The author, Mayowa Aina, recalled growing up and seeing a lot of decorations but never realized how “racist” they are.
“But while terrifying, it never occurred to me that any of those decorations might have racist undertones,” the author wrote.
She probably never realized they were “racist” because they aren’t. The people who put up the decorations didn’t have racist intentions and the people viewing the decorations don’t perceive them as racist.
“Hanging anything with a noose conjures up a legacy that continues to haunt us today,” Aina wrote.
Is the left getting too politically correct?
She cited Tananarive Due, a “black horror scholar” at the University of California, who said, “Just because it’s Halloween doesn’t mean that we can forget the visual impact of lynching imagery.”
I think it’s safe to say that nobody except for racists and people looking to be offended perceive hanging skeleton decorations as racist lynchings.
Hangings have a history that goes far beyond the terrible lynchings of the reconstruction era.
How many “wild west” movies have had cruel judges who use hanging as a means of execution for renegade cowboys?
Even the popular movie series Pirates of the Caribbean had a hanging scene.
If you want to be safe, the author offered an alternative use for the skeleton decoration.
“She suggests using spider webs instead of rope,” Aina wrote. “You could even sit the skeleton up in a tree so it looks like someone died and decomposed while sitting in that spot.”
I think the author is trying to tell you to throw the skeleton up in a tree on a dark Halloween night so nobody can see it. If nobody can see the skeleton then nobody can get offended.
A new report from the Government Accountability Institute reveals that welfare programs have often been used to fund terrorism at home or abroad. The family of the Boston bombers, in particular, took over $100,000 in public assistance.
In fact, the report seems to indicate that the brothers may have learned the strategy from an al-Qaida magazine that inspired them to make the bomb they used to kill three people and injure over 200 more.
“The Associated Press reported that both (Tsarnaev) brothers had also been ardent readers of jihadist websites and extremist propaganda,” the report reads, referring to the two brothers who committed the Boston bombing.
“Tamerlan Tsarnaev in particular had devoured issues of Inspire magazine, an English-language online publication produced by al-Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate. Investigators focused much of their attention on an infamous Inspire article called ‘Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom,’ which offered detailed instructions for making a bomb inside a pressure cooker—precisely the type the Tsarnaev brothers used.”
“The terrorist magazine had in a previous issue urged aspiring jihadis in the West to use public assistance programs to fund their extremist activities. A 2011 Inspire article called ‘The Ruling on Dispossessing the Disbelievers Wealth in Dar Al-Harb’ encouraged those living in the non-Muslim world to ‘steal money from disbelievers’ in the same way as living off the land by ‘hunting and wood gathering.’ Quoting Anwar al-Awlaki, then the group’s leader, the article declared, ‘Muslims should seek the wealth of the disbelievers as a form of jihad,’ insisting that they should “spend the money on the cause of jihad and not on (themselves).’”
Do you think that welfare programs are being abused?
“Inspire” was hardly alone in promoting this sort of thing. According to the report, outspoken radical cleric Anjem Choudary called the benefits program in his native United Kingdom a “Jihad seeker’s allowance.”
However, the majority of the benefits theft that the report focused on is from the United States, where money can be diverted overseas. In terms of food stamp, or SNAP, benefits, millions of dollars can often be moved to countries where terrorism is a serious problem, including one case where over $1.4 million in fraudulently obtained food stamp money was diverted to Somalia.
“Even with continuing SNAP trafficking investigations, tracing the funds from cases suspected of having links to terrorism remains difficult for financial regulators,” the report reads.
“In a 2001 report after the Sept. 11 attacks, the US Treasury Department identified hawalas (informal money transfer agents) as a ‘fast and cost-effective method for worldwide remittance of money or value, particularly for persons who may be outside the reach of the traditional financial sector … It is therefore difficult to accurately measure the total volume of financial activity associated with the system, however, it is estimated that the figures are in the tens of billions of dollars, at a minimum. Officials in Pakistan, for example, estimate that more than $7 billion flow into the nation through hawala channels each year.’”
“In 2005, the US State Department also noted use of hawalas and underground banking by both terrorists and traffickers, because such systems involve ‘trusted networks that move funds and settle accounts with little or no paper records.’ Some terrorist groups, the report said, also use Islamic banks to move money. Islamic banks operate within Islamic law, which prohibits the payment of interest and certain other activities. Such banks have multiplied across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and, since the 1970s, in Europe as well. While these banks might voluntarily comply with anti-money laundering regulations, there is often no control measure to assure they do so consistently.”
This form of “welfare jihad” isn’t necessarily germane to the Tsarnaevs, either.
“One example of this is the case of Adnan Fazeli, a refugee from Iran, who settled in Freeport, Maine with his wife and children,” the report stated.
“Fazeli worked several jobs between 2009 and 2013, before he mysteriously boarded a plane to Turkey without his family. He never returned. Documents unsealed in 2016 show what happened to him: Fazeli joined ISIS as a jihadi; he was killed in fighting with Lebanese government forces in January of 2015. During his four years living in Maine, he and his family had lived partially on federal and state welfare programs, supplementing small, sporadic income Fazeli earned as a translator. He also apparently spent a great deal of time self-radicalizing, watching extremist Islamist videos on the internet.”
Then there was Waad Ramadan Alwan, an Iraqi refugee who was connected to Islamic State terrorism by a fingerprint found on an IED. Before his arrest, he had received multiple forms of public assistance. Law enforcement officials found that he had “allegedly supported efforts to kill U.S. troops in Iraq, first by participating in the construction and placement of improvised explosive devices in Iraq and, more recently, by attempting to ship money and weapons from the United States to insurgents in Iraq.”
“Given this history, it is not surprising that terrorists and their acolytes would later target SNAP — with its explosive growth, electronic benefits distribution, ease of access, and lax enforcement problems. In some cases, as we have seen, terrorist supporters were able to operate with near-impunity for years without drawing attention from fraud investigators,” the report concludes.
“Combined with SNAP’s administrative and enforcement shortcomings, its vulnerability and exploitation by those seeking to harm Americans at home and abroad make it a prime candidate for legislative and executive branch reform.”
And one hopes that reform happens in a hurry.
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When I uploaded my first video onto YouTube one year ago, I entitled it “Mom, Dad, I’m a Conservative.”
It was a two-minute satirical stab at the social exiling that many Americans face when they announce their conservatism to friends and family.
Soon thereafter I would discover that for black Americans, the punishment that awaits is far worse than any social exile: it is a full-court social lynching.
Search the name of any prominent black conservative and peruse the words written by liberal journalists:
I have been branded a self-hating black, Nazi-sympathizer and rather astonishingly — a white supremacist.
The underlying sentiments are clear; black people are meant to think and act within the confines of what white liberals deem acceptable.
But while in the past the threat of slander has worked to lag the spreading of black conservatism, over this last year, I have observed something of the opposite effect.
In fact, what many have misdiagnosed as political tension between two ideologically disparate groups is actually something far greater, far more deep-rooted, and much more likely to alter the trajectory of this country as we know it.
Across America, black people are beginning to question political orthodoxy. We have been quietly building an ecosystem of free thinkers and at long last, the intellectual dam is breaking.
This unique moment will come to be known as BLEXIT: the black exit from the Democrat party.
For decades, the black community has been in an emotionally abusive relationship with the Democrat Party. Our fidelity to leftist politicians coupled with our false belief that a larger government might facilitate solutions, has led to the overall collapse of our families, neighborhoods, and incidentally, our futures.
BLEXIT is a national movement of minorities that have awakened to the truth. It is for those who have taken an objective look at our decades-long allegiance to the left and asked ourselves “what do we have to show for it?”
The media has betrayed our focus. They have learned the value of our untethered emotionality and have chosen to emphasize certain topics in an effort to suspend our rational thinking. This is why in 2016, the 16 unarmed black men shot and killed by police officers took headline-precedent over the approximate 330,000 black babies aborted each year.
This is why the topic of illegal alien children being separated at the border earned excessive coverage, while the 70% black single motherhood rate — a tragedy encouraged by our government welfare programs — is ignored.
The investment into our permanent state of outrage is opportune; it inspires a predictable outcome at the polls.
Until now.
Beyond anything else, BLEXIT is a chant of freedom. It is a chorus of voices from across the country whose hearts are exploding with the realization that we are more than the color of our skin.
We are also more than a voting bloc.
We are Americans first and foremost and we will work to piece back together our broken communities — absent overreaching government structures, absent hand-outs, and alongside our American brothers and sisters.
The tides are shifting. New leaders are emerging to help steer open minds into the uncharted possibilities of our futures.
We need all of America to join us in this fight. No matter your skin color, we need you to take up metaphorical arms against the Democrat party. First, visit our website, BLEXIT.com, where you will find the hard truths about the bigoted racism within the Democrat party. Second, spread the word. Your voice matters to those who are looking to make an “exit” from the bondage of the Democrat party. Finally, stand for truth. This battle will be one of the most consequential culture wars in American history. Your support is needed to allow us to arm the next generation with the facts they need to be free.
BLEXIT is our long-overdue renaissance — and there isn’t an article written from the depths of the hell that can stop it. VISIT BLEXIT
What has ceding support for six decades to the Democratic Party done for black Americans?
That’s the question 29-year-old conservative firebrand Candace Owens says haunted her one February afternoon. The Turning Point USA communications director was standing backstage at the annual conservative convention CPAC in Washington D.C., when she heard British politician Nigel Farage deliver a prime-time speech about how he helped lead the fight for Britain’s exit — or Brexit — from the European Union.
“Oh my God,” Owens recalls saying to herself at that moment, “we need a Blexit.”
“Black people need to exit the Democratic Party,” Owens told me in a phone interview in early October.
Courtesy Candace Owens/Photo by Mike Lerner
While so many black Americans have reaped the social and economic benefits of mainstream American life, Owens said, there are still millions of us trapped in nearly unlivable inner cities that are suffocated by crime, and awash with shoddy schools and hopelessness.
What’s the connective tissue tying many of these declining communities together, Owens asked: they’re all run by Democrats.
“I had this concept in my mind that made sense. But I needed to move the idea from Candace’s brain to a room full of my peers,” Owens told me.
She began organizing a retreat, which would put nearly two dozen of the most influential black conservatives in one room to discuss how a Blexit would look.
“And then Kanye happened,” Owens said of the Grammy-winner’s April 21 tweet. “We had to put everything on ice.”
“I love the way Candace Owens thinks,” Kanye West wrote with his trademark bluntness. The short missive prompted Owens to challenge West to help her “wake up the black community.”
“It was a blessing in disguise because there were so many people paying attention to me and my message,” Owens recalled. “We also needed to know how serious Kanye was about really fixing this issues in our communities.”
Kanye West and Candace Owens (Instagram/realcandaceowens)
More than a month passed. In that time West had turned the entertainment establishment on its head with his unapologeticsupport for President Donald Trump. By June, Owens had reached rock star status. With the Chicago crooner’s backing, she moved ahead with the black influencers retreat.
“There is a real loneliness to being black and conservative. But that weekend was energizing and affirming,” she told me of the three-day confab in Phoenix, Arizona. “I realized, ‘Oh my God I’m not alone.’”
“We locked down the domain,” Owens said. The idea, she explained, was to “marry this movement to social media. We needed an online platform that could show and prove to black people that they don’t have to be Democrats and that they are not alone.”
“BLEXIT is a frequency for those who have released themselves from the political orthodoxy. It is a rebellion led by Americans wishing to disrupt the simulation of fear,” the website reads.
“BLEXIT is a renaissance,” it says. “It is our formal declaration of independence.”
blexit.com
The “inspiration” page on the slickly designed website is rife with videos of black men and women from across the country detailing their personal journeys to political and ideological independence.
“There’s an old saying that if you’re black, you were born a Democrat. Sadly, there are so many of us who truly think that way,” Owens told me. “I joined Turning Point because they were disrupting that narrative. Speaking on college campuses across the country, I realized there were so many people who were ready to be freed from liberalism and the Democratic Party. But there was never a nucleus. So I decided to bring all of this energy together and power this thing.”
The site’s “inconvenient truths” section dissects the hidden history of how, for decades, the Democratic Party used the Ku Klux Klan to intimidate, terrorize, and murder black and white Republicans attempting to champion civil rights for blacks. It reveals President Lyndon B. Johnson’s sinister motivation for supporting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it chronicles Planned Parenthood founder Margret Sanger’s secret plan to exterminate blacks through abortion on demand.
blexit.com
Owens recruited Turning Point’s urban outreach chief Brandon Tatum, a former officer with the Tuscon Arizona Police Department, to help drive the Blexit campaign.
“I’m ready for a Blexit because I’m tired of seeing our people pigeonholed into one political party, which has spent decades telling the lie that liberal policies of higher taxes and handouts lead to prosperity,” Tatum told me.
“Look at your communities, look at the failure and the corruption and ask: what are we doing black people?” he continued. “What do we want to be and where do we want to go as a people? These so-called progressive politicians don’t care about us. And now they’re trying to give the right to work and vote and healthcare to people who are in this country illegally.”
Tatum, who voted for Barack Obama in 2012, says his political conversion came in waves.
“I was a cop for over six years — some SWAT, I was a general instructor at the academy training new recruits,” he said. “I was surrounded by conservatives at the department. It was there that I was confronted with the idea that my Christian faith didn’t align with my political values.”
It was also the culmination, he said, of President Obama sending Department of Justice officials to Michael Brown’s funeral, Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protests, and his experience being called racist slurs by “white liberals” during a chaotic Trump rally in Tuscon that led Brandon to abandon the Democratic Party for good.
“I loved being a cop. For a long time, I couldn’t imagine not being a cop,” Tatum told me. “But I felt like God was calling me to do something more. And I could no longer remain silent about the lies the media was telling about the police. I needed to speak out about how the Democrats and their allies in the media were demonizing our law enforcement.”
Courtesy Candace Owens/Photo by Mike Lerner
Owens also enlisted the help of David Harris Jr., a bi-racial 43-year-old, California native and author of Why I couldn’t Stay Silent.
“If we can save just one black life — who could be a catalyst to save another — then this will have all been worth it,” Harris told me in a phone interview. “Blexit says ‘Yes, you do have permission to question the status quo,’ to ask ‘why are we settling for less from our political leaders?’ Just presenting the idea that blacks don’t have to be Democrats is worth its weight in gold.”
Of course, the idea of black people shifting course and throwing their support behind another political party is not new.
In March 2015, ESPN star personality Stephen A. Smith spoke at the Impact Symposium at Vanderbilt University and said, “What I dream is that for one election, just one, every black person in America vote Republican.”
“Black folks in America are telling one party, ‘We don’t give a damn about you.’ They’re telling the other party ‘You’ve got our vote.” Smith continued. “Therefore, you have labeled yourself ‘disenfranchised’ because one party knows they’ve got you under their thumb. The other party knows they’ll never get you and nobody comes to address your interest.’”
And it was Smith who defended Family Feud host Steve Harvey after he met with President-elect Trump in January to discuss partnering with the Ben Carson-led Department of Housing and Urban Development in an effort to restore America’s inner cities.
“That’s the real work of Blexit,” Owens told me. “Resurrecting our communities and saving cities from Democratic Party rule, which has only brought destruction and misery.”
blexit.com
Asked what she would say to her detractors on the Left, particularly those in the civil rights establishment, in the media, and academia, Candace says, “We’re not trying to combat the civil rights establishment. We are going around them with an honest message of hope and truth for the world to see. When people are presented with the truth, the establishment will fall apart.”
“I anticipate outrage from the intellectual frauds like Michael Eric Dyson and puppets like Al Sharpton,” Candace continued. “They avoid the real debate about how Democrats and their liberal ideas have destroyed black lives. But they can’t hide from Blexit.”
“We can’t all be coons, right?” Owens asked. “They can’t call us all Uncle Toms.”
Tatum put it bluntly, “The black civil rights establishment is a lost cause.”
“Their leaders, not the rank-and-file, simply don’t care,” he elaborated. “They cash checks to keep the legacy of racism alive. It’s going to be a fight and it’s going to take time to wake people up. But there will be athletes and entertainers and everyday Americans who will resist and there will be many others who will join Blexit.”
Owens was quick to reject the idea that Blexit is one big voter registration drive for the Republican Party.
“The Republican Party helped free us. Then they fought the Jim Crow Democrats for the next hundred years fighting for our most basic Constitutional rights,” Owens told me. “But the GOP gave up on the black vote in the 1960s. Today, there have been GOP donors that have shown interest in sponsoring events — specifically for black outreach. So, the sky’s the limit.”
“Blexit won’t be a voter registration drive for the Republican Party,” She continued. “We’re in the business of waking people up. How they choose to vote after they see the truth is up to them. My inkling is that they will question their allegiance to liberalism and to the Democrat agenda.”
Asked what success would look like for Blexit, Owens said, “Let’s look at the voter margins in 2020.”
“It needed to convey the message of a mass exodus,” Candace Owens said of the artwork that would mark black America’s exit, or Blexit, from the “liberal plantation.”
“I created the logo. I spent weeks tinkering with the design, agonizing over the shape, the color,” Owens told me in a phone interview. “I started with a very basic X”
But Owens knew something was missing. “It just wasn’t right. There was this gaping creative chasm,” She said of the artwork.
That’s when she turned to Kanye West — the 21-time Grammy-winner and one of the most influential and successful fashion designers in the world, with whom Owens has developed a close collaborative relationship.
Kanye West and Candace Owens pose in West’s fashion studio. Instagram/realcandaceowens
Indeed, both Owens and Kanye have kicked off a hot conversation that has rocked our culture, spurring a free thinkers movement Candace Owens says is the beating heart of Blexit.
“Me and Kanye had been in constant contact for months. I showed him the Blexit design that I had started to create.” Owens said. “He paused for what felt like ten excruciating minutes, looked at me, smiled, and said, ‘You know the greatest designer of all-time and you didn’t ask me for help?’”
A marketing maven, two-time GQ Most Stylish Man, and the purveyor of the billion-dollar Yeezy apparel and footwear collection brand with Addidas, even Kanye found it a bit of a challenge trying to solve the creative mystery behind the Blexit design he wanted to present to the world. But it was a worthy challenge for one of the fashion industry’s most prolific influencers; one that took he and Owens halfway across the globe to conquer.
“Like me, Kanye felt like something was missing from the design,” Owens told me. “The man is a creative force of nature. And just like that, the next thing I knew, I was on a plane flying from Philadelphia to Africa.”
Rapper Kanye West, left, hands a pair of sneakers to a child during a visit to the Uganda Women’s Effort to Save Orphans (UWESO) Children’s Village in Masulita, outside Kampala, in Uganda Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Stephen Wandera)
“It’s hard to put into words what that level of innovative energy felt like. We were overwhelmed with inspiration as soon as we landed in Uganda,” Owens recalls of her and Kanye’s visit with the people of the East African nation.
It was there that Kanye met with President Yoweri Museveni, visited with orphans who didn’t have shoes to wear.
“There was a real rooted tribal vibe and hora around us,” said Owens, who arrived the next day. “That feeling of going back to our homeland, being in Africa — the feeling of family and togetherness that we as a people have moved away from — motivated Kanye and inspired what came to be the Blexit design.”
Rapper Kanye West shakes hands after taking a mobile photo of a child during a visit to the Uganda Women’s Effort to Save Orphans (UWESO) Children’s Village in Masulita, outside Kampala, in Uganda Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Stephen Wandera)
Kanye put Owens in contact with a designer who had taken the X logo and drew each letter to take on the shape of a human figure.
“The Blexit design reflects the deep-seated humanity and harmony we felt in Uganda,” Candace Owens explained. “It’s that humanity you see in the artwork. The bodies represent us all bending and binding together as a people to bring healing to our communities and real lasting change. That’s what this movement represents. That’s what was missing from the logo. That’s what we found in Africa.”
NBC News Deliberately Sat on Information That Would Have Helped Clear Kavanaugh of Gang Rape Allegations
by Cristina Laila October 27, 2018
As if we needed another reason to distrust the mainstream media.
It turns out that fake news NBC deliberately sat on information that could have cleared Brett Kavanaugh of the gang rape allegations against him brought forth by Julie Swetnick and her creepy porn lawyer Michael Avenatti.
NBC News first began its assault on Kavanaugh by peddling the uncorroborated claims of sexual assault Christine Blasey Ford hurled against Brett Kavanaugh.
The network then decided it wasn’t far enough in the gutter so it decided to give Kavanaugh’s 3rd accuser, Julie Swetnick an interview, once again without verifying her claims against Kavanaugh.
On September 26th, Michael Avenatti revealed Brett Kavanaugh’s 3rd accuser–A woman named Julie Swetnick who brought forth allegations of gang rape.
Ms. Swetnick, in a sworn statement says she was a victim of “gang” or “train” rapes where Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge were present. Swetnick also claims she was drugged with Qualuudes or “something similar.” and Kavanaugh would “spike” the punch at parties so girls would lose their inhibitions.
It was all lies–it was all a hoax.
We now know that less than a week later, NBC had information that could have cleared Kavanaugh of these gang rape claims.
On September 30th, just days before Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote, NBC interviewed Michael Avenatti’s second Kavanaugh accuser, a woman who was still unbeknownst to the public at the time.
A few days later, on October 3rd, Avenatti revealed his second client accusing Kavanaugh of sexual abuse. The accuser, whose name was redacted, appeared to back up Swetnick’s claims that Kavanaugh was a rapist. This woman said in a sworn statement she also witnessed Brett Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge “spike punch” and abuse girls at house parties from 1980-1982.
Since NBC News had already interviewed the second accuser, they knew the sworn statement Avenatti released to the public was full of lies.
NBC News didn’t say a word–they sat back as Kavanaugh was defamed and dragged through the mud.
Referring to Kavanaugh spiking the punch, “I didn’t ever think it was Brett,” the woman said to reporters in a phone interview arranged by Avenatti on Sept. 30 after repeated requests to speak with other witnesses who might corroborate Swetnick’s claims. As soon as the call began, the woman said she never met Swetnick in high school and never saw her at parties and had only become friends with her when they were both in their 30s.
It gets worse…
The anonymous woman then contacted NBC News again on October 3rd, the same day that Avenatti revealed her sworn statement to the public and told reporters that the creepy porn lawyer essentially twisted her words:
But reached by phone independently from Avenatti on Oct. 3, the woman said she only “skimmed” the declaration. After reviewing the statement, she wrote in a text on Oct. 4 to NBC News: “It is incorrect that I saw Brett spike the punch. I didn’t see anyone spike the punch…I was very clear with Michael Avenatti from day one.”
When pressed about abusive behavior towards girls, she wrote in a text: “I would not ever allow anyone to be abusive in my presence. Male or female.”
NBC News could have contacted Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley or ranking member Dianne Feinstein and given them this very important information, however; they decided to keep quiet while Brett Kavanaugh, a devout Catholic, husband and father be defamed with false allegations of gang rape.
The ends justifies the means, right NBC?
On Thursday, Chuck Grassley criminally referred Michael Avenatti and his client Julie Swetnick to the DOJ for false statements and deliberate obstruction of a congressional investigation. (violations of 18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 1001 and 1505)
On Friday, Grassley sent asecond criminal referral to the DOJ about Michael Avenatti regarding the second declaration he submitted to the committee about Brett Kavanaugh.
Grassley said in his letter Friday that he criminally referred Avenatti for a second time because he “twisted [a second woman’s] words.”
NBC News should also have to answer to the Judiciary Committee.
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You just knew Hollywood celebrities were going to push their “guns are bad” narrative before the Nov. 6 midterm elections, and they have — but it seems like it was kind of an afterthought.
I don’t know if they were preoccupied with the migrant caravan or the deranged mail bomber or if they just couldn’t get their collective left-wing messaging together soon enough to produce a polished video, but this one really falls short.
Hollywood, the land of glitz and glamour, is going pretty low budget to remind us that it hates the Second Amendment.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I don’t submerge myself enough in the Hollywood scene to be able to know who half of these people are. It also took a couple of times watching to recognize some of these so-called stars without their makeup. Kevin Bacon, Michael J. Fox and Susan Sarandon are among the more recognizable faces in the video.
In the video, posted by the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety, various Hollywood liberals take turns speaking to say: “On Nov. 6 we have an opportunity to elect candidates who will actually do something about our country’s gun violence crisis. Gun sense candidates who will support common-sense gun safety laws. Candidates who will offer more than thoughts and prayers. And most importantly people who aren’t bought and paid for by the NRA.
“But we have to show up to the polls to actually make that happen. So we’ve got to get out and vote for them.”
“So what’s your plan for voting? How ya gonna get there?”
Here is where you might ask yourself if they had to cut the budget when it came to scriptwriters or if they told the celebrities to ad lib. Either way, it’s clear the strategy to get the vote out is less than innovative.
Do you have a plan to vote for pro-Second Amendment candidates on Nov. 6?
“Do you know where it is?” the celebrities say. “Can you walk to your voting location? Will you take public transportation? Maybe you’ll drive there. Maybe you’ll bike there, or you’ll carpool. Knock on your neighbors’ doors, ask them if they need a ride. Come hell or high water, you gotta get there.
“What’s your plan for voting? … Are you gonna vote before a meeting? After a meeting?
“We’re going after breakfast.”
“I know I’m gonna do it early in the morning so I can get an ‘I Voted’ sticker and gloat all day.”
And this is just way too much information: “Personally I like to vote in my underwear, so I’ll be sending in an absentee ballot.”
The celebrities then ask if you’ve done your “gun sense” research, giving a number where you can send a text “to make your voting plan, get connected to information about gun sense candidates and everything else you need to vote on Nov. 6.”
So I fell on the sword for this article and sent a text. I’m most likely now registered with a group that calls itself Moms Demand Action, which sent me to Guns Sense Voter, a site with a list of all the left-wing anti-gun candidates on my ballot.
Thanks to Gun Sense Voter for giving me an ironclad list of candidates not to vote for and helping me develop a voting plan for Nov. 6.
I’m going to get dressed and wear makeup to the polls. I plan to go early in the day so I can wear my “I Voted” sticker all day and gloat that I helped the red wave overtake the anti-Second Amendment liberals who want to take my guns. I might just use my conceal and carry license as my voter identification at my polling place, too. Wouldn’t that plan just be icing on the cake of a midterm victory?
What’s your plan for Nov. 6?
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Early voters in Texas are saying machines are flipping their votes if they vote straight-ticket Democrat or Republican. The secretary of state’s office is saying the issues are user error instead of problems with the machines.
Voters casting their ballots early in Texas claimed this week that when casting Democratic or Republican straight-ticket ballots, voting machines in at least 80 counties in the Lone Star State flipped their votes to the other party in key midterm races, including the high-profile competition between incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz and his Democratic opponent Beto O’Rourke.
The Texas secretary of state’s office on Friday said that there have been issues reported with Hart eSlate voting machines, which are used in approximately 30 percent of counties statewide. The machines feature a wheel for selecting candidates and buttons to move from screen to screen.
But the secretary of state’s office said the issues were not caused by the voting machines, but by voters themselves.
“The Hart eSlate machines are not malfunctioning, the problems being reported are a result of user error — usually voters hitting a button or using the selection wheel before the screen is finished rendering,” said Sam Taylor, spokesman for the office of Secretary of State Rolando Pablos.
The Houston Chronicle reported that Democratic voters claimed the machines indicated that they were about to cast a vote for Cruz, when they originally intended to choose O’Rourke. Several people said they were able to get help from employees at polling places in order to change their vote back.
It’s that time of year when the focus for some people may be scary movies and scary pranks. But sometimes real life can present scary things that are no joke.
Georgia police are warning that there is one more thing parents need to worry about when it comes to trick-or-treating and the candy given to their children. According to KHOU, the drug meth can come in a form that looks like a popular Halloween candy treat.
Police Chief Tim Chatman explained, “Just last week, we seized some drugs (methamphetamine) and it looked just like SweeTARTs. It’s important for all the parents this Halloween to check the candy, be with their children, wear reflective-type clothing, flashlights.”
Even though many parents utilize events such as “trunk or treats” instead of traditional door-to-door candy gathering, Chatman warned they still need to be mindful. “Historically there have been events, all over the country, where people have been hurt, razor blades in apples. We have a lot of mean people out there.”
However, SweeTARTS aren’t the only candy treat that has been used to disguise illegal drugs. In May 2017 a drug bust in Indiana resulted in both SweeTARTS and Smarties being discovered to be laced with drugs. The IndyStar added that according to the Greenfield Police, the drugs being distributed in this candy form can include “anything from Xanax to heroin.”
A statement issued by the police warned that “‘Sweet Tarts’ (and) ‘Smarties’ are a dangerous drug which have similar side affects to Xanax. These drugs pose a threat to unsuspecting children whom believe them to be candy.”
Fox59 reported that the man police busted had been using a syringe to lace buckets of candy with heroin, meth and Xanax. The man was busted in a residence located right across the street from a playground. The drugs were valued at $20,000.
The Dublin, Georgia police department is currently warning parents, via Facebook, to be on the lookout for the dangerous treats. Anyone, anywhere, who sees something suspicious in their child’s trick-or-treat bag is urged to contact their local police.
South Carolina’s Lake Ridge Neighborhood Watch offered a Halloween Safety tip guide on Twitter that provides children and parents with more details on how to check Halloween candy for safety.
It reads, “Look through all Halloween candy really well before eating. Throw away all candies with loose wrappers or that are missing wrappers. Also (chuck) any treat that may have tears or holes in the wrapper, or any candy that looks weird or might be a strange color.”
“Do not eat homemade goodies unless you know the person that gave them to you. PARENTS: take out any item that might be a choking hazard for your little one such as gum, peanuts, hard candies and small toys.”
Has your family switched to Trunk-or-Treat or other such venues instead of door-to-door Trick-or-Treating?
A BuzzFeed quiz with side-by-side images points out that there are medicines and supplements that can easily be mistaken for candy, as well. This can serve as one more warning for parents to take extra care in not just inspecting their child’s Halloween treats, but in being mindful about the medicine cabinet contents, as well.
Halloween can be a fun time for parents and children, alike. Proper planning and awareness can help keep everyone safe and enjoying the fun that can be had during the spooky holiday festivities.
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“Thank you, come again” is his catchphrase, but he might never be coming again to our television screens.
A beloved character from one of the longest-running television shows in history is going to be erased, all because politically correct busybodies have declared that he’s offensive.
The show is “The Simpsons,” the sometimes controversial but consistently popular cartoon sitcom that began in 1989.
And the offending character? Don’t worry, Homer and the family are safe, but the same can’t be said for Apu.
“The Simpsons have confirmed that controversial character Apu will be cut out of future episodes,” New Musical Express, a U.K. entertainment magazine, reported Friday.
“The long-running show has come under fire for it’s (sic) depiction of Kwik-E-Mart owner Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, with viewers complaining that the character promotes racist stereotypes of people of Indian and Asian descent,” NME continued.
“Simpsons” producer Adi Shankar confirmed the news in an interview with IndieWire.
“I’ve verified from multiple sources now: They’re going to drop the Apu character altogether,” he said. “They aren’t going to make a big deal out of it, or anything like that, but they’ll drop him altogether just to avoid the controversy.”
Do you think Apu should remain in ‘The Simpsons’?
It’s worth noting that “The Simpsons” is famous for light-heartedly mocking, well, everybody.
Ned Flanders is a stereotype of pious Christians. Groundskeeper Willie is a sendup of the Scottish. Even Homer Simpson can be seen as a stereotypical “average white guy” stuck in middle-class America.
Apparently an Indian character is too much for the politically correct crowd. Never mind that Apu has been part of the show since 1990 — some 28 years — and is a pretty positive role model.
In the canon of the show, Apu is a hard-working immigrant who became a legal U.S. citizen. In addition to being friendly with the townspeople while running a small business, the character has also been shown to be very intelligent and holds a Ph.D. in computer science.
Oh, and he’s a (mostly) loyal husband and family man, too. Not bad for a cartoon character.
It’s worth pointing out that a very high number — an amazing 60 percent — of convenience stores in the U.S. are run by Indian-Americans in real life. Far from being an oppressed group, Indians are doing very well in America, most likely due to hard-working entrepreneurial attitudes that are part of the culture.
And the secret’s out: A lot of recent Indian immigrants do speak with an accent not so unlike Apu’s. But don’t you dare find it mildly humorous.
Interestingly, the show’s producer Shankar — who is himself Indian-American — is not thrilled about cutting Apu from the long-running series.
“If you are a show about cultural commentary and you are too afraid to comment on the culture, especially when it’s a component of the culture you had a hand in creating, then you are a show about cowardice,” he noted.
“It’s not a step forward, or step backwards, it’s just a massive step sideways,” Shankar said. “After having read all these wonderful scripts (dealing with Apu), I feel like sidestepping this issue doesn’t solve it when the whole purpose of art, I would argue, is to bring us together.”
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