they’ve been out to get President Trump because President Trump’s a threat to the clique, to the swamp, to the bureaucracy, to the deep state,” Jordan told the “Just the News, Not Noise” television show Tuesday night. “Whatever term you want to use. And they all know it.

“That’s why they were out to get him before he was in office, and they set up the whole Russia collusion hoax. It’s why they tried to get him while he was in office. And of course, obviously they continue to do so now that he’s left. It’s just never going to end.”

Alan Dershowitz, the famed Harvard law professor emeritus and lifelong Democrat, reviewed some of the correspondence at Just the News’ request. He said the Biden White House’s eagerness to waive Trump’s claims of privilege could have future implications for generations of presidents to come.

“I was very surprised,” Dershowitz said after reading the text of Wall’s letter. “The current president should not be able to waive the executive privilege of a predecessor, without the consent of the former president. Otherwise, [privilege] means nothing. What president will ever discuss anything in private if he knows the man who beat him can and will disclose it.”

While some courts have upheld the notion of a successor president waiving privilege for a predecessor, Dershowitz said the matter remains to be decided definitively by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The best thinking is that an incumbent president cannot waive the right of the previous president,” he said in a phone interview with Just the News. “It would make a mockery of the whole notion of privilege.”

In her letter, Wall told Corcoran the Biden administration believes a Watergate era ruling suggested Biden had the authority to waive Trump’s privileges.

“The Supreme Court’s decision in Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425 (1977), strongly suggests that a former President may not successfully assert executive privilege ‘against the very Executive Branch in whose name the privilege is invoked,’” she wrote. That ruling, however, was issued under an earlier predecessor law for presidential records and in the immediate aftermath of one of America’s worst presidential scandals.

The correspondence reviewed by Just the News also provides a contemporaneous window into what the National Archives (NARA) found when it first got boxes of documents returned from Trump’s compound in February 2022. Those boxes had been packed up by the General Services Administration as Trump was leaving the White House on Jan. 20, 2021.

“In its initial review of materials within those boxes, NARA identified items marked as classified national security information, up to the level of Top Secret and including Sensitive Compartmented Information and Special Access Program materials,” Wall wrote. “NARA informed the Department of Justice about that discovery, which prompted the Department to ask the President to request that NARA provide the FBI with access to the boxes at issue so that the FBI and others in the Intelligence Community could examine them.”

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

Immigration Attorney and Magistrate Arrested For Human Smuggling

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Getting in on Biden’s game!

Texas immigration attorney and federal magistrate arrested for human smuggling

By: O. Gloria Okorie, KXXV, Aug 21, 2022

KINNEY COUNTY, Texas — An immigration attorney and federally appointed magistrate in Texas was arrested and charged with smuggling of a human and resisting arrest.

Timothy D. Japhet was arrested Saturday afternoon in Kinney County by Constable Jimmy Fullen. Four adult men were detained alongside Japhet.

It is unknown if the men were taken against their will or if they paid Japhet to transport them. It is also unknown if Japhet represented the group legally.

According to an identification card retrieved by Fullen, Japhet has been licensed since 2003.

Authorities did not disclose whether the men were citizens, legal residents or undocumented, or their country of origin.

The current whereabouts and status of the four men were not provided.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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Biden Reclassified the Russia Collusion Docs That Trump Declassified To Aid/Abet DOJ’s ‘Criminal’ Probe Against Trump

Trump Files Motion Seeking Independent Review of Docs Seized During FBI Raid on Mar-a-Lago

President Trump SUES US Justice Department Over Illegal FBI Mar-a-Lago Raid

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

Slain St. Louis Police Captain’s Widow Rips ‘Supervillains’ BLM, Soros, Kamala

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In a Fox News op-ed on Tuesday, the widow of slain St. Louis police captain David Dorn accused the domestic terrorists of Black Lives Matter (BLM), far-Left billionaire financier George Soros, and epically incompetent Vice President Kamala Harris of being “supervillains” who contributed to her husband’s murder.

David and Ann were together 30 years and married 14 of those years. He was gunned down in June of 2020 at the height of the BLM riots that engulfed a countless number of Democrat-run cities.

Ann Dorn explains, “Although David was retired from the police force at the time, he never retired from serving his community.” Among other services, he agreed to be the “point of contact” for a friend’s pawn shop alarm.

“On the night of June 1, 2020,” she writes, “St. Louis erupted in violence as Black Lives Matter descended upon the city.” Early on the morning of June 2, multiple alarms informed David that someone was in the pawn shop. Although he knew the rioters were shooting “at firefighters and police officers” and “that the city was consumed by violence and chaos,” he still did his duty.

After he arrived at the scene, he found rioters inside the store and asked them to leave. For that, he was shot and killed by a man named Stephen Cannon, who was just found guilty of first-degree murder. “A third rioter live-streamed the entire incident,” Ann Dorn wrote, “and we later learned that one of the many viewers who watched David’s murder unfold was David’s eldest grandson.”

She adds: “David became a cop because when he was a little boy he wanted to be a superhero. And he was a superhero. But if real life superheroes exist, so do supervillains.” She goes on to say that those supervillains “are people like the man who killed my husband” and then adds:

They are people like billionaire George Soros, who use their power and influence to promote extremist politics and fan the flames of division. They are people like Vice President Kamala Harris, who raised money for the rioters’ bail funds, and the CEOs of prominent companies who blindly gave their support and money to this. If a foreign organization were tied to nationwide rioting in the U.S., we’d probably call it a terrorist organization.

David didn’t agree with or support Black Lives Matter. He never understood Black Lives Matter, because it never actually did anything to help Black lives. The same year David was killed, over a dozen children were shot in St. Louis, and never once did Black Lives Matter show up. Their lives mattered. Fifty-five businesses were looted or destroyed the night David was murdered, many of them Black-owned. Their livelihoods mattered. My husband was a Black man who selflessly served his community for over 40 years. His life mattered.

“Ultimately,” she concludes, my husband “was murdered because the people who are supposed to protect our streets — active-duty police officers — were ordered not to do their jobs…. Yes, there are bad cops out there, but addressing bad policing by ordering no policing at all is not a solution.”

Black Lives Matter (BLM)

172 Known Connections

BLM Activist in D.C. Calls for “Blood” and Violence

At a “Jail Killer Cops” BLM rally on April 16, 2021 in Washington, D.C., a 21-year-old BLM activist named Rahim B. took the microphone and said:

“Voting is not gonna bring us this [change]. We voted in the new president, Joe Biden, but I told folks straight up — Joe Biden ain’t gonna do nothing for us because Joe Biden was in office as the vice-president when the Black Lives Matter movement started and ain’t nothing changed. We’ve been protesting for a really long time. How much longer can we protest and march in the streets before we are ready, really ready, to get blood on their hands because one of these days, it’s going to have to come to that. [,,,]

“Bringing about that change is not going to always be pretty, and it’s not going to be peaceful. I don’t condemn [those] who loot, I support them for looting. I support people who take matters in their own hands. If you want to set something on fire, go do that.”

To learn more about Black Lives Matter, click here.

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

AFGHANISTAN: Biden Lied, Americans Died

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While Biden’s panicked evacuation from Afghanistan was going on, it had failed so badly that staffers from his own wife’s office were contacting private rescue groups to get people out.

This is one of the many damning revelations in the report by Rep. McCaul for the Republican minority on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The interim report, “A Strategic Failure” was conducted despite every possible effort by the White House and House Democrats to stop it, including blocking information requests and keeping briefings unnecessarily classified.

With the revelations that the State Department is actively refusing to cooperate with the Special Inspector General on Afghanistan Reconstruction, this report is more urgent than ever.

Forced to rely on personal interviews and public non-classified testimony, the report reveals that Biden had made it a “priority” to maintain an embassy in Kabul even after he had withdrawn the troops and the country was on the verge of falling to the advancing Taliban terror forces.

“POTUS was publicly making it clear that this was a priority. Ambassador Wilson began stating that ‘I am maniacal about the Embassy remaining in Kabul,’” a military officer described.

Secretary of State Blinken and other State Department officials in D.C. and in Kabul refused to consider the possibility of a Taliban takeover. Only Blinken and his department could order an evacuation, and they refused to seriously plan for one until a week before the fall of Kabul.

Military officials were prevented from even discussing an evacuation, being told, “don’t say NEO” and “This is not a NEO for Afghanistan.” NEO stands for Non-Combatant Evacuation.

Biden’s refusal to listen to advisers who told him to maintain a minimal military force on the ground almost led to an even worse disaster as the only remaining airport was overrun.

With American forces under fire, Air Force pilots and maintenance personnel were handed guns and told to stand guard. Had the Taliban wanted to overrun the airport, they could have done so.

The report notes that, “most of the officers working at the Joint Operations Center were also pressed into security duties as the mob got within 150 meters of that key command center.”

And the abandoned and isolated military personnel on the ground were under Taliban fire.

The military helicopters evacuating the embassy had to evade “constant” enemy fire. The airport guard towers “received small arms fire throughout the day” and Taliban mortars forced the closure of the airport. The suicide bombing that killed 13 service members was the inevitable result of Biden’s bad decisions which turned the American presence in Kabul into ‘Fort Apache’.

With no plan, deprived of proper military support, isolated in a small strip of land, surrounded by armed enemies and dangerous mobs, Biden led American military personnel into a trap.

Biden lied, Americans died.

While the State Department’s focus on Biden’s “priority” of maintaining an embassy led directly to the wretched scenes of American citizens being beaten by the Taliban and left behind under fire, Biden’s military brass also has plenty to answer for.

The Taliban had offered,  ‘Why don’t you just take security for all of Kabul.’ Gen. McKenzie replied, “That was not my instruction”. The Taliban had urged, “We want you to have it,”

That would have required thousands more troops that Biden refused to authorize.

Gen. McKenzie had initially planned to tell the Taliban to stop outside the city, but in the meeting instead told the Islamic terrorism group that he had “no opinion” on them taking the city.

Instead of trying to secure the city for an evacuation, the Biden administration and its generals outsourced the job to the Taliban with horrifying results for our citizens and our prestige.

Adding to the disgrace, British, French and other NATO members went out into Kabul to rescue their own people, while our own generals refused to do likewise and tried to discourage them.

“U.S. commanders were angered by allied troops leaving the perimeter of HKIA to rescue their respective citizens, expressing concern these movements could draw a negative reaction from the Taliban,” the report notes. Biden’s brass were more concerned about the Taliban’s reaction than about getting all the Americans trapped behind enemy lines out of the country.

And so over 800 American citizens were abandoned by Biden behind Taliban enemy lines.

American women would have been among those who, the report reveals, “were beaten and shot at for not being accompanied by a male, sexually assaulted, trampled, and forced to stand in wastewater for hours”.

“If there’s American citizens left, we’re gonna stay to get them all out,” Biden had promised.

It was one of his many lies.

The McCaul report carefully documents the complete contradiction between the Biden administration’s claims about the evacuation and the realities on the ground. The most damning evidence of that are the efforts by Jill Biden and Kamala’s people to contact private rescue groups to get people out instead of operating through their own administration.

Biden claimed that his withdrawal was carried out with the support and consent of military leaders and allies, and that no one had foreseen a rapid Taliban takeover.

In reality, he had been “warned repeatedly that the return of the Taliban was a question of when, not if” and that “the resurgence of al Qaeda” was “the most likely scenario”.

Biden was aware of this and lied anyway.

NATO allies vehemently opposed Biden’s unconditional withdrawal to such a degree that Secretary Blinken had phoned his boss from a NATO summit to tell him he had gotten a “jolt” in  “in quadraphonic sound” opposing the move. His own military advisers had told him not to do it.

Nothing Biden and his people said about their botched evacuation from Afghanistan was true.

After withdrawing forces while leaving thousands of Americans behind on the ground, Biden reluctantly approved a limited evacuation whose military personnel were cut off from the start. Mobs overran the airport, with mostly young men filling up planes which took off. The State Department failed to plan for an evacuation or vet evacuees leading to dozens of Afghans with terror ties coming to America and massive backups of Afghan evaucees abroad.

After its Saigon moment, the Biden administration has been paying “approximately $300,000 per flight to a Taliban controlled airline in order to allow U.S. citizens and Afghan allies to continue evacuating.” Air Taliban is being funded by the United States with State Department officials confirming “that the cash-strapped Taliban are profiting from these payments.“

The Taliban had every incentive to sabotage our evacuation to profit from Air Taliban.

Sizable quantities of weapons and equipment have fallen into the hands of the Taliban. Some family members of Americans, including military personnel, are still trapped in Afghanistan.

Despite the withdrawal, massive amounts of our money continue flowing to the Taliban in the form of hostage payments and foreign aid. Al Qaeda freely operates in Afghanistan and the United States of America suffered an unprecedented disgrace, abandoning citizens and allies.

A year later, the interim report from the Republican minority on the House Foreign Affairs Committee is only the beginning of the effort to expose the truth about Biden’s betrayal.

But it is an important step in the fight against the lies and the spin from the man who did it all.

This article originally appeared in Front Page Magazine.

AUTHOR

Daniel Greenfield

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

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

Is the last taboo dangerous – or just boring?

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Sydney’s Festival of Dangerous Ideas will host a discussion of bestiality.

When it comes to taboos, straight talk about bestiality is right up there with supporting Israel Folau and voting for Donald Trump. Which must be why Sydney’s Festival of Dangerous Ideas has welcomed Joanna Bourke, a distinguished British historian, to its shindig on the weekend of September 17 and 18. She is the author of Loving Animals: On Bestiality, Zoophilia and Post-Human Love, distributed by the University of Chicago Press. Its blurb explains that “Bourke looks at the changing meanings of ‘bestiality’ and ‘zoophilia,’ assesses the psychiatric and sexual aspects, and she concludes by delineating an ethics of animal loving.”

To no one’s surprise, and no doubt to the delight of the organisers, the New South Wales Arts Minister, Ben Franklin, demanded that Bourke’s talk be cancelled. Since the NSW government is a major sponsor, his opinion ought to count for something. However, Simon Longstaff, the head of The Ethics Centre, which organises the Festival, blew him a raspberry and said that he would not bow to pressure. “To suggest that this was in some sense promoting sex with animals is like saying a historian who covers the history of cannibalism is promoting cannibalism,” he said. He told the Sydney Morning Herald that Bourke’s book presents only three ways of thinking about bestiality – dangerous, perverted or wrong-headed: “It takes a particular kind of mind to think that loving animals must involve sex with animals.”

Which prompts two questions.

First, if Bourke’s book is as platitudinous as Mr Longstaff suggests, what is the point of inviting her to a Festival of Dangerous Ideas? He would be selling tickets under false pretences.

Second, is Bourke really an advocate of sex with animals?

To quote someone who knows about fine distinctions in discussions about sexual matters, Bill Clinton, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” Practically, she is not. Peter Singer is an advocate for euthanasia as a theoretical possibility, but he does not practice euthanasia. But theoretically, Bourke is an apologist for the higher bestiality. She states in her book: “interspecies relationships can be complex, rich and fulfilling. Love—that most intimate and vulnerable emotion—is itself a coup de foudre; it is ungovernable. By being ‘open to otherness’, we might finally find ourselves edging towards becoming true companion species.”

“Coup de foudre” is a highfalutin expression for love at first sight. It’s not the sort of expression that most people use about their Labradors.

So Mr Longstaff is mistaken. Bourke hedges her conclusions with the what-ifs, buts, and mights typical of queer theory. She is not proselytising for bestiality. But she lays a moral foundation for its possibility. Perhaps he closed Loving Animals before reaching page 146.

My real gripe, though, about the Festival of Dangerous Ideas is not the taboo subject of sex with animals. It is its poverty of imagination.

As a talking point, bestiality is no longer dangerous; it is merely titillating. The rest of the weekend program promises to be interesting, but it will not shock, threaten, frighten or disgust.

  • “Blowing the whistle on Facebook” – everyone’s least favourite social media platform — that’s dangerous?
  • “Beyond The Gender Binary. There is so much more than male and female, and you’re only limited by your imagination.” In 2022, that’s dangerous?
  • “My Greatest Period Ever. Don’t just go with the flow – you can use the menstrual cycle to improve your life by harnessing the power of the period.” That’s dangerous? It’s just crass.

In any case, “dangerous” to whom? Not to those attending. They will be in a safe space, insulated from prickly scepticism about the pieties of wokedom. The audience will baa in concert and the speakers will be applauded and feted.

In a post-modern society, the truly transgressive topics are not how to dehumanise social life; but how to rehumanise it. Here are some truly taboo ideas:

  • Every child deserves to live in a family with her biological mother and father.
  • Homosexuality is unnatural and should be discouraged.
  • We need a voice for God in the Constitution.
  • Transgender medicine is child abuse.
  • Abortion is murder and abortionists should be jailed.
  • Queer theory leads straight to bestiality.

If the Festival of Dangerous Ideas ever dared to host such blasphemies, all hell would break loose. Twitter warriors would swarm like bees. The speakers would be cancelled. Sponsors would pull out.

But of course they won’t; it’s too dangerous.

AUTHOR

Michael Cook is the editor of MercatorNet. He lives in Sydney, Australia. More by Michael Cook.

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

The Fauci Rorschach Test

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Tony Fauci’s announcement yesterday that he would finally step down from a public health post that he has parlayed over thirty-eight years into one of the most powerful – and the highest compensated – in the federal administrative state is a kind of Rorschach test.

Those who have seen Dr. Fauci as the heroic scientist who valiantly, and successfully, led the response to the COVID-19 pandemic are anguished by his retirement in December. For those of us perceiving him instead as the villainous uber-bureaucrat whose role reflected not hard science, but personal calculation and benefit, his departure is long-overdue and can’t come soon enough.

The question is: Will Fauci be held accountable, for example, for the consequences of his enabling the Chinese Communist Party’s biological warfare program to use U.S. funds and technology to create the coronavirus that has killed a million of us?

This is Frank Gaffney.

AUTHOR

Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Founder and Executive Chairman of the Center for Security Policy.

EDITORS NOTE: This Center for Security Policy podcast is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The American Gestapo

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“You’ve got the NSA doing all this collecting of material on all of its citizens – that’s what the SS (Schutzstaffel), the Gestapo, the Stasi, the KGB, and the NKVD did. (NKVD is The People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs.)” — William Binney – Former intelligence official with the United States National Security Agency and whistleblower.

“We must rid this nation of the United Nations, which provides the communist conspiracy with a headquarters here on our own shores, and which actually makes it impossible for the United States to form its own decisions about its conduct and policies in Europe and Asia.” — John T. Flynn – author of While You Slept

“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” — Thomas Jefferson

“No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.” —  Hannah Arendt

“Not yet, O Freedom! close thy lids in slumber, for thine enemy never sleeps” comes from William Cullen Bryant’s poem, The Antiquity of Freedom.  Close not your eyes in slumber fellow citizens, but rise as warriors for the cause of freedom!

Are Americans so weak that they will keep their heads down and hope the evil passes?  Are they so propagandized by the Democrat’s media comrades that they believe what is happening is righteous? Or are they oblivious to the very threats of evil occurring in our nation and around the world?

Not only are we a nation now known for genocide, we mirror third world tyrannical dictatorships.  Hitler had his Gestapo and Biden has the armed federal agencies, including the entire intelligence community.  Do our fellow citizens have a clue what the Gestapo represented?  Afterall, few government schools teach world history, much less American history and the US Constitution.

Hitler’s Gestapo

In 1933, Hermann Goring combined the various political police agencies into an organization.  It was called the Gestapo, an abbreviation of Geheime Staatspolizei, the official secret police of Nazi Germany.  They were the policing arm of the dictator in charge.  Goring’s Prussian Secret Police force was originally formed in 1851 with the police forces of Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, Baden and Wurttemberg.  They were initially organized to suppress political dissent in the wake of the 1848 revolutions which spread across Germany.  In previous articles I’ve mentioned the 1848ers who emigrated to America after their attempts to establish socialism failed in Europe.  In 1933, Hermann Goring recreated them with the Gestapo, and in 1936, it became a branch of the Schutzstaffel (SS) run by Heinrich Himmler.

Think we don’t have the same thing here in America?  We certainly do.  Like Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler, Mussolini, Ho Chi Minh and others, Biden used dictatorial powers and his politicized DOJ in a huge show of force against an opposition leader and former president.  The August 8th FBI raid on Mar-A-Lago was a wild abuse of power.  We have seen these actions in other countries where it is immediately denounced as an act of a dictator.

Mainstream media comrades have always called January 6th an insurrection and attack, albeit the billions of dollars of damages incurred nationwide by BLM and Antifa communists is never mentioned. According to Roll Call’s article of April 2021, “Capitol hill lawmakers were grappling with how best to respond to the rising threat of violent white supremacy nationally.  Lawmakers are divided over the need for a new domestic terrorism law.  Every single democrat agrees that right-wing violence has become an alarming problem.”

What absolute rubbish!

The psychological projection propaganda used by Saul Alinsky acolytes in politics and media has much of America’s electorate fooled enough to believe conservatives are a danger.  Yet, every violent insurrection in America during the COVID nightmare over George Floyd’s death was perpetrated by communists whose aim is to incite riots and division.  The democrats, mainstream media and Justice Departments supported them, bailed them out, dismissed charges and squelched the truth of their roots and actions.

Church Committee Report – 1976

The 1970’s Church Committee Report details the dark history of the corrupt FBI, NSA and CIA propaganda and political interference.  The Committee was chaired by Frank Church (D-ID) and Vice Chairman, John G. Tower (R-TX).

The Church Committee’s reports have been said to constitute the most extensive review of intelligence activities ever made available to the public. Much of the contents were classified, but over 50,000 pages were declassified under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.

Writing for LifeSite News, on August 4, 2022, Robert L. Kinney III notes that the “agency previously engaged in ‘covert efforts to influence social policy and political action’ and at times used methods ‘reminiscent of the tactics of totalitarian regimes,’” as noted in an April 1976 Senate report called “Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans.”

The following two paragraphs are from the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities.

After holding 126 full committee meetings, 40 subcommittee hearings, interviewing some 800 witnesses in public and closed sessions, and combing through 110,000 documents, the committee published its final report on April 29, 1976. Investigators determined that, beginning with President Franklin Roosevelt’s administration and continuing through the early 1970s, “intelligence excesses, at home and abroad,” were not the “product of any single party, administration, or man,” but had developed as America rose to a become a superpower during a global Cold War.

“Intelligence agencies have undermined the constitutional rights of citizens,” the final report concluded, “primarily because checks and balances designed by the framers of the Constitution to assure accountability have not been applied.” In a separate appended view, Senator Tower acknowledged “intelligence excesses” and the “need for expanded legislative, executive, and judicial involvement in intelligence policy and practices.”

The reports on the intelligence agencies are 46 years old, and confirm that they are the most weaponized and politicized agencies against the American people and our Constitutional Republic.  They are a menace and a danger to our citizens.

They are today’s American Gestapo.

Armed U.S. Agencies

The DOJ has been weaponized for years, and every single one of our 18 intelligence agencies is likewise politicized, including our military.  Many are funded by largely classified budgets.  Agencies you’d never suspect would need firearms are now armed.

John Watson’s American Thinker article of June 18, 2020, Where are All the Guns and Ammo Purchased Under Obama, gives us a good idea of the arming of civilian government employees during the Obama regime.  The author quotes Obama’s troublesome statement during his campaign.

We cannot continue to rely only on our military … we’ve got to have a civilian security force just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.  We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set.

Like Herman Goring, Obama and Biden are creating an armed federal police force.

Watson then continues and lists all the various agencies who are now heavily armed, as well as the largess spent on ammunition and firearms. (The government purchased over a billion pieces of ammunition, causing a national shortage.)  Agencies include the Small Business Association, The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, The Department of Health and Human Services, the Smithsonian, Social Security, the Forest Service, National Park Service, and Inspector General’s Office and tons more.

Some of these agencies are armed with sophisticated weaponry normally carried by special forces.

Are these government employees the new “civilian security force?”

The American Gestapo?

The Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the IRS are three of the largest and most dangerous agencies to citizens of the once free republic, and they’re all heavily armed.

DHS

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) put out a National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin on Feb. 7, 2022, stating that, “The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors. These threat actors seek to exacerbate societal friction to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence.”

No mention of Antifa or BLM.

On August 16, 2022 James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas released a leaked DHS document on Domestic Violent Extremists (DVEs) in wake of the FBI’s raid of Trump’s Florida residence.  Here is the leaked bulletin.

  • Document lists perception of “government overreach” and “election fraud” as red flags.
  • “The threats we have observed, to date, underscore that DVEs may view the 2022 midterm election as an additional flashpoint around which to escalate threats against perceived ideological opponents, including federal law enforcement personnel.”
  • “Information contained in this intelligence bulletin is for official use only. No portion of this bulletin should be released to the media, the general public, or over nonsecure Internet servers.  Release of this material could adversely affect or jeopardize investigative activities.”

Again, communist groups, Antifa and BLM, are never mentioned.  However, Fox News tells us that the rosary has now become an extremist symbol, because they claim Catholics are a growing contingent of Christian nationalism!  And just what is wrong with being a Christian nationalist?

ATF

Let us not forget the DOJ’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The ATF has a corrupt and abusive history, just as does the FBI and CIA.  Harry S. Truman, Stalin’s number one choice for American president, created the CIA by presidential directive in 1946.  (Page 41, Red Rat Race, by Morris Bealle)

An ATF agent allegedly created an illegal gun registry of Black Metal Firearms in Mesa, Arizona with her personal cell phone.  That has been the agency’s goal as they have acquired nearly one billion 4473 “background check” forms to pin down how many and which Americans are purchasing firearms.  This action by the ATF is an attempt to establish a permanent National Gun Registry, the first step towards outright gun confiscation.  It is illegal, and unconstitutional, but they have it.  The ATF was involved in the Waco Siege and Operation Fast and Furious, which left U.S. Border Patrol Agent, Brian Terry, and hundreds of Mexican citizens dead.  The ATF needs to be eliminated.

IRS

As for the Internal Revenue Service, the recent $770 billion Inflation Reduction Act. will double the size of the IRS, and authorize it to hire up to 87,000 additional employees as well as an additional $80 billion in funding. The IRS currently has 93,654 employees.  Their budget last year was $12.6 billion.  On August 10th, National Review exposed the job listing for new agents “willing to use deadly force,” and then the IRS pulled the job post.  Open the Books investigation showed that by 2019, the agency had spent over 20 million on guns, ammo, and military style equipment.  How much more will $80 billion purchase?

Watch the alleged IRS “training” video here:

Any idea of what all those new armed agents are going to do?  Their targets are defined as domestic terrorists. The DOJ classifies them as conservatives and Trump supporters along with parents who are unhappy with what is happening in the government controlled public schools.

The elite want the middle class totally destroyed, losing 46% of small businesses during COVID and the Antifa and BLM riots wasn’t enough for them.  What is left of America’s small businesses will also be a new target…the harassment will be endorsed and promoted by Biden’s weaponized agencies.  They’re coming after those earning $400K or less.

Small businesses operate on a tight marginal basis, not having the ability to survive a full up audit.  In his August 7, 2022 article, John Hinderacker of Power Line believes that the new hires will be used like Lois Lerner was doing, going after conservative 501(c)(3) groups and political campaigns in order to shift the political wars in the democrats’ favor.  Lois Lerner ended up being a test run, a successful test run congressional democrats just turned into a business model.

Most law-abiding citizens know they have something to fear from a state agency that doesn’t concern itself with due process, has no regard for your privacy and is empowered to target anyone it wants without any genuine oversight.

An American Gestapo.

The Enemies List

Trump allies and constitutional conservatives are the enemies of the illegitimate neo-Marxist collectivists.  Aaron Kliegman’s August 17th article in John Solomon’s Just the News documents the blacklisting of conservatives who have been targeted by the DOJ.

From Mike Flynn to Rudy Giuliani, from Roger Stone and Paul Manafort to Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon, a long list of Trump allies and Biden critics have been probed, raided, handcuffed, charged, and jailed by the Justice Department.

John Solomon’s June 6th article chronicled the two-tiered justice system.  In just one comparison, Eric Holder escaped punishment of contempt of congress charges for not complying with a congressional subpoena in the Fast and Furious scandal and his own DOJ department failed to prosecute him. Ten years later, academic Peter Navarro “was handcuffed and shackled after being indicted for contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena.”

Worse yet, those who supported our 45th president and went to the January 6th, 2021 rally are excoriated as lawbreakers in what was called an insurrection worse than Pearl Harbor and 9/11.  John Solomon’s January 26, 2022 article tells us, “Trump gave the order to ‘make sure’ January 6 rally was ‘safe event,’ Pentagon memo shows.” Former career federal prosecutor, David Sullivan said the entire hearings lacked an accountability process and both the Justice Department and congressional hearings raised questions of fairness and gave viewers a reason to tune out what proved to be “very scripted” interrogations. Mr. Sullivan called the hearings Stalinist.

American Tyranny

John Guandolo stated the following in his August 10, 2022 article on his website, Understanding the Threat, “The Stalinist tactics should not surprise us.  Why?”

This is the same federal government that:

  • Put America in debt to the tune of over $30 TRILLION dollars.
  • Let over 100,000 illegals into America each month while paying them and transporting them across America on the tax payer dime.
  • Funds the Iranian regime so it can develop a nuclear weapon.
  • Funds and supports terrorists of Al Qaeda, Hamas, the Taliban and others.
  • Supported the Chinese communist Black Lives Matter organization as it burned down American cities and killed American citizens on the streets.
  • Told us “There is no organized Antifa” while Antifa burned down American cities and killed American citizens.
  • Illegally electronically surveilled the President of the United States, his family and his staff with no prosecutions after 6 years.
  • Calls the MAGA Movement “the most dangerous political movement in American history” and targets Patriots for prosecution and persecution while wittingly lets felons free from jail and fails to prosecute high government officials for treason, sedition, and other crimes.

And the list goes on.

Conclusion

Love him or hate him, Donald Trump has been a target of the left since 2015 and the raid on Mar-A-Lago was an obvious abuse of politicized power.  This easily should have and could have gone through attorneys, but the DOJ loves using their comrades in the media to convince the propagandized and deliberately dumbed down Americans that Trump is a criminal with their explosive use of force.

Why would they take the family passports?  Why would they take Roger Stone’s pardon when it was on the front page of the Washington Post? Why would they take declassified materials? Because the DOJ, i.e., Attorney General Merrick Garland gave them license to do so through approval of the warrant by Judge Bruce Reinhart who should have recused himself.

Trump is the target, but what has been done to him and the people who worked for him can be done to the average citizen.  This time it’s not just our Jewish brethren, it’s all of us.

The enemies of freedom have created Obama’s civilian security force.

They are the American Gestapo.

©Kelleigh Nelson. All rights reserved.

LAND OF THE FREE STUFF: New York City Gives Away Cell Phones and Healthcare To Illegals

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Nothing is free, we, the taxpayer are paying for this treason. We are suffering record inflation, skyrocketing food and fuel prices and brutal violent crimes but illegals who break federal laws are being put first in NYC.

Hundreds of migrants line up at NYC hospital for health care, food, free phones

By Kyle Schnitzer and David Meyer, The NY Post, August 21, 2022:

Hundreds of migrants — at least some bused to the Big Apple by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott — lined up outside Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx on Sunday to get health care coverage, food and other items including school supplies and free phones.

The event, organized by the city hospital system, was billed as a “resource and family fun day” for the migrants and their children, many of whom have come to New York City in droves in recent weeks.

“I came to New York about three days ago. I am a welder, and I am looking for work here,” Venezuelan refugee Adrian Medina, 32, said through a translator.
These are people/families coming from Colombia, Honduras and other Latin American countries, some came looking for better living conditions, others running away from dangerous conditions.
Migrants were provided healthbcare coverage, food and other items including school supplies and free phones in the Bronx Sunday.
Tomas E. Gaston

Medina said he arrived on a bus that left Texas five days ago, after a solo trek from his home country that included six days of walking in the jungle.

Now living at Bellevue Men’s Shelter, Medina said he saw a flier for the event there. He was waiting in line for ice cream when he spoke to The Post.

“I’m feeling a little bit better now, but when I first arrived, I wasn’t good,” he said. “We did not sleep or eat well.”

A fellow Venezuelan, Luis Quintana, 48, said he came to the event “to get an ID and health insurance” after arriving in the city from Texas on Friday.

“I’m feeling well now, but I wasn’t. I was uncomfortable on the bus. The bathroom on the bus was closed for several hours,” Quintana said.

“I came to New York to get away from the delinquency in Venezuela, cops in the streets, armed people. I want to work and progress.”

A couple and their two children, also from Venezuela, were waiting patiently in line in the hope of getting legal assistance to help them stay in the US.

“We came here today looking for help from a lawyer for political asylum

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

The America Project Sponsoring Georgia 2020 Election Lawsuits

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The America Project, created by Overstock.com founder Patrick Byrne and General Michael Flynn, will be sponsoring upcoming lawsuits from Voters Organized for Trusted Elections in Georgia relating to the fraud that occurred during the 2020 election. TAP is a 501c4 non-profit dedicated to improving election integrity in the United States and rooting out voter fraud.

ATLANTA, GA. /PRNewswire/ — Georgia residents upset about the election fraud that occurred during the 2020 elections are taking the next step to identifying those involved in weakening election integrity and voter fraud in 2020. Numerous independent watchdog groups and citizen led investigations have already determined a myriad of fraudulent voting activity or shortfalls in election integrity, but lawsuits from Voters Organized for Trusted Elections in Georgia, sponsored by The America Project, could provide even more details to help uncover the who, what, where, when, and why.

VoterGA is currently involved in several lawsuits regarding the voting machines used in the 2020 elections, the shortcomings of Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, and several other key points of concern for any Georgia resident who wants honest and fair elections leading into the 2022 midterm elections.

TAP’s Joe Flynn has been monitoring the VoterGA legal efforts over the past few months and is excited to become more involved as the cases progress.

“We have a lot on the board right now and it is crucial that VoterGA has the resources, infrastructure, and legal team necessary to get down to the bottom of what really happened in 2020. The America Project is honored to provide our support, both financially and with our ground army of volunteers,” explained Flynn.

Garland Favorito, the founder of VoterGA, welcomes the support from TAP.

“This is a team effort for the betterment, security, and streamlining of the elections process in Georgia. There is still a lot left to uncover, a lot more players to be unmasked, a lot more accountability needed before we can feel secure in future elections. Stomping out fraud, improving the integrity of our elections, and eliminating voter fraud is something that will benefit every Georgia resident. We cannot allow any more time to pass and demand immediate action from our elected representatives, elected officials, political leaders,” said Favorito.

ABOUT VoterGA

VOTERGA is a non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt organization under IRC 501(c)(3) created by a coalition of citizens working to restore election integrity in Georgia. We advocate for independently verifiable, auditable, recount-capable and transparent elections. Donations are tax-deductible and greatly appreciated!

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

The Ivy League Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed

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Two law professors from Harvard and Yale wrote in the New York Times last week that our Constitution is “broken” and should not be reclaimed.  Not only that, the whole notion of constitutionalism – the idea we should have ANY constitution – should be thrown out.  This is the logical conclusion of the thinking of the Progressive Left which has been pushing toward direct democracy for more than a hundred years.

It’s not clear what the professors would do with the current Constitution, but they outline a number of steps they would like to see taken.  First, make the Constitution easier to amend to inject more democracy into it.  Create more states in the Union to help make this happen.  Next, reorganize the Congress to make it more democratic and reduce the power of the Senate so it could not obstruct the will of the People as expressed in the House.  This would put the basic structure of government, including how presidents are elected, into the hands of today’s voters.  Only then do we get to the glorious Progressive future where we are no longer beholden to the past, present and future demands are fully met, abortion and labor rights  are guaranteed, and values like racial equality and environmental justice would be protected – all achieved through ordinary statute without having to bother with a constitution.  Then society can undergo constant reinvention and no longer be chained to old ideas.

It is folly, the professors say, for Progressives to try to work within the existing constitutional framework which has pesky things like the Electoral College, the Senate, and conservative Supreme Court majorities, which are mere impediments to be brushed away in the new nonconstitutional order.  It’s time to radically alter the rules of the game, they say – time to openly defy the Constitution and usher in total democracy without constraints.  Wow, how come they haven’t been arrested for insurrection, yet?

All of this might sound pretty good, if you were born yesterday.  The Founders studied every constitution known to humanity and rejected direct democracy as completely unworkable.  It invariably descends into mob rule and the tyranny of the majority tramples the individual – the most important minority of all – as well as individual rights.  It’s rich that these professors use their constitutional rights to speak their minds and earn a living to trash the Constitution.  What if new congressional majorities decide the good professors should be silenced and canceled?  If you throw out individual rights, they would have no recourse.  How much do you think they would like unconstrained popular rule, then?

What if new congressional majorities did other things the professors didn’t like?  What if it became a conservative majority governing from the Right and saying things like ‘climate change is a phony narrative and we’re going to throw out every law and policy based on it’?  The professors would be back arguing for a constitution to keep this from happening.  Which is why I can’t take their argument seriously – it’s just left-wing expediency to advance Progressive policy goals.

Then there’s the notion that society needs constant reinvention at the fundamental level, 24-7.  Congress settles the basic structure of government and fundamental values one day only to turn it all upside down the next.  Who wants to live in a system where the rules change by the minute?  Change, change, change.  I first ran into this while studying the Marxist theorist Grace Lee Boggs of Detroit.  She was all about constant and perpetual change.  I’m sorry, but the desire for constant change is pathological.  It’s sick.  Society does not need constant uproar at a fundamental level every alternate Tuesday and Thursday.

Some old ideas are pretty good, like having a roof over your head instead of sleeping in the park at night.  But the professors are right – some old ideas aren’t worth preserving.  Harvard and Yale – established by dead white males of European descent three or four centuries ago – those are old ideas, too.  As long as we’re throwing out old ideas, why don’t we start with Harvard and Yale?  If the Marxist claptrap we’re hearing from the professors is any indication, the Ivy League is broken and should not be reclaimed.

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

Judge Calls Trump Raid ‘Unprecedented,’ Formally Rejects DOJ Plea To Keep Things Under Wraps

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UPDATE: Trump Files Motion Requesting ‘Special Master’ to Review Docs Seized in FBI Mar-A-Lago Raid

U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart rejected the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) argument Monday to keep the Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit under wraps, saying the government has the burden of proof to show why parts of the affidavit must be sealed.

The FBI raided the Florida home of Former President Donald Trump on Aug. 8, sparking demands that the DOJ justify the unprecedented search.

Reinhart wrote the government can keep the search warrant affidavit, which would shed light on the reasoning behind the warrant, sealed so long as “there is a compelling governmental interest and the denial of access is ‘narrowly tailored to serve that interest.’”

The DOJ is arguing unsealing the affidavit “would jeopardize the integrity of its ongoing criminal investigation,” with Reinhart saying he is greatly weighing the fact that “there is a significant likelihood that unsealing the Affidavit would harm legitimate privacy interests” of those involved in the raid as well as witnesses as well the fact that Secret Service uses the premises at Mar-a-Lago and unsealing the affidavit could be a security threat.

Reinhart also noted, however, that “unsealing the Affidavit would promote public understanding of historically significant events. This factor weighs in favor of disclosure.”

Nonetheless, Reinhart said he believes the DOJ has “met its burden of showing good cause/a compelling interest that overrides any public interest in unsealing the full contents of the Affidavit” but that he “must consider whether there is a less onerous alternative to unsealing the entire document.”

Reinhart then noted the DOJ’s argument that redacting portions of the affidavit would cause an “undue burden on its resources” has not been justified.

“Given the intense public and historical interest in an unprecedented search of a former President’s residence, the Government has not yet shown that these administrative concerns are sufficient to justify sealing.”

“I therefore reject the Government’s argument that the present record justifies keeping the entire Affidavit under seal.”

Reinhart granted the DOJ’s request to give the agency the opportunity to propose redactions, with the deadline being August 25.

Reinhart previously announced he was considering allowing a redacted version of the affidavit to be released as various media outlets including The New York Times and CNN pushed for the document to be released in the interest of the public.

AUTHOR

BRIANNA LYMAN

News and commentary writer. Follow Brianna on Twitter

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

Where Are They Now? Understanding the Popularity of Ecstasy in 2022

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For the past two decades of the 20th century, ecstasy was a very popular drug, especially for young adults involved in college nightlife. However, after the turn of the 21st century, this drug has seemed to drop off the radar entirely, replaced by headlines focusing on other drugs that pose a greater threat to public health. But is this a true modern assessment of ecstasy? Here’s how this drug is seeing a rise in popularity today and the surprising ways it’s happening.

Nostalgia

Fads come and go. Whether it’s clothing, music, or even lifestyle, we understand that the ways of the past hardly seem to remain the same through the decades. At one time, the disco movement was the context for widespread cocaine use, but disco was one of those fads that soon became eclipsed shortly after the early 1980s. Today, disco dance parties exist purely as a nostalgic nod to bygone days. Still, we can see that disco was important in giving rise to another genre, electronic dance music (EDM). So far, EDM has outpaced its disco predecessor and honed a drug identity that’s much more palatable than cocaine: ecstasy (MDMA).

While it’s true that drug use is subject to the same ebb and flow of trends as anything else, it would be a mistake to suggest that ecstasy has been phased out in 2022. While it might be harder to find a disco dance party at your nearest community event, chances are you won’t have the same problem finding a local market for cocaine. And if this is true, we shouldn’t assume that ecstasy use is dependent upon the ongoing music festivals and club raves that dominated the 1990s and early 2000s. Ecstasy is hardly a fad drug; it’s still in widespread use in 2022.

SOS for MDMA?

Ecstasy is a psychoactive drug, which is a chemical substance that changes how the brain communicates. It affects everything from perception, behavior, mood, and organ functions. People may have heard of ecstasy as a hallucination drug, but they might not be aware of other factors that put it into perspective. For one, ecstasy is a stimulant, which is in the same drug class as cocaine and meth. Stimulants speed up the central nervous system’s functions, meaning it increases communication between the brain and the rest of the body. This is in contrast to depressants like alcohol, benzos, and opioids, which suppress central nervous system communications.

Another surprising fact about ecstasy is just how similar it is to meth. When we understand what MDMA stands for (methylenedioxymethamphetamine), it is much easier to see why this is the case. Simply put, ecstasy is very similar to methamphetamine, chemically speaking. But it also shares that similarity with the hallucinogen mescaline.

Functionally, ecstasy produces some of the stimulation of meth along with the hallucinogen experience of mescaline. However, this drug also shares similarities with its counterparts in terms of the damage it can cause to its users. You can expect ongoing ecstasy use to harm the body’s serotonin system, meaning this pleasure drug can end up damaging a person’s ability to feel pleasure over time. Additionally, using stimulant drugs like ecstasy can cause a high risk of increased heart rate, blood pressure, and even organ failure if an overdose occurs. Additionally, ecstasy carries the same risk as other illicit drugs for being cut with lethal amounts of fentanyl.

With these things in mind, it looks like ecstasy is still a key player in 2022. This not only includes the countless occurrences of drug busts but also includes ecstasy use in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) therapy for soldiers in the United Kingdom, with the Biden Administration vowing to follow suit in the next two years. Those of us in the United States know that California is always a forerunner of drug legalization experiments, and the battle for ecstasy is no exception, even with current drug decriminalization bills at play.

Meanwhile, people are finding creative ways to bring ecstasy use into the mainstream. One example is a mock-up ecstasy shop in the Netherlands, simulating a storefront legal purchase of the drug to create conversations about the benefits of decriminalization. Even American athletes like Aaron Rodgers have recently spoken of the possible benefits of legal psychedelic drug use, including ecstasy.

Fact-Checking the Unknown

While it is unclear what exactly a pro-ecstasy world would look like, we need to keep in mind what we do know about ecstasy. Making the drug legal will not change the fact that it poses a high risk for addiction and abuse, both mentally and physically. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) ranks ecstasy as a Schedule I drug, meaning it carries a high potential for abuse and has no currently accepted medical use.

Marijuana shares a schedule l status with ecstasy on the federal level, even though it has been decriminalized in various U.S. states in recent years. While drug legalization is a trend in modern times, no legalization effort can take away the personal risk of drug abuse. If you or someone you know is dependent on ecstasy, it is important to seek out professional help as soon as possible.

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Biomedcentral. (2011, July 27). Drug Use and Nightlife: More Than Just Dance Music. Retrieved https://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1747-597X-6-18

CNN. (2015, Oct 30). How Did EDM Get so Popular? Retrieved https://www.cnn.com/2014/12/18/world/how-did-edm-get-so-popular/index.html

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.). Stimulant Addiction. Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/stimulants/

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.). Guide to Drug Addiction: Symptoms, Signs, and Treatment. Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/addiction/

DOJ. (2006 Jan 1). Information Bulletin: Raves. Retrieved https://www.justice.gov/archive/ndic/pubs/656/index.htm#:~:text=Top%20To%20Contents-,History,public%20and%20to%20law%20enforcement.

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.). Guide to Cocaine Addiction and Treatment. Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/stimulants/cocaine/

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.). Ambien Addiction Guide. Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/sedatives/ambien/

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.). Meth Addiction Signs and Treatment. Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/stimulants/methamphetamine/

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.). Guide to Alcohol Detox: Severity, Dangers, and Timeline. Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/alcohol/detox/

Center for Integrated Healthcare. (2010 Mar). MDMA (Ecstasy). Retrieved https://www.mirecc.va.gov/cih-visn2/Documents/Provider_Education_Handouts/MDMA-Ecstasy_Information_Sheet_for_BHPs.pdf

DEA. (2020 Apr). Drug Fact Sheet: Ecstasy/MDMA. Retrieved https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/Ecstasy-MDMA-2020_0.pdf

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.). Recognizing Fentanyl-Laced Xanax (How to Stay Safe). Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/benzodiazepines/xanax/fentanyl-laced/

ABC News. (2022 Jul 22). Woman in Elgin Caught With Over 1,700 Ecstasy and Fentanyl Pills. Retrieved https://www.kswo.com/2022/07/22/woman-elgin-caught-with-over-1700-ecstasy-fentanyl-pills/

Mirror. (2022 Aug 20). Soldiers Given Ecstasy in Radical Bid to Treat PTSD Through Pioneering Therapy Trial. Retrieved https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/soldiers-given-ecstasy-radical-bid-27787951

The Intercept. (2022 Jul 26). Biden Administration Plans for Legal Psychedelic Therapies Within Two Years. Retrieved https://theintercept.com/2022/07/26/mdma-psilocybin-fda-ptsd/

California Globe. (2022 Aug 15). Psychedelic Drug Decriminalization Bill Gutted Before Crucial Assembly Vote. Retrieved https://californiaglobe.com/fr/psychedelic-drug-decriminalization-bill-gutted-before-crucial-assembly-vote/

The Face. (2022 Jul 22). Pure Ecstasy: Could This be the World’s First MDMA Shop? Retrieved https://theface.com/society/inside-the-worlds-first-mdma-shop-the-netherlands-drugs-society-life

Sports Illustrated. (2022 Aug 12). What Do Athletes Get From Ayahuasca, Mushrooms, and Ecstasy? Retrieved https://www.si.com/more-sports/2022/08/12/psychedelics-sports-aaron-rodgers-daily-cover

DEA. (n.d.). Drug Scheduling. Retrieved https://www.dea.gov/drug-information/drug-scheduling

©Kevin Morris. All rights reserved.

New Jersey School District Purges the Name Thomas Jefferson the Founder of the Democratic Party

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Jefferson Elementary School in South Orange, New Jersey removes Jefferson’s name because he owned slaves.

They are destroying America right before our eyes, and the chattering class is cheering. This attack on our history is another front in the left’s treason against America. This is an enemy movement. And they should be treated as any domestic enemy actively engaging in warfare to destroy a nation. The left is trying to make Americans ashamed of our own culture and heritage, and to forget the contributions of Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers to the principle of representative government, as well as Jefferson’s own arguments in favor of the abolition of slavery. They will never find perfect people to memorialize, but that isn’t the point. The point is to get Americans to hate America.

New Jersey district removes Thomas Jefferson from elementary school name over slavery

by Timothy H.J. Nerozzi, Fox News, August 20, 2022:

An elementary school in New Jersey is changing its name after a successful year-long campaign to end its association with Thomas Jefferson due to his slave ownership.

Jefferson Elementary School in South Orange, New Jersey, is being renamed to Delia Bolden Elementary School to honor the first Black woman to graduate high school in the area, according to NJ Advance Media.

The name was selected by the student body from a list of choices. Many of the proposed names were of individuals related to the local area while others had no reference to a person living or dead.

Alternative choices included “Ruth Bader Ginsberg Elementary School” and “New Legacy Elementary School.”

The school claims the initiative was proposed and led by students. However, faculty members have been vocal in their support and assistance to the cause.

“I want to make that point that Thomas Jefferson owned over 600 slaves,” board member Qawi Telesford said at a June meeting on the issue. “He freed two while he was alive and seven after he died, which basically means I have a 1.5% chance of being free in Thomas Jefferson’s world. So, I am not thankful to him. I am thankful to the people who made sure that I could actually be free and be on the board with you today.”

The school’s superintendent applauded the decision….

AUTHOR

Atlas Shrugs

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