Liberal “social justice” is never about actual equality. Case in point: A New York high school musical has been shut down due to protesting students, after a girl who is white was cast as the lead role in the play.

Why is this a problem for the oh-so-tolerant crowd? It turns out that a group of African-American students believe that only “brown and black” people should be allowed to have the role. So much for being colorblind.

According to Fox News, the kerfuffle at Ithaca High School started when a white classmate was cast as Esmeralda in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

“Student activists then banded together under the umbrella of Students United Ithaca and wrote a letter that included a list of demands,” Fox reported.

The protesting students even admitted that that young student cast as Esmeralda was “a stellar actor, singer, and dancer,” but she should be excluded from the role because she is the “epitome of whiteness.”

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How is this not blatant bigotry?

Ironically, the tone-deaf student group is claiming that the casting of a talented white girl in a lead part is “racist”… while simultaneously boycotting the production because of one actor’s race.

“At best, this is cultural appropriation,” the students whined in their letter. “At worst, it is whitewashing, a racist casting practice which has its roots in minstrelsy.”

That’s a flimsy argument to begin with, especially for a high school musical. What they’re essentially arguing is that no races can ever play a part written with a particular skin color in mind; to them, this obsession with race is progress.

But there’s an even more glaring issue: The character of Esmeralda as written by Victor Hugo is actually half Roma, half French. If they consult a map, the outraged students will find that France is European, and the Roma people from northern India are in fact Asian.

Yes, the character was not “black” to begin with, not that it should even matter.

“It shows you that theater wasn’t made for you,” one of the protesting students declared to the Ithaca Journal. “And it shows you that, if you can’t get the parts that are written for you, what parts are you going to get?”

Incredibly, the student group is literally complaining that color-blind casting is racist. No, this is not “The Onion.” You just can’t make this stuff up.

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“Stop the racist and openly stated policy of ‘color blind’ casting in the ICSD,” the students wrote in a hysterical and demanding Facebook post.

“Because of institutionalized racism this results in white children being cast in roles written as white parts and also white children being cast in roles that were specifically intended for people of color,” the unhinged high school students declared.

It becomes even more like a bad parody. The race-obsessed actors actually believe that they are forwarding Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of a colorblind America.

“Members of the group told Fox News that their ultimate goal is in line with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s message of love, unity, understanding, and inclusion,” that news outlet reported.

“Our endgame,” the group declared, “is a performing arts program with more unity, more inclusion, and musical where we can all experience the joy and bonding of inclusive performing arts following best theatrical practices.”

Nothing says “inclusion” quite like demanding that a talented actress lose her role because she was born with the wrong skin color. The irony and twisted bigotry of this seems completely lost on them.

“Social justice” has gone crazy. King’s vision has been co-opted by a new generation of racists — there is no other term for them — who sees coin tosses as intolerant and academic performance as prejudice.

America better wake up, because a new wave of intolerance is starting to spread.

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Democrats are “winning the narrative” and “winning their priorities” in Capitol Hill spending deals despite congressional GOP majorities and a Republican president, said Tom Van Flein, current chief of staff for Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), on Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with host Rebecca Mansour.

Van Flein, who served as Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s attorney before coming to Congress with Gosar in the 2010 Tea Party electoral victory, offered a grassroots conservative’s behind-the-scenes look at the dysfunctional congressional budget process.

Democrats’ political victories include the prioritization of a broad bipartisan push for amnesty despite Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, said Van Flein.

“Right now, for whatever reason, even though Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the presidency, we’ve been dealing with Democratic priorities,” said Van Flein. “So Democrats got a lot their spending priorities passed. … We are losing even though we’re supposedly running the show. We’re talking about immigration amnesty, not building a wall, not border security; that means they’re winning the narrative and they’re winning their priorities.”

Van Flein explained how Congress’s repeated reliance on continuing resolution-style spending bills has reinforced the political priorities of Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) and the Democrat Party, despite Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress and a Republican president.

“We’ve been really running, when you do these continuing resolutions, Nancy Pelosi’s priorities since 2006,” said Van Flein. “They’ve just increased the amounts, but the priorities pretty much remain the same; that’s how a continuing resolution works.”

Representatives and senators could not have sufficiently considered Friday’s 652-page spending bill prior its passage, said Van Flein, pointing to the 18-hour window allotted for its review.

“The Senate passed this bill at 1:30 in the morning,” said Van Flein. “It is 650 pages long. It passes it at 1:30 in the morning. The House then gets it, has a couple of preliminary and procedural votes and the rules committee has to take look at it and pass it through, and at 5:30 AM – nobody is up to any good at 5:30 AM unless you’re getting up to work out — and they pass this ‘budget,’ they call it a ‘budget,’ it really is not a budget, it’s just a spending bill, a [continuing resolution], and a budget agreement, and they pass it at 5:30 AM. I’m going to challenge anyone who thinks that the Congress is doing it’s best work in the wee hours of the morning when you have septuagenarians and octogenarians up at that hour. Is anyone really understanding what they’re voting on and what is going on? Has anybody really had the time to study this? There we no hearings, there was no testimony. No amendments were allowed. … that’s what Rand Paul was mini-filibustering about was the fact that he wanted the chance to talk about this and maybe get some amendments in … [but] it takes time to do that, and they wanted to rush this because they didn’t want another shutdown.”

Assorted Republicans disingenuously posture as fiscal conservatives, said Van Flein.

“[It is] a monstrosity of a spending increase,” said Van Flein. “It’s hard to believe that Congress is controlled by supposedly fiscal conservatives when it just added approximately $300 billion in increased spending.  We now have a federal debt of $20.5 trillion dollars, and supposedly, every time I see election season come around, the same Republicans that voted for this are out saying, ‘We need to shrink the size of the federal government. We need to reduce spending. Send me to Congress and I’ll fight for you.’ They come back here, and look what’s going on.”

“Dependence on Democrat support for passage of the continuing resolution in the House should worry conservatives, said Van Flein.

“There were a bunch of Republicans who voted ‘no,’” said Van Flein. “This bill would not have passed without the Democrats. … It took Democrats to pass this. Whenever leadership is relying on Democrats to pass a bill, you’re going to have many bad things in it, because they’re going to want their priorities.”

The bill passed the House with a vote of 240 to 186, with 5 abstentions. Of the 240 ‘aye’ votes, 167 were Republicans and 73 were Democrats. Of the 186 ‘no’ votes, 67 were Republicans and 119 were Democrats. Gosar voted against the spending bill.

Politicians are misrepresenting funds as allocated for “disaster relief,” said Van Flein, funding the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) four times what the agency requested.

“They’re throwing money at all sorts of things, and they’re calling it ‘disaster relief,’ even though FEMA said they only needed $40 billion, they’re gonna throw $160 billion at it,” said Van Flein. “If FEMA says it’s far more than what was necessary, then I don’t know what it’s really going to go to. … When it’s more than what the people in charge of the project tell you they need, then you need to ask yourself, ‘What’s really going on? Who’s really going to get that money? Why are we spending more than we need?’ That is almost the quintessential definition of wastefulness.

Van Flein echoed Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) description of the continuing resolution; the latter referring to it as “Christmas tree on steroids.”

“The question is, why don’t you listen to the agency that’s responsible for assessing the damage and for getting the repairs going?” asked Van Flein. “That’s how you know this is really just a Christmas tree at this point where people are hanging on all sorts of goodies under the guise and pretext of disaster relief. It’s obviously not disaster relief if it’s  more than FEMA says is necessary.”

Friday’s passed continuing resolution is “wasteful” and a “black eye for Republicans,” said Van Flein: “As Republicans or conservatives, we’re not supposed to be wasteful with tax money. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened, last night. This is a very wasteful spending program, and it’s a black eye on the Republicans for having this pass on their watch. This is not hat they were elected to do and this is not why the taxpayers sent them back to Congress.”

Breitbart News Tonight airs Monday through Friday on SiriusXM’s Patriot channel 125 from 9:00 p.m. to midnight Eastern (6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific).

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Members of the House Intelligence Committee are exploring ways to get testimony from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts regarding FISA judges, but are deliberately trying to make sure they do not cross any constitutional lines in doing so.

FISA warrants are issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), with any appeals going to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR). Unlike other courts where both sides appear and present arguments, FISC proceedings typically involve only the government, making it all the more important that lawyers representing the executive branch must be fully transparent and reliable in what they present to the judge in their case.

Judges serving on FISC and FISC are real federal judges. Under Article III of the Constitution, all federal judges are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate for lifetime appointments. Among Article III judges serving on federal trial courts and federal appeals courts, Chief Justice Roberts appoints several of those judges to serve for seven years on one of the FISA courts, in addition to their ongoing duties on a regular federal court.

Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) told Hugh Hewitt Wednesday on his radio show that that he was “grappling” with whether to ask the chief justice to appear before his committee to testify. The House Intelligence Committee wishes to better understand some of the details of the FISA courts, and considers Roberts a valuable source of information regarding process and personnel.

Nunes explained to Hewitt, “We don’t know the correct way to proceed because of the separation of powers issue.”

“I’m not aware of any time a judge has, for lack of a better term, testified before Congress,” the Republican lawmaker added.

Fortunately for Nunes and his committee, there is ample precedent for federal judges testifying before Congress. It is not uncommon for Supreme Court justices to give such testimony, including the chief justice.

But such testimony must be voluntary. The judiciary is a separate branch of government, coequal with Congress and with the president in power and in dignity. Roberts’ actual title is not the chief justice of the Supreme Court; it is instead the chief justice of the United States. Although he does not wield the same kind of unitary power that the president holds, Roberts is nonetheless the head of the third branch of government.

So issuing a subpoena to Roberts demanding testimony might well receive pushback, and a court could easily rule in favor of judicial independence by quashing the subpoena.

But a letter inviting the chief justice to appear voluntarily before the committee would be completely proper, leaving the nation’s top judge to decide how much he thinks the third branch of government can tell the first branch about how to oversee FISA activities conducted by the second branch, on matters that the third branch might eventually have to decide in a courtroom.

Ken Klukowski is senior legal editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @kenklukowski.

President Donald Trump’s 2019 budget aims to bring brutal changes to the federal civilian workforce, and it could spell trouble for some employees who do not measure up.

The budget, which is set to be released Monday, contains some of the biggest reforms to the workforce in decades.

To put it simply, Trump’s plan seeks to “hire the best and fire the worst,” USA Today reported.

Senior officials with the Office of Management and Budget who spoke anonymously with The Washington Times said the plan aimed to put a stop to regular, tenure-and merit-based raises for more than 1.5 million federal workers and instead focus on performance-based raises.

In other words, federal employees will now have to work hard for their raises, and those who do not perform well could be fired.

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The proposal would reportedly generate $10 billion over 10 years for performance-based payments.

The Washington Examiner reported that officials said the overall goal of the budget was to bring the 1950s-styled Civil Service into the digital age.

Officials also said annual reviews that now give “everybody” a grade of four or five on a scale of five would be eliminated. Employee benefits, which can be 47 percent higher than those in the private workforce, will also be cut.

Other changes proposed in the budget include creating a bonus pool to reward good employees, retraining of employees and reassigning workers where they are needed, according to The Examiner.

While officials did not indicate how the changes would impact the size of the the government after the three years of reform, “it was clear that many workers in jobs that private industry has automated will be out,” the Examiner reported.

USA Today reported that the president is using the VA Accountability Act as a model for the budget plan, noting that the White House claimed that the law resulted in 1,470 employees being terminated, 443 suspensions and 83 demotions last year.

That’s called draining the swamp.

“This is a subject that essentially people have ignored,” a top Trump budget official said, according to The Examiner. “The American people elected a president that promised dramatic change.”

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Indeed, they did.

On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump called for a leaner federal government, and he reiterated that idea during the State of the Union address, where he called on Congress to “empower every Cabinet Secretary with the authority to reward good workers and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.”

This is what happens when you put a businessman, whose trademark phrase happens to be “You’re fired,” in the White House.

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An IBD/TIPP poll shows that “Americans overwhelmingly believe the Obama administration ‘improperly surveilled’ Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.”

Despite the disgraced American media’s best and most cynical efforts to bury the truth, and to even stop the truth from ever seeing the light of day, this poll (and another addressed below) demonstrate that the American people are almost entirely tuning the partisan, mostly-hysterical news media out and looking to alternative media for the truth.

There is simply no other way to explain these poll results, which unambiguously prove that a majority of the public believe the exact opposite of what an unceasing, coordinated media campaign wants them to believe — which is that President Trump colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 campaign and that the heroic FBI is being unfairly smeared by Trump’s eeeevil defenders.

Well, despite more than a year of this relentless propaganda coming from all four corners of the mainstream media’s fabricated reality, here are the results from all four corners of actual reality…

A clear majority of 55 percent believe it is “likely” that the Obama administration “improperly surveilled the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.” That includes 31 percent of Democrats, 87 percent of Republicans, and 55 percent of Independents.

A clear majority of 54 percent want a special counsel to investigate “whether the FBI and the Department of Justice improperly surveilled the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election.” Only 44 percent said no. The partisan breakdown shows that 74 percent of Republicans and 50 percent of Independents want a special counsel — as do a full 44 percent of Democrats.

In this particular poll, one fairly positive result for the FBI and Justice Department is that only 35 percent believe these institutions attempted to outright frame President Trump for colluding with the Russians.

A just-released Rasmussen poll, however, shows that a full 50 percent of Americans “believe it’s at least somewhat likely senior federal law enforcement officials broke the law in an effort to prevent Donald Trump from winning the presidency.” Only 40 percent disagree.

Another Rasmussen poll from this week shows that only 42 percent of Americans believe Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election more than the FBI. Moreover, a full 34 percent believe the FBI meddled more than the Russians, while 24 percent are unsure.

In other words, we now live in a country where 58 percent of Americans either believe our own FBI meddled in a presidential election more than a hostile foreign government, or are not sure the FBI did not.

Meanwhile, Trump’s approval rating is running ahead of former-President Obama’s at this point in his failed presidency.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

Authorities in communist China have sent more than 100 Christians, mostly converts, from the Muslim Uighur-majority province of Xinjiang to “re-education camps” that teach loyalty to the country’s ruling party, reports Keep the Faith magazine, citing Open Doors, an organization that monitors the persecution of Christians.

“For Christians from a Muslim or a Tibetan Buddhist background, conversion is more than just changing religion, it is betraying a community,” notes the U.K.-based magazine. “They are threatened, attacked and reported to the local authorities.”

“Another persecution driver is the Communist government,” adds Open Doors in its 2018 list of the top 50 countries for Christian persecution. “Christians, in particular, are hedged in by authorities, as they are the largest social force in China not controlled by the state.”

Christians in Xinjiang, which borders Afghanistan, have reportedly been caught up in the crossfire of Beijing’s counterterrorism crackdown against separatists and jihadists from China’s oppressed Uighur (or Uyghur) ethnic minority.

Keep the Faith reveals:

More than 100 Christians have been sent to ‘re-education’ camps in China’s north-western Xinjiang province over the past few months according to Open Doors sources. These ‘mind-transformation centers’ teach citizens to be loyal to the communist ideology.

Most of those detained are from the Uyghur ethnic minority group and have a Muslim background. In recent years the Uyghurs they have been the prime targets of the government’s ‘anti-terror’ campaign, aimed at cracking down on both separatist groups and militant Islamists. Uyghur people who have converted to Christianity have also been caught up in the crackdown.

While Afghanistan ranks No. 2 in Open Doors list of the worst countries for Christians, China is number 43.

Referring to the followers of Christ who are sent to the “re-education” camps, an anonymous local church member told World Watch Monitor (WWM), which also covers Christian persecution across the globe, “Some stayed there for a month, others for half a year or even longer.”

Some Christians have gone missing after being forced into the communism loyalty centers, including a leader of a Chinese community of Christian converts.

“I don’t know where my husband is right now, but I believe that God still uses him in prisons or camps. Sometimes I am worried that he doesn’t have enough clothes to keep warm in the prison,” the leader’s wife told WWM.

Authorities in Xinjiang are even monitoring Christian children.

“The teacher in the school is paying special attention to my children after the authorities told the school about my husband,” said the wife.

Nearly a year ago, authorities in the allegedly autonomous region of Xinjiang, China’s largest province, banned all Christian activities outside communist government-approved churches as part of Beijing’s anti-terror efforts, reports Keep the Faith, adding:

Government-registered churches are also required to scan ID cards when they come to Sunday services. An alarm will sound if anyone works for the government or a public institution. Many Christians have stopped going to registered churches and instead meet in smaller secret groups.

…

There are around 20 million Muslims in China, most of them belonging to the Hui and Uyghur ethnic groups. Only a few thousand Christians are from a Muslim background. The majority live in the remote Xinjiang province. They experience pressure from the authorities as well as discrimination from their families and communities.

Open Doors places the estimated number of Christians in China at 97.2 million.

Christians in Xinjiang have insufficient choices for where they can flee to escape persecution.

The Chinese province borders Muslim-majority Afghanistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir where mistreatment of Christians is rampant. Kashmir is a Muslim-majority region claimed by Pakistan, India, and China.

Thousands of migrants are attempting to traverse the Alps to get out of Italy to their preferred destinations of Germany and other Northern European countries.

Volunteers working with migrants in the region say that they are finding more and more migrants with injuries sustained from extremely cold temperatures. They say that thousands of migrants are attempting to cross the Alps and that many end up in hospital, Swedish broadcaster Sveriges Radio reports.

Joel Pruvot, a male nurse who works with a group that helps migrants at the Briancon ski resort near the French border with Italy, said that he sees many migrants who need medical attention after trying to cross the mountains.

“We regularly see people who have frozen their feet, but luckily we usually get the feeling back, only if we can intervene quickly,” Pruvot said and added: “But many must also be taken to a hospital to get medicine that boosts blood circulation.”

According to the volunteers, around half of the migrants they see are boys in their teens.

‘10,000 Homeless Migrants’ in Italy as Election Nears
https://t.co/XNqz03kyQG

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 8, 2018

In Canada, many migrants attempting to cross the border into Manitoba illegally have also become injured due to the cold temperatures. Some, like 36-year-old West African Kangni Kouevi, have suffered serious frostbite crossing into the country illegally.

Italy, which is currently home to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, could see a fresh influx this year as many fear the migrant crisis, which largely declined last summer, may be picking up again. Reports have revealed that thousands of migrants have arrived in Italy since the beginning of the year, up considerably from the past several months.

Italy also faces an election next month and both leaders of the leading centre-right coalition, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and populist Lega leader Matteo Salvini, have promised to crack down on illegal immigrants.

Earlier this year, Salvini said he would deport 500,000 illegal migrants in five years. Not long after, Berlusconi upped the ante saying he would deport at least 600,000.

The centre-right coalition leads in all of the current polls.

 Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com