Tag Archive for: President Donald J. Trump

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Woman Arrested! Accused of Sending Ricin Letter to President Trump

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UDATE: 

WASHINGTON (AP) — A woman suspected of sending an envelope containing the poison ricin, which was addressed to White House, has been arrested at the New York-Canada border, three law enforcement officials told The Associated Press on Sunday.

The letter had been intercepted earlier this week before it reached the White House. The woman was taken into custody by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Peace Bridge border crossing near Buffalo and is expected to face federal charges, the officials said. Her name was not immediately released.

The letter addressed to the White House appeared to have originated in Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have said. It was intercepted at a government facility that screens mail addressed to the White House and President Donald Trump and a preliminary investigation indicated it tested positive for ricin, according to the officials.

The officials were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

There have been several prior instances in which U.S. officials have been targeted with ricin sent through the mail.

A Navy veteran was arrested in 2018 and confessed to sending envelopes to Trump and members of his administration that contained the substance from which ricin is derived. The letters were intercepted, and no one was hurt.

In 2014, a Mississippi man was sentenced to 25 years in prison after sending letters dusted with ricin to President Barack Obama and other officials.

©Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Trump’s ban on Critical Race Theory, explained

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Does Critical Race Theory promote racial harmony or does it “sow division” as the Trump administration claims? And what is its relation, if any, to Marxism?

With the November election just around the corner, it’s only to be expected that President Trump would seek to rally conservative voters and drive his supporters to the polls. So, when his administration, on September 4, instructed the federal government to eliminate all training in “Critical Race Theory,” some thought it was just a red-meat stunt to excite the Republican base. Others saw it as an act of right-wing censorship and an obstruction of racial progress.

In truth, there’s much more to this development than mere politicization and censorship.

Here’s a breakdown of what the administration is doing and why it’s a welcome move.

The executive memo

“It has come to the President’s attention that Executive Branch agencies have spent millions of taxpayer dollars to date ‘training’ government workers to believe divisive, anti-American propaganda,” Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought wrote in the executive memorandum.

“Employees across the Executive Branch have been required to attend trainings where they are told that ‘virtually all White people contribute to racism’ or where they are required to say that they ‘benefit from racism,’” Vought explained. “According to press reports, in some cases these training [sic] have further claimed that there is racism embedded in the belief that America is the land of opportunity or the belief that the most qualified person should receive a job.”

The order instructed federal agencies to identify and eliminate any contracts or spending that train employees in “critical race theory,” “white privilege,” “or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil.”

The exposé

How did it “come to the President’s attention,” and what press reports is Vought referring to?

Well, President Trump is known to watch Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News. And days before the memo was issued, Carlson had on journalist Christopher Rufo to discuss his multiple reports uncovering the extent to which Critical Race Theory (CRT) was being used in federal training programs.

“For example, Rufo claimed, the Treasury Department recently hired a diversity trainer who said the U.S. was a fundamentally White supremacist country,” wrote Sam Dorman for the Fox News web site, “and that White people upheld the system of racism in the nation. In another case, which Rufo discussed with Carlson last month, Sandia National Laboratories, which designs nuclear weapons, sent its white male executives to a mandatory training in which they, according to Rufo, wrote letters apologizing to women and people of color.”

Rufo challenged President Trump to use his executive authority to extirpate CRT from the federal government.

The debate

CNN’s Brian Stelter (as well as Rufo himself) traced Trump’s decision directly to the independent investigative journalist’s self-proclaimed “one-man war” on CRT, of which the recent Carlson appearance was only the latest salvo.

Selter characterized Trump’s move as a reactionary attack on the current national “reckoning” on race. He cited the Washington Post’s claim that, “racial and diversity awareness trainings are essential steps in helping rectify the pervasive racial inequities in American society, including those perpetuated by the federal government.”

So which is it? Is CRT “divisive” and “toxic” or is it “rectifying” and “anti-racist”?

Intellectual ancestry

To answer that, it would help to trace CRT to its roots. Critical Race Theory is a branch of Critical Theory, which began as an academic movement in the 1930s. Critical Theory emphasizes the “critique of society and culture in order to reveal and challenge power structures,” as Wikipedia states. Critical Race Theory does the same, with a focus on racial power structures, especially white supremacy and the oppression of people of color.

The “power structure” prism stems largely from Critical Theory’s own roots in Marxism—Critical Theory was developed by members of the Marxist “Frankfurt School.” Traditional Marxism emphasized economic power structures, especially the supremacy of capital over labor under capitalism. Marxism interpreted most of human history as a zero-sum class war for economic power.

“According to the Marxian view,” wrote the economist Ludwig von Mises, “human society is organized into classes whose interests stand in irreconcilable opposition.”

Mises called this view a “conflict doctrine,” which opposed the “harmony doctrine” of classical liberalism. According to the classical liberals, in a free market economy, capitalists and workers were natural allies, not enemies. Indeed, in a free society all rights-respecting individuals were natural allies.

A bitter inheritance

Critical Race Theory arose as a distinct movement in law schools in the late 1980s. CRT inherited many of its premises and perspectives from its Marxist ancestry.

The pre-CRT Civil Rights Movement had emphasized equal rights and treating people as individuals, as opposed to as members of a racial collective. “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” Martin Luther King famously said.

In contrast, CRT dwells on inequalities of outcome, which it generally attributes to racial power structures. And, as we’ve seen from the government training curricula, modern CRT forthrightly judges white people by the color of their skin, prejudging them as racist by virtue of their race. This race-based “pre-trial guilty verdict” of racism is itself, by definition, racist.

The classical liberal “harmony doctrine” was deeply influential in the movements to abolish all forms of inequality under the law: from feudal serfdom, to race-based slavery, to Jim Crow.

But, with the rise of Critical Race Theory, the cause of racial justice became more influenced by the fixations on conflict, discord, and domination that CRT inherited from Marxism.

Social life was predominantly cast as a zero-sum struggle between collectives: capital vs. labor for Marxism, whites vs. people of color for CRT.

A huge portion of society’s ills were attributed to one particular collective’s diabolical domination: capitalist hegemony for Marxism, white supremacy for CRT.

Just as Marxism demonized capitalists, CRT vilifies white people. Both try to foment resentment, envy, and a victimhood complex among the oppressed class it claims to champion.

Traditional Marxists claimed that all capitalists benefit from the zero-sum exploitation of workers. Similarly, CRT “diversity trainers” require white trainees to admit that they “benefit from racism.”

Traditional Marxists insisted that bourgeois thoughts were inescapably conditioned by “class interest.” In the same way, CRT trainers push the notion that “virtually all White people contribute to racism” as a result of their whiteness.

Given the above, it should be no wonder that CRT has been criticized as “racist” and “divisive.”

Reckoning or retrogression?

Supporters of CRT cast it as a force for good in today’s “rectifying reckoning” over race.

But CRT’s neo-Marxist orientation only damages race relations and harms the interests of those it claims to serve.

In practice, the class war rhetoric of Marxism was divisive and toxic for economic relations. And, far from advancing the interests of the working classes, it led to mass poverty and devastating famines, not to mention staggering inequality between the elites and the masses.

Today, the CRT-informed philosophy, rhetoric, and strategy of the Black Lives Matter organization (whose leadership professed to be “trained Marxists”) is leading to mass riots, looting, vandalism, and assault. The divisive violence has arrested progress for the cause of police reform, destroyed countless black-owned small businesses, and economically devastated many black communities.

Those who truly wish to see racial harmony should dump the neo-Marxists and learn more about classical liberalism. (FEE.org is the perfect place to start.)

So much for CRT being a force for good. Of course, even horrible ideas are protected by the First Amendment. The government should never use force to suppress people from expressing ideas, speech, or theories it dislikes.

Critics insist that President Trump is engaged in this kind of censorship by targeting CRT.

Not so.

No one is banning White Fragility, the blockbuster CRT manifesto. No one is locking up those who preach CRT or ordering mentions of it stripped from the internet.

The memo simply says that taxpayer dollars will no longer be spent promulgating this theory to federal government employees. As heads of the executive branch, presidents have wide latitude to make the rules for federal agencies under their control. Deciding how money is spent certainly falls under their proper discretion—and it is always done with political preferences in mind, one way or the other.

It is not censorship for Trump to eliminate funding for CRT, anymore than it was “censorship” for the Obama administration to choose to tie federal contracts to a business’s embrace of LGBT rights.

Elections have consequences, one of the most obvious being that the president gets to run the executive branch. If we don’t want the president’s political preferences to be so significant in training programs, then we should simply reduce the size of government and the number of bureaucrats.

In the meantime, stripping the federal government of the divisive, toxic, and neo-Marxist ideology of Critical Race Theory is a positive development for the sake of racial justice and harmony.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

COLUMN BY

Dan Sanchez

Dan Sanchez is the Director of Content at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) and the editor-in-chief of FEE.org. He co-hosts the weekly web show FEEcast, serving as the resident “explainer.” … 

Tyler Brandt

Tyler Brandt is a Senior Associate Editor at FEE. He is a graduate of UW-Madison with a B.A. in Political Science. In college, Tyler was a FEE Campus Ambassador, President of his campus YAL chapter, and… 

Brad Polumbo

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and the Eugene S. Thorpe Writing Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education. He was previously a Media and Journalism Fellow at… 

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

FORMER CHIEF OF POLICE MAURICE RICHARDS: In A Time Of Violence, Americans Must Take A Stand Against Lawlessness

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Periods of civil disorder, like elections, are a time for choosing sides. Democrats have chosen their side — against police, against safety and against the rule of law. On November 3, the American people will choose whether to join them.

For more than three months we have witnessed riots, lawlessness and political violence instigated by antifa and Black Lives Matter (BLM) radicals — cities burned, stores looted, police officers and citizens attacked and even killed. Vicious mobs felt emboldened to “occupy” our streets, block traffic and invade our neighborhoods.

While Democrat mayors, governors and prosecutors refused to stop the violence, President Trump refused to surrender to the mob, standing up for our police and for the safety and security of American families.

Their rhetoric now seeks to rewrite history, but when the moment came to pick sides, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Democrats cast their lots with the mob, not the law-abiding citizens being terrorized in their homes. Their silence — and in some cases outright support — allowed our cities to descend into chaos. The Democrats denied the violence and tried to convince us that the arson, looting and beatings were actually just “peaceful protests.”

But we all saw the truth with our own eyes.

In Portland, the mob dragged a man from his truck, then beat, stomped, savagely kicked him in the head before leaving him for dead in the street. In New York City, violent radicals attacked three NYPD supervisors, opening a huge gash in one officer’s head. One of the attackers was arrested, only to be immediately set free to continue rioting under New York’s radical “bail reform” law — the same policy of eliminating cash bail that Kamala Harris hopes to implement nationwide. In Kenosha, Wisconsin, a 71-year-old man defending his business was viciously beaten by a group of thugs, suffering a broken jaw at the hands of the “peaceful protestors” who then stepped over him to loot and burn his store.

This mob violence spread and intensified because Democrat mayors prevented the police from confronting it, and even gave the rioters moral sanction to run wild.

When a Black Lives Matter mob in Washington, D.C. threatened innocent bystanders who were peacefully dining outdoors, demanding the diners shout their slogan, they went unchallenged by police. Radicals took note that such behavior would be tolerated, and now the same type of intimidation has spread to Rochester and Pittsburgh.

Another mob set upon peaceful citizens departing the Republican National Convention. Among the victims were U.S. Senator Rand Paul and his wife. Surrounded and in fear for their lives, the couple only escaped the possibility of serious injury or death thanks to the extraordinary action of four brave police officers, who kept the antagonists at bay until Sen. Paul and the others made it to safety. Biden and the Democrats refused to denounce the mob — after all, the violent rioters are their base, and they hoped to ride that kind of “enthusiasm” into the White House.

No Democrat official has acted more shamefully than Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler. For 104 days and counting, he has allowed mobs to riot, destroy public and private property, and even attempt to burn police officers alive. Wheeler has openly supported the violence, literally standing with the mob while law enforcement officers were being attacked. Even when rioters threatened a federal courthouse, Wheeler refused President Trump’s offers of assistance while his prosecutors continued to let those responsible out of jail without posting a cent of bail. His tolerance for violence reached its inevitable result on August 29 with the assassination of a Trump supporter.

This dramatic politically-motivated violence grabs headlines, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Toleration of violence and disorder by those tasked with maintaining public safety and order only breeds more violence. Predictably, violent crime is going through the roof in Portland, Seattle, Chicago, New York, Baltimore and other Democrat-run cities.

New York City has seen a 166 percent increase in shootings and a 34 percent rise in murders from August 2020 compared to the same period last year. In Chicago, shootings have increased by 52 percent and murders by 49 percent, with 2,152 people shot and 503 murdered already this year. During July and August alone, 1,087 were shot and 168 killed in the Windy City.

As demonstrated in Chicago and Minneapolis, Democrat mayors have legitimized the activists’ belief that looting is an acceptable response to any perceived injustice involving the police. Inevitably, Black Lives Matter interpreted that as permission to go even further. “No justice, no peace” has now evolved into a belief that looting is justified as a form of reparations for slavery.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the official, acknowledged leaders of their party. They could — and should — have exercised real leadership and condemned these radicals. But at the Democratic National Convention, neither Biden nor Harris, nor any other Democrat uttered a word condemning the riots and mob violence that had already been going on for months by that point. Instead, they used the anti-American lie of “systemic racism” as a central theme of the convention, making common cause with activists who believe America is evil, illegitimate, and inherently racist.

They approved a Democratic Party platform that enshrines the false and dangerous myth that police are “systemically racist,” slandering the brave men and women of American law enforcement and giving their imprimatur to radical rhetoric likening federal agents to the Ku Klux Klan and police officers to Nazi “stormtroopers.”

The violence we are seeing now is a direct result of the false narrative about systemic police racism. Democrats may just be trying to win an election, but in the process they have dealt a significant blow to the legitimacy of the police in the eyes of many citizens, and law-abiding Americans are suffering mightily for it.

American civilization rests upon the will of the people, not the fury of the mob. If we lose the rule of law, we lose our country. Democrats have shown how they run cities — in the process making it clear that our families will not be safe if they are allowed to run our country. They have chosen their side, but it’s not too late for us to choose President Trump’s — and our own.

COLUMN BY

MAURICE RICHARDS

Maurice Richards is the former Chief of the Martinsburg Police Department in West Virginia. He served as Chief from 2015 to 2020 after 24 years as an officer and lieutenant in the Chicago Police Department. Richards holds a doctorate in Adult Education from Northern Illinois University.

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

VIDEO: The Vortex — A Great Realignment. And it’s a good thing.

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TRANSCRIPT

As you know, Church Militant is always helping you understand the connections between the culture and the Church, the crossover between both worlds. Those two worlds parallel each other in many ways — they’re practically mirrors. And, theologically, it makes sense. As Bp. Sheen used to say, the world is the theater of redemption: It’s where the great spiritual war rages.

So as we look out on all of this, we see something happening in each arena. There is a great realignment occurring, in the Church and in the culture. In many ways, the old labels, which used to categorize things neatly, no longer apply. Consider, for example, “conservative” and “liberal.” There’s so much confusion over those classifications — especially liberal — that no one really knows what they mean.

The old labels are so ineffective at describing the new realities that, oftentimes, you find adjectives popping up in front of them which pretty much redefine them. So the old word is used, but there is a totally different meaning behind the word.

For example, there aren’t just plain old Republicans anymore. But now there are actual Republicans and then there are RINO Republicans — Republicans in name only. Notice, to bring up the point of the crossover between culture and State, we also no longer have just Catholics, but “CINOs”: Catholics in name only.

And, of course, we have not just Catholics but “cafeteria Catholics.” All these adjectives are now necessary because the terms no longer mean what they used to mean. All of this redefining is going on because there is, underneath it all, a massive realignment going on — in the culture and the Church.

In the political world, Donald Trump has become the symbol of all that, not to mention also a precipitating cause. Tens of millions of Americans were beginning to sense a political shift, a new paradigm emerging where they, as individuals, no longer mattered.

They sensed correctly that the world they knew was being buried under a mountain of globalist Marxism. In the Church, faithful Catholics likewise sensed a major shift happening. They couldn’t put a finger on it, but they knew something was up, something was off.

So they began realigning themselves, leaving the Church of Nice and hunting out the actual Faith. It’s like a Catholic version of the Walkaway movement that is rippling through the Democratic Party — a movement of Democrats who have woken up and realized the party no longer represents them. And so they are walking away from it.

There is a huge ideological shift, an enormous immigration, a mass migration where people are seeking out like-minded individuals and associating themselves with them. It’s all over social media. It’s all over politics. It’s all over the Church. It’s all over the place.

People are choosing sides, and in that choosing up sides, some people are waking up and realizing that the folks they thought they had a lot in common with, they really didn’t. So they cut ties and are establishing new ones.

Now, some people find this upsetting. They bemoan the division, they lament the lack of unity. Frankly, that’s a stupid response. There can be unity only if it’s a unity around truth. In fact, this entire realignment is about the truth.  Some waking up to it, others wanting to destroy it.

But truth is the cause. When truth is present, there are only two responses. It is either embraced or raged against. The Marxist Left, up until the arrival of Donald Trump, was able to keep the truth of its agenda under wraps, to conceal the truth.

But now, it’s all out there. Nothing is hidden. And people are making choices. And that’s a good thing. Even on the side of evil, it’s good to know who’s who. For Catholics and other Christian denominations — remember, this is how things will be at the end of the world. Truth will cause one great, final realignment — and it will be final.

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

VIDEO: ‘America Will Always Rise Up, Stand Tall, And Fight Back’ — Trump Pays Tribute To Flight 93 Heroes At 9/11 Memorial

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9/11 Anniversary: President Trump attends memorial ceremony in Shanksville, Pa.

President Donald Trump commemorated the 19th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks by delivering remarks at the United Flight 93 memorial site in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Passengers onboard the flight heroically rushed the cockpit and overpowered hijackers on September 11, 2001, forcing the plane to crash in a field in Pennsylvania. The plane was the only hijacked flight not to hit its intended target on 9/11. The president spoke shortly after the names of the 40 individuals on the flight were read aloud, with moments of silence and bells ringing following each name.

“The heroes of Flight 93 are an everlasting reminder that no matter the danger, no matter the threat, no matter the odds, America will always rise up, stand tall and fight back,” Trump stated. “The men and women of flight 93 were mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives. Nothing could have prepared them for the dreadful events of that morning. But when the moment came, when history called, they did not hesitate, they did not waiver.”

“Our sacred task, our righteous duty, and our solemn pledge is to carry forward the noble legacy of the brave souls who gave their lives for us 19 years ago,” he closed. “In their memory, we resolve to stand united as one American nation, to defend our freedoms, to uphold our values, to love our neighbors, to cherish our country, to care for our communities, to honor our heroes, and to never, ever forget.”

WATCH:

The president will follow his remarks with a Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House on Friday afternoon. The recipient, Army Ranger Sgt. Maj. Thomas Payne, is the first person who took part in the United States’ campaign against ISIS, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the first living member of Delta Force to receive the Medal of Honor.

Former Vice President Joe Biden is also scheduled to visit the memorial site later in the day Friday. He spent the morning at 9/11 memorial services in New York City, also attended by Vice President Mike Pence and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

COLUMN BY

CHRISTIAN DATOC

Senior White House correspondent. Follow Christian on Twitter and Instagram.

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‘OPEN THE SCHOOLS’: President Trump Calls For Defunding Schools That Remain Shuttered

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President Donald Trump demanded that Democrats assist him in re-opening public schools on Thursday, saying schools that remain closed should lose government funding.

Trump has pressed for reopening schools for weeks, making several threats to limit or cut funding altogether if children continue to be forced into distance learning. The main opposition to reopening comes from teachers unions, which consistently align with the Democrats.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1304055016731422722?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1304055016731422722%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_3&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdailycaller.com%2F2020%2F09%2F10%2Ftrump-schools-reopen-democrats-funding%2F

Trump first began his push to reopen schools in July, arguing that his Democratic opponents were halting the reopening process for political reasons.

“We have to open our schools. Open our schools. Stop this nonsense,” Trump said Thursday. “It’s only political nonsense. They don’t want to open because they think it will help them on November 3rd. I think it will hurt them on November 3rd.”

Governors across the country ordered schools to close for the final months of the 2019-2020 school year, but states and districts disagree on when classrooms should reopen. The Trump administration released a set of eight recommendations in August for how schools can safely reopen.

The White House recommendations are as follows:

  • Educate teachers and students about the symptoms of COVID-19
  • Require students and teachers to “self-assess” their health each morning
  • Encourage frequent hand washing
  • Minimize large, indoor gatherings
  • Maintain high levels of ventilation in classrooms
  • Require students and teachers to socially distance from “high-risk individuals”
  • Encourage the use of masks
  • Post instructions for hygiene and social distancing around the school

Trump maintains that distanced learning is not an adequate replacement for schooling.

“When you sit at home in a basement looking at a computer, your brain starts to wither away,” Trump said when announcing the recommendations. “We have a lot of good experience at that just by taking a look at what’s happening in politics.”

Trump’s comments echoed those of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which came forward last month to urge state governments to reopen schools in the fall, saying risk of COVID-19 spread among students is low. The group also said dangers of keeping students home and away from learning outweighs the potential risk of spread.

“Lengthy time away from school and associated interruption of supportive services often results in social isolation, making it difficult for schools to identify and address important learning deficits as well as child and adolescent physical or sexual abuse, substance use, depression, and suicidal ideation,” the group said according to U.S. News.

COLUMN BY

ANDERS HAGSTROM

White House correspondent.

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

Trump Adds These 20 Names to His List of Supreme Court Candidates

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President Donald Trump publicly added 20 names Wednesday to his list of candidates for the Supreme Court, including six women, three Senate Republicans, and a state attorney general. Also new to the list are prominent government lawyers who haven’t served as judges.

“Every one of these individuals will ensure equal justice, equal treatment, and equal rights for citizens of every race, color, religion, and creed,” Trump said in making the announcement at the White House. “Together, we will defend our righteous heritage and preserve our magnificent American way of life.”

For the most part, the president’s 20 new Supreme Court prospects follow the traditional pattern in which federal appeals court judges, also known as circuit judges, are considered for the high court.

Currently, all but one of the nine justices were circuit judges before being nominated to the Supreme Court. Only Justice Elena Kagan never had been a judge before.

How are socialists deluding a whole generation? Learn more now >>

When running for president in 2016, Trump adopted a list of potential Supreme Court nominees from recommendations by The Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society. He has appointed two justices who were on that list: Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

“The names I know are really good people, but I’m not familiar with everyone,” John Malcolm, director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told The Daily Signal. “It’s an impressive list. Not everyone was on my list, but many were.”

In his announcement of the names, Trump laid out the stakes if the high court were to shift back toward the liberal side.

“Unfortunately, there is a growing radical left movement that rejects the principle of equal treatment under the law,” Trump said, adding:

If this extreme movement is granted a majority on the Supreme Court, it will fundamentally transform America without a single vote of Congress. Radical justices will erase the Second Amendment, silence political speech and require taxpayers to fund extreme, late-term abortion.

They will give unelected bureaucrats the power to destroy millions of American jobs. They will remove the words ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance. They will unilaterally declare the death penalty unconstitutional, even for the most depraved mass murderers. They will erase national borders, cripple police departments, and grant new protections to anarchists, rioters, violent criminals, and terrorists.

Here’s a look at Trump’s new contenders for the high court.

Politicians

Trump’s additions include four elected officials, which has been a rare occupation for nominees.

Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor had been an Arizona state senator before becoming a state judge. But going from elected office directly to the Supreme Court is rare.

The most notable example is President Dwight Eisenhower’s naming of California Gov. Earl Warren as chief justice in 1953.

The politicians on Trump’s list are:

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a Republican first elected in 2019. Cameron, 34, is the state’s 51st attorney general. He was previously legal counsel to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. He earned his law degree, cum laude, from the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., first elected to the House in 2014. Cotton, 43, was an Army captain who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, Cotton received his law degree from Harvard Law School.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, first elected in 2012. A former solicitor general of Texas, he has argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. A law clerk to former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Cruz, 49, received his law degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., elected in 2018. Hawley, 40, previously was Missouri’s attorney general and an associate professor at the University of Missouri School of Law. He also was a lawyer with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. A former clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts, Hawley received his law degree from Yale Law School.

A fourth Senate Republican, Mike Lee of Utah, was on Trump’s 2016 list.

Federal Appeals Judges

If history is a guide, one of these new names—all Trump appointees—is the most likely to become a Supreme Court justice if the president gets second term, since circuit judges tend to be the farm team for the high court.

Here are the new appeals court judges on the list:

Peter Phipps, 47, of Pennsylvania, on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals since July 2019. Phipps also served as a U.S. district judge for the Western District of Pennsylvania. He was senior trial counsel in the federal programs branch of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. He received his law degree from Stanford Law School.

Allison Jones Rushing, 38, of North Carolina, on the 4th Circuit since March 2019. She clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and then-Judge Neil Gorsuch on the 10th Circuit. She received her law degree, magna cum laude, from Duke University School of Law.

Lawrence VanDyke, 47, of Nevada, confirmed by the Senate last December to serve on the 9th Circuit. VanDyke previously was deputy assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Justice Department. He also was solicitor general of both Nevada and Montana, defending the policies of those states before the U.S. Supreme Court. He received his law degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard.

Bridget Bade, 54, of Arizona, on the 9th Circuit since April 2019. Bade was both a U.S. magistrate judge and an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona. She received her law degree, cum laude, from Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.

Stuart Kyle Duncan, 48, of Louisiana, on the 5th Circuit since April 2018. Previously general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, he also argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court as solicitor general of Louisiana. He received his law degree from the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University and his LL.M from Columbia University Law School.

James Ho, 47, of Texas, on the 5th Circuit since December 2017. He was solicitor general of Texas and clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas. He received his law degree with high honors from the University of Chicago Law School.

Gregory Katsas, 56, of Virginia, on the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals since December 2017. Katsas was both deputy assistant and deputy counsel to the president, as well as the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for the Civil Division. He clerked for Thomas both at the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He received his law degree, cum laude, from Harvard.

Barbara Lagoa, 52, of Florida, on the 11th Circuit since December 2019. Previously a justice on the Supreme Court of Florida, she also was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida. Lagoa received her law degree from Columbia.

Other Government Officials

Former Chief Justice William Rehnquist, like Kagan, was solicitor general of the United States—the No. 4 official at the Justice Department—before ascending to the high court.

Trump’s new candidates include these top-ranking government lawyers and officials:

Paul Clement, 54, of Virginia, U.S. solicitor general during the George W. Bush administration from 2005 through 2008, when he argued more than 100 cases before the high court. He previously clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia and received his law degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard.

Steven Engel, 46, of Washington, D.C., assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the president, since November 2017. He previously was deputy assistant attorney general in that office.  A former clerk for Justice Anthony Kennedy, he received his law degree from Yale.

Noel Francisco, 51, solicitor general from September 2017 to July 2020. He previously served in the Office of Legal Counsel as deputy assistant attorney general and as associate counsel to the president. A former clerk for Scalia, he received his law degree with high honors from the University of Chicago.

Christopher Landau, 56, of Maryland, U.S. ambassador to Mexico since August 2019. Landau clerked for Scalia and for Thomas, both at the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He received his law degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard.

Kate Todd of Virginia, former deputy assistant and deputy counsel to President George W. Bush. She clerked for Thomas and received her law degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard.

Federal District Judges

District judges rarely are appointed to the Supreme Court, but two Trump appointees made his expanded list.

Martha Pacold, 41, on the bench of the Northern District of Illinois since August 2019. She previously was deputy general counsel of the Treasury Department. A former clerk to Thomas at the Supreme Court, she received her law degree with honors from the University of Chicago.

Sarah Pitlyk, 43, on the bench of the Eastern District of Missouri since December 2019. Previously special counsel at the Thomas More Society, she clerked for Kavanaugh at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.  She received her law degree from Yale Law.

State Supreme Court Justice

O’Connor served as an Arizona state judge before President Ronald Reagan nominated her in July 1981 to become the high court’s first female justice.

Trump’s new list includes one state Supreme Court justice: Carlos Muniz, 51, of the Florida Supreme Court, appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in January 2019.

Muniz previously was general counsel to the U.S. Department of Education and served in various positions in Florida state government, including as deputy attorney general and chief of staff to then-Attorney General Pam Bondi. He received his law degree from Yale.

COLUMN BY

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is chief national affairs correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Lucas is also the author of “Abuse of Power: Inside The Three-Year Campaign to Impeach Donald Trump.” Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.

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A Note for our Readers:

Democratic Socialists say, “America should be more like socialist countries such as Sweden and Denmark.” And millions of young people believe them…

For years, “Democratic Socialists” have been growing a crop of followers that include students and young professionals. America’s future will be in their hands.

How are socialists deluding a whole generation? One of their most effective arguments is that “democratic socialism” is working in Scandinavian countries like Sweden and Norway. They claim these countries are “proof” that socialism will work for America. But they’re wrong. And it’s easy to explain why.

Our friends at The Heritage Foundation just published a new guide that provides three irrefutable facts that debunks these myths. For a limited time, they’re offering it to readers of The Daily Signal for free.

Get your free copy of “Why Democratic Socialists Can’t Legitimately Claim Sweden and Denmark as Success Stories” today and equip yourself with the facts you need to debunk these myths once and for all.

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Bin Laden’s niece: ‘It’s very worrying that the left has aligned itself with people who share’ jihad ideology

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The main story here is interesting enough, but there is something else going on here that is just as interesting. The New York Post says: “‘You look at all the terrorist attacks that have happened in Europe over the past 19 years. They have completely shaken us to the core … [Radical Islam] has completely infiltrated our society,’ bin Ladin continued. ‘In the US it’s very worrying that the left has aligned itself completely with the people who share that ideology.’”

What did Noor bin Ladin really say in the place where the New York Post has “Radical Islam” in brackets? It may be possible, since there is an ellipsis right before this, that Noor bin Ladin identified what she was talking about in a part that the Post didn’t quote and just said “It has completely infiltrated our society.” However, if she had said the words “Radical Islam,” with something else in between, the Jon Levine could easily have quoted her as saying “Radical Islam…has completely infiltrated our society.” So what did she say? “Jihad”? “Islam”? With Sohrab Ahmari and John Podhoretz on their staff, it’s highly likely that the New York Post is engaged in a cowardly sanitizing of Ms. bin Ladin’s language that they consider “Islamophobic.”

“Osama bin Laden’s niece says only Trump can prevent another 9/11,” by Jon Levine, New York Post, September 5, 2020:

Another 9/11-style attack may be just around the corner if Joe Biden is elected president, warns Noor bin Ladin, the niece of Sept. 11 terror mastermind Osama bin Laden.

“ISIS proliferated under the Obama/Biden administration, leading to them coming to Europe. Trump has shown he protects America and us by extension from foreign threats by obliterating terrorists at the root and before they get a chance to strike,” bin Ladin, 33, told The Post in her first-ever interview.

Bin Ladin (whose branch of the family has always spelled their name differently than her infamous uncle) lives in Switzerland but said she considers herself “an American at heart.” A full size US flag hung in her childhood room at age 12 and her dream vacation is an RV trip across America.

The stunning, Swiss-born bin Ladin says she is all in for Trump in 2020, calling the election the most important in a generation.

“I have been a supporter of President Trump since he announced he was running in the early days in 2015. I have watched from afar and I admire this man’s resolve,” she said. “He must be reelected … It’s vital for the future of not only America, but western civilization as a whole.”

“You look at all the terrorist attacks that have happened in Europe over the past 19 years. They have completely shaken us to the core … [Radical Islam] has completely infiltrated our society,” bin Ladin continued. “In the US it’s very worrying that the left has aligned itself completely with the people who share that ideology.”

While Trump has long been a polarizing figure in the United States, he is even more toxic in Europe, where views of US leadership have often plummeted since he took office. A 2018 Gallup poll found just 18% of Swiss citizens approved of his job performance.

Noor, who said she regularly wears a “Make America Great Again” hat (and occasionally a Trump bedtime onesie), has had to confront many Trump-haters on her side of the Atlantic. During a recent trip to the grocery store while wearing the iconic red cap, Noor was accosted.

“I am minding my own business and this woman in her late 50s charges toward me and starts speaking very loudly and aggressively to me,” she recalled. “She’s yelling at me and saying how can I be wearing this and Trump is the worst president ever and she’s basically dumping on my beloved president … She told me three times, ‘You’re stupid.’ I kept my cool, and needless to say I kept my hat!”…

“You do have a situation now in America where you have people like Ilhan Omar who actively hate your country,” bin Ladin said, noting how Omar had urged “compassionate” sentences for 13 ISIS recruits busted in her home state of Minnesota.

“It’s an honor to be able to go and live in the United States and make the most out of all the opportunities,” bin Ladin said, choking up. “If she hates it so much why doesn’t she leave.”…

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‘I Will See You On Tuesday’: Trump Says He Will Go To Kenosha Despite Wisconsin Governor’s Objection

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President Donald Trump said in a tweet Monday that he would move forward with a Tuesday trip to Kenosha, Wisconsin despite objections from Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers.

“If I didn’t INSIST on having the National Guard activate and go into Kenosha, Wisconsin, there would be no Kenosha right now,” Trump wrote on Twitter Monday morning. “Also, there would have been great death and injury. I want to thank Law Enforcement and the National Guard. I will see you on Tuesday!”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1300420725837266944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1300420725837266944%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdailycaller.com%2F2020%2F08%2F31%2Ftrump-kenosha-wisconsin-tony-evers-kayleigh-mcenany-jacob-blake-riots%2F

Trump’s remarks on social media come after Evers sent a letter to the White House Sunday requesting the president reconsider his plan to visit Kenosha.

“I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state,” Evers wrote. “I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together.”

White House officials said Trump still planned to visit Kenosha despite the objections from Democratic leaders in Wisconsin.

“President Trump looks forward to visiting on Tuesday and helping this great city heal and rebuild,” said White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere said in a statement Sunday, according to CNN.

“He loves the people of Wisconsin and he looks forward to speaking directly to them and unifying the state,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said during an appearance on “Fox and Friends” Monday morning.

WATCH:

McEnany also spoke about the importance of federal involvement in cities facing civil unrest. “What we saw in Kenosha, Wisconsin, again is you saw federal help come into that area and we did see a noticeable difference when they came in, so this president is always willing to help and he is going to show up and he’ll be there tomorrow.”

Kenosha faces an ongoing wave of protests and riots after Jacob Blake was shot seven times Aug. 23 during a confrontation with police officers. Major cities across the U.S. have experienced similar unrest following the death of George Floyd earlier this year.

Riots in the city have led to violent confrontations and the destruction of stores and businesses. Two people were reported to have been killed during a confrontation last week, and alleged shooter Kyle Rittenhouse was charged with first degree murder.

COLUMN BY

VARUN HUKERI

Reporter.

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RNC BOUNCE! President Trump’s Approval Rises Nine Points Among Black Voters

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Amazing. This latest poll has President Trump’s approval rating at 24 percent among Black voters. Trump only needs this number to be at 15 percent to crush Joe Biden and the Left in November. #Blexit.

https://twitter.com/TeamTrump/status/1299402516606615552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1299402516606615552%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fgellerreport.com%2F2020%2F08%2Frnc-bounce-president-trumps-approval-rises-nine-points-among-black-voters-during-rnc.html%2F

Donald Trump’s Approval Rises Nine Points Among Black Voters During RNC

By Breitbart, August 30, 2020

President Donald Trump’s approval with black voters rose nine points during the Republican National Convention, according to a Hill-HarrisX poll conducted August 22-25.

The poll asked one question: “Do you approve or disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing as President of the United States?”

The Hill reported:

Twenty-four percent of registered black voters in the Aug. 22-25 survey, which included the first two days of the convention, said they approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 76 percent said they disapprove.

That is up 9 points from the previous survey conducted Aug. 8-11, where the President received 15 percent support among this group.

The survey found support among Hispanic voters also grew by 2 percentage points, from 30 percent in the last poll to 32 percent in this most recent survey.

The poll conducted an online survey of 2,861 registered voters. Among Republicans, 82 percent approve of Trump while 18 percent disapprove.

A  Zogby poll of 901 “likely voters” published on Wednesday reported Trump’s approval at 52 percent, with a 47 percent disapproval rating. More narrowly, the president had a 36 percent approval rating with blacks, a 37 percent approval rating with Hispanics, and a 35 percent approval rating with Asians.

Ten percent of black and Hispanic voters changed their support from former Vice President Joe Biden to Trump over a two-month period, according to a CNN poll published on August 16.

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

VIDEO: Pro-Trump Mother Speaks Out After Women Rip Up Signs, Steal MAGA Hat From Son

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WATCH:

Abbey Wigton and Taylor Cisinski, two individuals who were say they were attacked by Joe Biden supporters, spoke with the Daily Caller’s Samantha Renck about the incident, if they plan to press charges and more.

“This altercation was completely unprovoked. My son and I were standing outside of a restaurant,” Wigton said, whose son Riley is 7 years old. “We weren’t even paying attention to the women until they walked out of the doors and immediately started antagonizing my son.”

Abbey alleged that the two women “started saying things like ‘you should be ashamed for having a mother like yours. She’s a Trump supporter. You should just be ashamed of yourself.’”

“As soon as I hit record, that’s when they ripped the sign away so it was almost instantly.”

Conservatives like Donald Trump, Jr. posted that the two women allegedly attacking Wigton, her son and Cisinski were Joe Biden supporters. According to an original statement by Wigton, which has since been deleted, she said, “The Joe Biden supporters laid hands on my child and ripped his ‘Make America Great Again’ hat from his head while cursing at him and pushing him over.”

When asked how she knew they were Biden supporters, Wigton said, “I didn’t necessarily know they were Joe Biden supporters. I just kind of assumed since they were so vehemently against me with the red hat on backward. They couldn’t even see what the lettering was on my hat. They just saw the red hat.”

Cisinski, who was also allegedly attacked, said he believes the incident was premeditated.

“How this whole situation started is, we were all sign-waving on a sidewalk,” he said, “peacefully protesting Joe Biden’s nomination speech. This group of people drove by in a car where they started to yell profanities and cussing at us.”

According to Cisinski, Riley was crying so “he picked him up and brought him away from” the situation, but “the video does not show that.”

Wignot and Cisinski also discussed whether they will press charges, how Riley is doing and more.

COLUMN BY

SAMANTHA RENCK

Reporter.

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More Than 100 Protested Outside Joe Biden’s Democratic National Convention Acceptance Speech

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More than 100 people rallied outside the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, on Thursday to protest former Vice President Joe Biden, according to Delaware Online.

Biden officially accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, according to USA Today. Protesters gathered outside the speech singing “God Bless America” and later chanted “USA” near a CBS News tent.

Delaware Trump Campaign Rob Arlett said his group organized the protest with the Delaware Republicans, Delaware Online reported.

“We were honestly a little nervous going and protesting in Biden’s hometown. What we discovered is that the enthusiasm for Biden, even in Delaware is practically nonexistent, and the DNC convention feels like the equivalent of a deflated balloon,” Chief Operating Officer of Students for Trump Tyler Bowyer told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Billboard trucks paid for by Turning Point Action drove around the city bearing slogans like “Sleepy Joe Biden,” according to Delaware Online. Before the demonstration, an airplane with a banner that said, “JOE BIDEN IS LOSING IT — VOTE TRUMP 2020” flew over the Chase Center.

“To see so much support for President Trump was electrifying. I hope it inspires more young Americans to proudly speak up about what they believe in and what their values are, knowing there are thousands of other young conservatives out there,” activist and influencer Isabel Brown on the ground told the DCNF.

COLUMN BY

MARY ROSE CORKERY

Reporter.

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The Difference Donald Trump Has Made

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RELATED VIDEO:

Donald Trump is so passionately loved — and fanatically hated — partly because he has changed the course of the United States, both domestically and internationally, for the first time since before World War II. Some believe that he has upset the world order that has prevented a third world war, and risks plunging the world into chaos. Others believe that his presidency heralds a refreshing and much-needed new direction for both the nation and the world, one that, if continued, will make America stronger, safer, and more prosperous, and redound to the benefit of the nation’s genuine allies as well.

Which side is right? History will judge Trump, but actually we can know a great deal about what his place in that history will be right now — by applying the criteria for success left to us by the Founding Fathers. Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster evaluates Trump and every one of his predecessors by those criteria, and in doing so, shows whether Trump’s policies are to be commended and continued, or excoriated as evil and rejected.

“American students are usually taught to remember names and dates, but rarely get asked to critically evaluate past presidents. Here, Spencer does that in a way never-before-seen. A must-read for students — students of history.” — Jack Posobiec, correspondent and host for One America News Network and author of Citizens for Trump: The Inside Story of the People’s Movement to Take Back America

Preorder Rating America’s Presidents here.

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

President Trump Grows the Fastest Economic Recovery in U.S. History

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Despite the Democrat lockdowns, riots, looting, widespread crime and violence — the American people want what’s right, decent and good.

The fastest economic recovery in U.S. history

Under President Trump, America built the strongest economy the world has ever seen. The stock market broke records, the unemployment rate dropped to its lowest level in half a century, and income inequality fell as blue-collar jobs returned to our country.

Then, as a pandemic from China spread across the globe, President Trump made the difficult but necessary decision to shut the economy down to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Now, as we safely reopen, our economy is surging back faster than anyone predicted:

  • America added over 9 million jobs from May through July—beating market expectations three months in a row. President Trump’s historic, bipartisan relief package alone is estimated to have saved over 50 million jobs.
  • Retail spending has fully recovered and is now at an all-time high.
  • Industrial production rose for the third straight month in July, with factory output up 3.4 percent last month after a 5.7 percent surge in June.
  • The NASDAQ and S&P 500 stock indices are trading at or near record highs once again, lifting Americans’ 401(k)s.

That result is no accident. After the financial crisis more than a decade ago, it took America over four years to regain 9 million lost jobs. But following the Coronavirus shutdown, it took the Trump Economy only a few months to do just that.

“We had such a strong foundation that we’re recovering much faster than anybody anticipated,” President Trump said at a news conference on Saturday.

In addition to pro-growth, pro-worker policies long before the crisis—including tax cuts, deregulation, renegotiated trade deals, and more—President Trump responded to the pandemic by using the Defense Production Act to lead the greatest mobilization of American industry since World War II.

The Trump Administration has exercised the DPA and related authorities 78 times so far, dispersing over $3.5 billion to speed the development and manufacture of essential materials here at home. President Trump mobilized the productive power of General Motors, for example, to create thousands of ventilators for Coronavirus patients.

As a result, GM repurposed its Kokomo, Indiana, plant in just 17 days. It has now produced over 21,000 ventilators.

Other companies, including Ford Motor Company, GE, 3M, and Puritan Medical have partnered with the Federal Government to ramp up production of everything from N-95 masks to testing swabs. This nationwide effort is boosting American manufacturing, creating jobs, reshoring supply chains, and replenishing our Strategic National Stockpile.

“New factories, businesses, and laboratories are being built all over America to match our Nation’s demand for personal protective equipment, pharmaceuticals, drugs, testing supplies, therapeutics, and vaccines,” President Trump said.

President Trump’s “Made-in-America” strategy is crucial for defeating this virus, important for restarting our economy—and essential for restoring our country’s promise.

RELATED ARTICLE: We have rebuilt America’s Strategic National Stockpile

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

What does Antifa Want in Portland?

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60 days of violence. Is there a way out?

Portland has been the scene of 60 consecutive days of violent protests by Antifa and their related allies, mainly other neo-Marxists and anarchists.

The protests in Portland began as a reaction to the unjust death of George Floyd at the hand of a Minnesota police officer and then centered on the narrative of police brutality and support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Now they are focused on the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in the city’s downtown district.

Nightly footage out of Portland – a city with a copious history of violent Antifa activity (which has also historically been enabled by the mayor and police department) – shows masked protesters armed with bats, hammers, bottles and commercial-grade fireworks (among other weapons), attacking the courthouse with impunity.

he question is, why are the protesters now focused on the federal courthouse?

A little digging turned up an astonishingly sad and ironic fact that could mean that the current tearing apart of a once-thriving American city, and other cities like Seattle (now emulating Portland in solidarity), could actually be based on a simple misinterpretation of a work of art.

According to numerous reports, the protests against the federal courthouse started when Antifa activist Morgan McKniff saw the this poster (see right) in the window of the courthouse on July 11:

A video of the poster was uploaded by McKniff, who describes herself on Twitter as a “citizen journalist” and “[p]robably the general manager of Antifa.”

The video was immediately retweeted by other Antifa activists on Twitter, garnering thousands of views within hours. One of those accounts, the Pacific Northwest Youth Liberation Front (an Antifa group) tweeted out an image of the hand, explaining, “Inside the Federal Courthouse in Portland: White Power symbol on a background of 3s— ’33’ being used to signify ‘KKK.’”

It would become the message behind the courthouse protests for Antifa and their allies.

In actuality, the artwork was a poster for the Trail Blazers, Portland’s NBA team – specifically, player C.J. McCollum, whose jersey number is three.

McCollum‘s forte on the court is shooting three-pointers, “so the OK hand sign in basketball represents a three pointer because of the three fingers,” noted the above Twitter user on a thread explaining the misunderstanding.

The back of the poster features a silhouette of McCollum. As the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oregon confirmed upon investigation, the artwork was indeed an NBA poster.

Without this knowledge of the background to the protests, the riots have now come down to an opposition to the federal troops, who were sent in to quell the violence after local authorities indicated they were unwilling to do so.

Commenting in The Wall Street Journal about the current optics and how the federal officers have been characterized as “’storm troopers’ or ‘secret agents’ bent on sending ‘peaceful protesters to concentration camps,” Ted Van Dyk, a Democrat who has been active in Democratic national policy and politics for 40 years, noted after watching the Portland riots in real time,

“The current round of violence isn’t being undertaken by civil-justice or other reformers but by radicals using Jacobin street-violence tactics. The idea is to provoke confrontation and violence with constituted authority so as to discredit it, counting on a few gullible local residents to see police as oppressors. The pretense of peaceful protest is rapidly disappearing. Deaths, serious injuries, arson, public and private property damage, and economic dislocation have resulted.”

Others agree with Van Dyk’s assessment, including Gabriel Johnson, a 48-year-old Black man and retired Marine, who finally decided that he had had enough of the protests in his hometown.

What he encountered when venturing into the protest crowd to talk to them one night about the concern for Black lives was truly shocking:

Sadly, the protests have devolved into a Catch-22 situation, summed up by the circular arguments expressed in the following cartoons. The question is, is there a way out of it?

COLUMN BY

Meira Svirsky

Meira Svirsky is the editor of ClarionProject.org.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Clarion Project column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.