Six-Year-Old Girl With Down’s Syndrome Points Finger Gun. School District Notifies Police.

After a six-year-old Pennsylvania girl with Down Syndrome pointed her index finger at her teacher and said, “I shoot you,” the school district called the police.

The Tredyffrin-Easttown School District said its policy called for the police to be contacted. Daily Local News reported:

The school’s principal Rebecca Wills quickly determined that there was not a threat and then followed district policy and convened a “threat assessment” team. The threat assessment team recommended no disciplinary action, and determined that a “transient threat” was made and no harm was made to the teacher or any classmates … Gaines then said that she received a call from the principal that police were going to be notified. The incident was reported to police 24 hours later.

The incident prompted the girl’s mother, Maggie Gaines, to say that the reaction to her daughter Margot’s gesture at Valley was far from reasonable, as she told CBSPhiladelphia:

They get this phone call and I was fine with everything up until calling the police. And I said, “You absolutely do not have to call the police. You know, this is ridiculous” … My daughter got frustrated and pointed her finger at her teacher and said, “I shoot you.” At that point, they went to the principal’s office and it was quickly assessed that she didn’t even really know what she was saying. They were asking her questions, and she was saying, “Oh, I shoot mommy,” laughs, or, “I shoot my brother.” The principal asked, “Did you mean to hurt your teacher?” And she said no and it seemed like she didn’t even know what that meant.

Gaines continued, “She really didn’t understand what she was saying, and having Down syndrome is one aspect, but I’m sure all 6-year-olds don’t really know what that means. Now, there is a record at the police that says she made a threat to her teacher.

The Gaines family alerted Pennsylvania state Sen. Andrew Dinniman, who stated:

As a state senator, an educator, and a parent, I am concerned when I hear that such important decisions appear to be guided blindly by written policy or legal interpretation without those in positions of authority using their judgment, experience, and commonsense to weigh in. Furthermore, I am alarmed that a school seems to be acting as an extension of the police department in promulgating data and records on children as young as kindergarteners.

Bearing Arms noted, “This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a student’s finger gun land them in trouble. In 2019, a middle school student in Kansas faced felony charges after making a finger gun in class, while students in the same school district who brought actual firearms to school were charged with misdemeanors.”

The Tredyffrin-Easttown School District issued a statement that included these statements: “When an individual parent concern related to our school safety practices was brought to the attention of the District two weeks ago, we agreed to review those practices in the School Board Policy Committee meeting tonight. When developing the current practice, the District worked collaboratively with parents, law enforcement and private safety/mental health agencies and legal consultants to ensure our safety measures reflected considerable input from both our local community and experts in the field of school safety.”

via The Daily Wire

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Good News! Trump Is Discussing Firing Corrupt ICIG Michael Atkinson — Whose Impeachment Testimony Is Still Hidden By Liar Schiff

On Friday anti-Trump Army Lt. Col Alexander Vindman was escorted off the White House grounds and dismissed from the National Security Council. His twin brother Army Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, who served as a lawyer on the NSC was also fired and left with Alex.

There are unofficial reports that White House staffers stood up and cheered as the twin brothers were escorted form the White House.

But President Trump is not done yet.
There are reports that dozens more may be removed this week.

And there are reports that crooked Intelligence Committee Inspector General Michael Atkinson may be asked to leave.

Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes told investigative reporter Sara Carter that Republicans are currently investigating Intel Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.

GOP lawmakers asked Mr. Atkinson to reveal who changed the whistleblower complaint form to allow for second-hand info and office gossip.

And Atkinson’s secret basement testimony during the sham impeachment proceedings was so devastating to Democrats that Adam Schiff STILL refuses to release this transcript to the public.

The Washington Post reported:

The president and his advisers have also discussed removing Michael Atkinson, the inspector general of the intelligence community, though no final decision has been made, officials said. Trump has expressed frustration that Atkinson allowed a whistleblower report documenting Trump’s alleged misconduct toward Ukraine to be transmitted to Congress.

Some advisers have also counseled the president to remove Victoria Coates, the deputy national security adviser, who has told others in the White House that she fears her job is in jeopardy.

The post Good News! Trump Is Discussing Firing Corrupt ICIG Michael Atkinson — Whose Impeachment Testimony Is Still Hidden By Liar Schiff appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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AZ Democrat Senators: Register or Surrender ‘Assault Weapons’

Democrats in the Arizona Senate are pushing legislation that requires “assault weapons” throughout the state to be registered or surrendered.

The legislation, SB 1625, also provides the third option of rendering the firearm inoperable.

Moreover, the text of SB 1625 makes clear that the legislation ends not simply the ownership of “assault weapons,” but the manufacture of said firearms as well. An exception for manufacturing is provided for those making guns for police or military.

The statute to surrender said firearms also applies to “high capacity” magazines and certain semiautomatic pistols and shotguns.

The Democrat gun control push in Arizona comes as Democrats in Virginia are pushing an “assault weapons” ban, a “high capacity” magazine ban, the criminalization of private gun sales via universal background checks, gun rationing legislation that mandates no more than one handgun purchase a month, a ban on suppressors, and myriad other gun controls.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

 

via Breitbart News

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IT BEGINS: Trump Admin Cuts 70 Obama-Era Holdovers From NSC – More Cuts Coming This Week

The Vindman twins were just the beginning of the NatSec purge.

On Friday President Trump fired the Vindman twins from their National Security Council positions in the Trump White House.

This comes after Alexander Vindman admitted to working behind President Trump’s back in Ukraine.

The Washington Examiner reported Trump cut 70 Obama-era holdovers from the NatSec.

President Trump is making good on his promises to “drain the swamp” and cut Obama-era holdovers from his staffs, especially the critical and recently controversial National Security Council.

Officials confirmed that Trump and national security adviser Robert O’Brien have cut 70 positions inherited from former President Barack Obama, who had fattened the staff to 200.

Many were loaners from other agencies and have been sent back. Others left government work.

But President Trump is not done and neither is National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien.

The National Security Advisor is expected to announce more cuts in the NSC staff this week.

Trump’s goal is to cut the agency in half.

The NatSec became a bloated bureaucracy under Obama and Obama holdovers such as Eric Ciaramella, Alex Vindman and Sean Misko worked together to “take out” Trump.

Rep. Nunes took it a step further and urged President Trump to move the entire NSC apparatus out of the White House and across the Potomac River.

The post IT BEGINS: Trump Admin Cuts 70 Obama-Era Holdovers From NSC – More Cuts Coming This Week appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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Ratings For ‘Wokest Oscars Ever’ Tumble To All-Time Low As Exhausted Americans Tune Out

Ratings For ‘Wokest Oscars Ever’ Tumble To All-Time Low As Exhausted Americans Tune Out

Ricky Gervais might have been on to something

From Joaquin Phoenix – the man who’s fighting climate change by wearing the same tux to all his award shows – raving about the injustices of inseminating cows, to Chris Rock and Steve Martin’s insipid jokes about #OscarsSoWhite, this year’s Oscars was almost intolerable for viewers who haven’t totally bought in to the far-left identity politics currently dominating Hollywood. And it showed in the ratings.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, this year’s Oscars – which some have joked would be the ‘wokest Oscars ever’ after Kevin Hart was fired as host and best picture went to a foreign film (South Korea’s "Parasite") for the first time – bagged the lowest TV ratings in the history of the storied awards show.

First, the Phoenix clip (which also included a dig on cancel culture before the actor accused all of humanity of harboring an "egocentric worldview."

And here’s Rock and Martin (two legendary comedians who are usually hilarious in any other context):

Of course, this year’s Oscars was also the first to proceed without a host, since the show fired black comedian Kevin Hart over some ancient vaguely homophobic (by today’s standards) tweets that basically epitomized cancel culture (famous people and comedians being forced to answer for insensitive jokes years or even decades later).

 

Then again, this isn’t a new trend, as American viewership of award shows has been declining for years (last year’s show ended a four year streak of shrinking viewership). That’s likely for a mix of reasons, including the fact that everybody can just wait until the next day to watch the highlights. Also: Nobody really cares about film anymore in the age of endlessly streaming prestige television.

The viewership for this year’s show was only 23.6 million people, down roughly 6 million from the 29 million+ who watched it last year, according to the Hollywood Reporter (these metrics differ slightly from the data used in the chart above, though the trend is arguably the same). 

Another reason why Americans have grown tired of the Oscars: Nobody enjoys listening to a bunch of limousine liberals who dropped out of high school lecture America about it’s moral shortcomings, when Hollywood is one of the biggest purveyors of depravity in the country, as we learned with the Harvey Weinstein scandal. 

A poll carried out on Twitter by a writer for the Daily Caller found that more than 90% of respondents would prefer to watch XFL football over the Oscars.

The Oscars isn’t the only award show seeing a massive drop in ratings: the Emmys also suffered a steep ratings decline. The September 2019 Emmy broadcast on Fox fell by 32% in viewers and 29% in adults between the ages of 18 and 49 from the previous year.


Tyler Durden

Mon, 02/10/2020 – 15:50

via ZeroHedge News

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Report: Trump Administration Has Removed 70 Obama Holdovers at NSC

The Trump administration has removed 70 Obama holdovers at the National Security Council (NSC), Washington Examiner columnist Paul Bedard reported on Monday.

President Trump and National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien have removed 70 Obama holdovers from the NSC, which previously boasted a staff of roughly 200 people, according to the Washington Examiner:

The news follows Saturday’s CNN report, which indicated “major cuts” to NSC staff in the coming days, citing “two sources familiar with the matter.”

It comes days after the contentious impeachment battle on Capitol Hill — a battle ignited by a complaint from a so-called “whistleblower.” The “whistleblower’s” complaint, regarding Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, sparked the House Democrats’ partisan impeachment inquiry, which ultimately ended in a full acquittal.

The administration removed Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a key witness in the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, from his post at the NSC last week. It also removed his twin brother Yevgeny, who worked as a lawyer on the NSC.

While Vindman has denied knowing the identity of the “whistleblower,” he has been suspected of being a leaker in the past. Some Republican lawmakers, such Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), believe the former NSC official leaked details the president’s July 25 phone call to the “whistleblower.”

As Breitbart News reported:

First and foremost, Vindman admitted openly during his testimony before HPSCI last year under questioning from ranking GOP member Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) that he leaked the contents of President Trump’s call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to two officials who were not in the White House. Vindman claimed during his testimony then that these two officials he leaked the call to were “cleared U.S. government officials with appropriate need to know.” While Vindman claimed under oath he did not know who the whistleblower was, Schiff intervened saying that answering Nunes’s questions identifying the individuals outside the White House to whom Vindman leaked the Trump-Zelensky call details may out the identity of the whistleblower who filed the original complaint.

The person who filed the complaint has been long been–and was at the time of this hearing–publicly reported to have been CIA official Eric Ciaramella. According to a follow-up report published this week by the outlet that first reported Ciaramella’s identity, RealClearPolitics, Vindman was the person who leaked the call details to Ciaramella.

Vindman’s removal drew a strong reaction from Democrat leaders. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called his firing “shameful” and a “brazen act of retaliation,” and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Monday wrote a letter to 74 inspectors general, requesting an investigation into “any and all instances of retaliation” against whistleblowers, according to the Hill.

“These attacks are part of a dangerous, growing pattern of retaliation against those who report wrongdoing only to find themselves targeted by the President and subject to his wrath and vindictiveness,” Schumer claimed.

The Trump administration has also identified and will remove the senior official who penned an anonymous “resistance” op-ed and book, according to U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova.

via Breitbart News

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Nolte: Woketard Oscar Ratings Collapse 20 Percent to All-Time Low

Ratings for Sunday night’s 2020 Oscar ceremony collapsed by double digits to hit an all-time low.

Last year, the Oscars earned 29.6 million viewers, a bit of an increase over the 2018’s disastrous 26.5 million, which was also the previous record holder for all-time low Oscar ratings.

This Sunday, only 23.6 million tuned in. That’s a jaw-dropping 20 percent dive over last year, and an 11 percent dive from the previous all-time low.

What a failure…

Gee, I wonder what excuse the sycophant entertainment outlets will come up with this time?

You see, in the past, whenever the public turned away from the Academy Awards in droves, the sycophants blamed it on the Best Picture nominees, the fact that not enough popular movies were in the running.

Well, this year that was obviously not the case. Joker, Little Women, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, and 1917 were all hits, all grossed over $100 million. Joker was one of the biggest hits of the year.

Gee, so what could it be, entertainment media?

No, really, let’s all put on our thinking caps and try to figure just what it was that so repelled the public this year.

Hmmm???

Hmmm???

Hmmm???

Are you drawing a blank?

Because I’m sure drawing a blank?

Oh, well, except for the fact that Sunday night’s telecast ended up being exactly what those of us who refused to watch knew it would be: Three-plus hours of elitists hectoring and lecturing the rest of us to make sacrifices they never will.

Milk, y’all — we were told drinking milk is immoral.

The whole night was smug and pompous and sanctimonious and hypocritical.

the whole night was filled with man-hating and self-congratulations… It was appalling.

The whole night was filled with small, petty, mean-spirited, divisive, spiritually-unattractive blowhards who obviously hate most of their customers, but who are so bubbled and spoiled and privileged and sheltered, they not only feel no need to hide that hatred and contempt, they believe that by being boorish and insulting and off-putting, it will actually boost their standing within a failing industry held together by literal spandex.

Basically, Sunday night’s Oscar telecast was a Big Troll of us Trumptards, of us Deplorables, but this time the joke was on Hollywood’s Woketards because we didn’t even bother to tune in.

Me? During the Oscars, I chose to watch The Mighty Patrick Swayze kick all kinds of ass in a double feature of Road House and Red Dawn.

The only emotional effort I put into last night’s telecast was writing this piece.

You see, I love movies way too much to bother watching the Oscars anymore. And if you think about that for half a second, it will start to make sense.

And remember…

We don’t hate you, Hollywood…

We’re just hating you back.

There’s a difference.

Kiss my ass.

Except for you Renee Zellwegger. You were pure class and you looked amazing.

 

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

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While Trump’s Getting Minorities Jobs, Liberal Whites Are Paying $2,500 Each for Dinner Lectures on Racism

The job market under President Donald Trump continues to smash records for black and Hispanic Americans. Despite this and other good news for minorities in this country, there are still those on the left who want to punish themselves for being white — and they are willing to pay for it.

At no point in our country’s history have there been more black and Hispanic Americans in the workforce. During the country’s current record economic expansion, minority women are also surging to work in record numbers.

A rising tide lifts all boats.

Trump has created such a positive job market that two minority women in Colorado are cashing in on white guilt, which is apparently a lucrative business in the Centennial State.

As reported by The Guardian, the “Race 2 Dinner” hosts up to 10 white women who are willing to pay $2,500 to endure hours of discussions about their subtle acts of racism.

TRENDING: Former Obama Adviser Bashes Pelosi: ‘I Just Don’t Recognize the Democratic Party’

Instead of donating their time or money to actually helping disadvantaged minority communities, some woke white women are paying a substantial sum for self-degradation.

Organizers of the dinners, which are held in Denver and other major cities, aim to persuade their white dinner guests to “admit how racist they are.”

Attendees load up on pasta and are introduced to literature about toxic whiteness before being grilled by their hosts about their transgressions against minorities — one of which includes simply being white.

At the early dinners, things got out of hand with dinner guests crying and reportedly attempting “place their hands” on hosts Saira Rao and Regina Jackson. The Guardian reports that racial slurs were even used.

Would you consider spending $2,500 to be lectured about white privilege?

0% (0 Votes)

0% (0 Votes)

Eventually, Rao and Jackson found a better dinner model that does not rouse violence from guests and sets them up to more successfully combat their white privilege.

The pair hosts the dinners with the help of their white employees, Lisa Bond and Genevieve Swift.

After a failed bid to represent Colorado’s 1st Congressional District in 2018, Rao founded the dinner with Jackson, who is a lifelong political activist from Chicago.

Rao describes herself as “the daughter of Indian immigrants,” while Jackson, who is black, has dedicated her life to highlighting what she calls violence “perpetrated” on the world by “white people.”

Bond, the dinner’s “resident white woman,” says on the Race 2 Dinner website that it has taken her 30 years to become “committed to deconstructing her whiteness.” She says that despite her tireless work, she has always been racist, and attempting to fix that “doesn’t make her special.”

RELATED: Watch Candace Owens Shred ‘White Supremacy’ Expert Who Attacked Her at House Hearing

So, why would anyone willingly pay good money to be tortured over the color of his or her skin? Rao told The Guardian it is because “wealthy white women have been taught never to leave the dinner table.”

Rao, who admits she “hates the American flag,” is active on Twitter:

Time will tell if Rao and Jackson’s business model will be successful. Fortunately for them, the economy under Trump is enriching people of all races — including women with white guilt.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

via The Western Journal

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What Would Karl Marx Say If He Met Bernie Sanders?

In an imagined meeting between Marxism’s founder, Karl Marx and socialist Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, we do not know of course, what they would say, but one thing is certain – Marx would have been dumbfounded to learn that Sanders is a self-proclaimed socialist, too.

For the founding fathers of the Marxist movement, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the main driving force of history was the class struggle between the working class (proletariat) and the capitalists (bourgeoisie). They predicted that a proletarian revolution would overthrow the bourgeoisie, and that would pave the way to a perfect, classless society.

Latter-day socialists serve a very different constituency: college students, especially those whose major fields include the word studies – social studies, ethnic studies, gender studies; former college students living in their parents’ basements and wishing that their student loans could be cancelled; and big-city dwellers, whose paychecks or welfare checks come for the most part from the government. Their generous promises appeal to other categories as well. Yet, the original constituents of the socialists, the heirs of the proletariat – the blue-collar workers living mostly in small- and medium-sized cities in the flyover states – have been lost, perhaps irrevocably, to Donald Trump, or to Boris Johnson, if they happen to live in England.

The Marxist theorists had the pejorative term ‘lumpenproletariat’ for an underclass strata consisting of miscellaneous groups, such as the chronically unemployed, the homeless, criminals and other outcasts who were uninterested in revolutionary advancement. They were explicitly excluded from the concept of proletariat, because they were “isolated from the forces of production and incapable of having a working-class consciousness.” The Manifesto of the Communist Party written by Marx and Engels contemptuously calls them “the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society.” Yet, Sanders is eager to attract them to his camp, too.

Not only would Marx be shocked to learn about Sanders’ views, the feeling would be mutual. The notion that the Socialists are protectors of the rights of all oppressed minorities – whether defined in terms of race, religion or otherwise – is relatively recent. The founding fathers of Marxism did not subscribe to it. The ugly truth about their attitude toward non-Western peoples is exposed by Black social scientist Carlos Moore in his paper “Were Marx and Engels White Racists?” published in “Berkeley Journal of Sociology,” vol. 19 (1974-75), pp. 125-156. Here is its very brief summary.

The paper quotes numerous derogatory racial and ethnic slurs and tropes from Marx’ and Engels’ works that I do not wish to reproduce here. More importantly, it sheds light on the bigger picture that explains the roots of their disdain for non-Western societies. Marx and Engels lived in the period of colonial conquests in Asia and Africa by the West. In their view of the world, capitalism was the last class society that would be replaced by a classless paradise. They believed that the pre-capitalist societies in Asia and Africa had to pass the capitalist stage of development in order to enter the paradise. Hence, according to Marx and Engels, their colonization by the West and integration into the capitalist world system was a ‘progressive’ step, a prerequisite for reaching an eventual egalitarian Eden. But let Moore speak for himself; direct excerpts from his paper are in italics:

The Mexican-American war of 1846-48 was “a typical example of brazen imperialistic conquest and expansionism. But not to the founders of Marxism, who greeted it as a “civilizing” event along the road to universal progress. The “energetic Yankees,” they argued, would carry out a quick exploitation of the California gold mines, people of the conquered areas, and open up the Pacific to civilization, all of which the “lazy Mexicans” were naturally incapable of doing.

Similarly, … Marx and Engels saw the conquest of Algeria by the French as an “important and fortunate fact for the progress of civilization …”

Nowadays, trying to save the face of the founding fathers, Aryan Marxists make all sorts of posthumous excuses for Marx and Engels. These apologists will engage in multiple and ingenious intellectual acrobatics to make us believe that the architects of Marxism didn’t really “mean” what they said, but meant what they did not say. We are asked to understand the “dialectical nature” of their pro-slavery, pro-colonialist, pro-imperialist, white supremacist (and Germanic) pronouncements. The “complexity” of their thinking and analytical process is also invoked by the apologists, as if to intimidate us into swallowing the crass racism of Marx and Engels.

There are personal differences between Sanders and his ideological forerunners as well. First, Sanders was enamored with Russia when it was still known as the USSR, so much so that he spent his honeymoon there. His Marxist forerunners had nothing but contempt for Russia and for Slavic peoples in general, designating them as “less advanced” societies. That’s what prompted Moore to call them Aryan Marxists. Second, unlike Marx, Sanders wrote a commercially successful book that made him a millionaire. Marx’s “Das Kapital” turned out to be more influential, but it did not raise much capital for its author. Unlike Sanders, who enjoys the opportunities provided by capitalism, Marx was impractical; he lived in poverty, had many children and few friends.

One might explain away Marx’ and Engels’ racism by saying that we should not judge people living in the 19th century by today’s standards, which is correct. However, prominent Marxists expressed the same attitude toward “natives” of Asia and Africa much more recently. Here is an example:

Senator Marco Rubio criticized prominent African Americans for their admiration of Ernesto “Che” Guevara. According to Rubio, Guevara “wrote extensively about the superiority of white Europeans over people of African descent.” PolitiFact, a reputable fact-checker, analyzed Rubio’s statement and indeed, found a rabidly racist quotation from Guevara’s book, “The Motorcycle Diaries,” written in the 1950s. The quotation is so vile that I have decided not to dignify it by reproducing it here, but it is available on the PolitiFact website. PolitiFact confirmed its authenticity, but still rated Rubio’s statement “Mostly False,” because Rubio used the adverb extensively.

To put a more innocuous spin on Guevara’s statement, PolitiFact consulted experts who did not dispute the accuracy of that ugly racist quote, but tried to explain it away by pointing to Guevara’s youth – he was 24 when he wrote it. Later in his life Guevara, who was killed at 39, spoke out against racial discrimination. We have no way of knowing if he truly changed his views or simply watched his language when he rose to prominence.

There should be a special place in hell reserved for college professors who extol the virtues of socialism to their students without mentioning monumental failures of real life socialist experiments that destroyed – figuratively and literally – millions of lives.  While these tenured professors enjoy six-digit salaries and generous vacations, they cynically doom the impressionable kids to a life of misery.

Photo illustration by Monica Showalter with use of public domain image colorized by Olga Klimbim / Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0

In an imagined meeting between Marxism’s founder, Karl Marx and socialist Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, we do not know of course, what they would say, but one thing is certain – Marx would have been dumbfounded to learn that Sanders is a self-proclaimed socialist, too.

For the founding fathers of the Marxist movement, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the main driving force of history was the class struggle between the working class (proletariat) and the capitalists (bourgeoisie). They predicted that a proletarian revolution would overthrow the bourgeoisie, and that would pave the way to a perfect, classless society.

Latter-day socialists serve a very different constituency: college students, especially those whose major fields include the word studies – social studies, ethnic studies, gender studies; former college students living in their parents’ basements and wishing that their student loans could be cancelled; and big-city dwellers, whose paychecks or welfare checks come for the most part from the government. Their generous promises appeal to other categories as well. Yet, the original constituents of the socialists, the heirs of the proletariat – the blue-collar workers living mostly in small- and medium-sized cities in the flyover states – have been lost, perhaps irrevocably, to Donald Trump, or to Boris Johnson, if they happen to live in England.

The Marxist theorists had the pejorative term ‘lumpenproletariat’ for an underclass strata consisting of miscellaneous groups, such as the chronically unemployed, the homeless, criminals and other outcasts who were uninterested in revolutionary advancement. They were explicitly excluded from the concept of proletariat, because they were “isolated from the forces of production and incapable of having a working-class consciousness.” The Manifesto of the Communist Party written by Marx and Engels contemptuously calls them “the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society.” Yet, Sanders is eager to attract them to his camp, too.

Not only would Marx be shocked to learn about Sanders’ views, the feeling would be mutual. The notion that the Socialists are protectors of the rights of all oppressed minorities – whether defined in terms of race, religion or otherwise – is relatively recent. The founding fathers of Marxism did not subscribe to it. The ugly truth about their attitude toward non-Western peoples is exposed by Black social scientist Carlos Moore in his paper “Were Marx and Engels White Racists?” published in “Berkeley Journal of Sociology,” vol. 19 (1974-75), pp. 125-156. Here is its very brief summary.

The paper quotes numerous derogatory racial and ethnic slurs and tropes from Marx’ and Engels’ works that I do not wish to reproduce here. More importantly, it sheds light on the bigger picture that explains the roots of their disdain for non-Western societies. Marx and Engels lived in the period of colonial conquests in Asia and Africa by the West. In their view of the world, capitalism was the last class society that would be replaced by a classless paradise. They believed that the pre-capitalist societies in Asia and Africa had to pass the capitalist stage of development in order to enter the paradise. Hence, according to Marx and Engels, their colonization by the West and integration into the capitalist world system was a ‘progressive’ step, a prerequisite for reaching an eventual egalitarian Eden. But let Moore speak for himself; direct excerpts from his paper are in italics:

The Mexican-American war of 1846-48 was “a typical example of brazen imperialistic conquest and expansionism. But not to the founders of Marxism, who greeted it as a “civilizing” event along the road to universal progress. The “energetic Yankees,” they argued, would carry out a quick exploitation of the California gold mines, people of the conquered areas, and open up the Pacific to civilization, all of which the “lazy Mexicans” were naturally incapable of doing.

Similarly, … Marx and Engels saw the conquest of Algeria by the French as an “important and fortunate fact for the progress of civilization …”

Nowadays, trying to save the face of the founding fathers, Aryan Marxists make all sorts of posthumous excuses for Marx and Engels. These apologists will engage in multiple and ingenious intellectual acrobatics to make us believe that the architects of Marxism didn’t really “mean” what they said, but meant what they did not say. We are asked to understand the “dialectical nature” of their pro-slavery, pro-colonialist, pro-imperialist, white supremacist (and Germanic) pronouncements. The “complexity” of their thinking and analytical process is also invoked by the apologists, as if to intimidate us into swallowing the crass racism of Marx and Engels.

There are personal differences between Sanders and his ideological forerunners as well. First, Sanders was enamored with Russia when it was still known as the USSR, so much so that he spent his honeymoon there. His Marxist forerunners had nothing but contempt for Russia and for Slavic peoples in general, designating them as “less advanced” societies. That’s what prompted Moore to call them Aryan Marxists. Second, unlike Marx, Sanders wrote a commercially successful book that made him a millionaire. Marx’s “Das Kapital” turned out to be more influential, but it did not raise much capital for its author. Unlike Sanders, who enjoys the opportunities provided by capitalism, Marx was impractical; he lived in poverty, had many children and few friends.

One might explain away Marx’ and Engels’ racism by saying that we should not judge people living in the 19th century by today’s standards, which is correct. However, prominent Marxists expressed the same attitude toward “natives” of Asia and Africa much more recently. Here is an example:

Senator Marco Rubio criticized prominent African Americans for their admiration of Ernesto “Che” Guevara. According to Rubio, Guevara “wrote extensively about the superiority of white Europeans over people of African descent.” PolitiFact, a reputable fact-checker, analyzed Rubio’s statement and indeed, found a rabidly racist quotation from Guevara’s book, “The Motorcycle Diaries,” written in the 1950s. The quotation is so vile that I have decided not to dignify it by reproducing it here, but it is available on the PolitiFact website. PolitiFact confirmed its authenticity, but still rated Rubio’s statement “Mostly False,” because Rubio used the adverb extensively.

To put a more innocuous spin on Guevara’s statement, PolitiFact consulted experts who did not dispute the accuracy of that ugly racist quote, but tried to explain it away by pointing to Guevara’s youth – he was 24 when he wrote it. Later in his life Guevara, who was killed at 39, spoke out against racial discrimination. We have no way of knowing if he truly changed his views or simply watched his language when he rose to prominence.

There should be a special place in hell reserved for college professors who extol the virtues of socialism to their students without mentioning monumental failures of real life socialist experiments that destroyed – figuratively and literally – millions of lives.  While these tenured professors enjoy six-digit salaries and generous vacations, they cynically doom the impressionable kids to a life of misery.

Photo illustration by Monica Showalter with use of public domain image colorized by Olga Klimbim / Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0

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Corrupt or Incompetent? No Good Answer for Democrats in Iowa

Probably my favorite line in the movie Moneyball is uttered in the wonderful scene where Billy Bean (Brad Pitt) is trying to teach his protégé (Joshua Hill) how to cut a professional baseball player.  Bean explains that delivering bad news works best if done with a detached, businesslike manner.  He compares the unpleasant task to the job of a hired assassin by asking, “Would you rather get a bullet to the head, or five to the chest and bleed to death?”

Hill replies, “Are those my only two options?”  

Therein lies the problem for Democrats come November.  There are only two possible explanations for the debacle in Iowa, and neither of them is good.  Either Democrats have corrupted the elections process so that Bernie Sanders cannot possibly win the nomination, no matter how well he does with their primary voters, or they are so incompetent that they can’t even run a caucus in a state with a relatively small population.

The largest city in Iowa, Des Moines, is about the same size as Augusta (home of the Masters golf tournament), the second largest city in Georgia.  The entire population of Iowa (3 million) is only a little more than half the size of metropolitan Atlanta (5 million).  It seems almost inconceivable that a caucus in which the top four candidates received less than two thousand votes combined could get so screwed up that there are calls for the results to be scrapped and a second caucus held.  Is the Iowa election process being run by the Three Stooges?

There is reason to believe that corruption is the better explanation.  The results of the very last poll taken prior to the caucus by CNN and the Des Moines Register were never released to the public.  Hillary allegedly defeated Bernie in the 2016 Iowa caucus by a very narrow margin.  In 2020, the Iowa Democratic Party has this time declared that Pete Buttigieg won the State Delegate Equivalent Count (not to be confused with an actual vote count, which Sanders won) and would receive 1.5 more delegates to the national convention than Sanders as a result.

Unfortunately, we can’t take incompetence completely off the table as a possibility only because we don’t have any proof of corruption — just a lot of compelling evidence that seems to point in that direction.  Why are the Democrats allowing Bernie to run in their primaries if the fix is in so he cannot possibly win?  Why do they let him run as a Democrat when he leaves the party as soon as he loses and reverts to his “independent” socialist position?

And why would Bernie let the Democrats screw him over in two consecutive presidential campaigns, if the best explanation is incompetence?  Wouldn’t he be better off to run as a third-party candidate, assuming he really hoped to win the 2020 election?

The answer to both sets of questions is money.  For a socialist with a lot of love for communism, Bernie does seem to love money — but just as my daughter whined when she was ten, he doesn’t want to work for it.  After 2016, Sanders cashed in his chips and bought his third house, a lakefront vacation home in Vermont that cost only about a hundred grand more than my only house.  Obviously, as a member of the oligarchy, Bernie doesn’t really relate to the proletariat or the bourgeoisie.

Why doesn’t he care about winning?  Probably because Bernie knows he can’t win…the closer he gets to becoming the nominee, the more light gets shed on his economic policies that cannot withstand close scrutiny.  Bernie’s “single payer” health care plan couldn’t succeed even in Vermont.  How could it possibly work on a national scale?  It can’t.  Bernie is making lots of promises he can’t possibly keep and spending more money we don’t have.  He routinely demonizes anything resembling success via capitalism and pits Americans against each other, accusing the successful of achieving at the expense of his constituents.

My wife had an interesting response to my question of why the Democratic Party allows Bernie Sanders to use its party apparatus to run for POTUS, given that he probably wouldn’t be able to achieve anywhere near the same fundraising numbers if he was considered a third-party candidate instead of a Democrat.  If the Democratic Party power brokers aren’t going to let Bernie win, why let him run?  She thinks the party is afraid of Bernie’s supporters, and I suspect she’s absolutely right.  Kyle Jurek, the field organizer for the Sanders campaign, has threatened to burn American cities if Sanders loses to Trump and to send opposition voters to American gulags if they win in November.

The violent radicals are largely part of the Sanders crowd — never forget that James Hodgkinson, the man who tried to assassinate Congressman Steve Scalise and other Republicans at baseball practice, was a Sanders campaign volunteer.  The problem is, no matter whether the perception is incompetence or corruption, those who currently “feel the Bern” won’t be feeling the love for anybody else.  If Bernie isn’t the nominee, the enthusiasm won’t be there, so they won’t be dependable votes.

Check out what the Ragin’ Cajun himself, James Carville, said in this recent interview with Vox:

Iowa caucus can’t even count votes.  What the hell am I supposed to think?

You can think the party is either incompetent or corrupt, James.  No matter how you slice it, either the party cannot manage simple arithmetic and accurately count votes in a relatively small state, or it won’t accurately count the votes because it doesn’t like the nominee.

Meanwhile, the headlines at the Drudge Report show Trump winning on the economy and unemployment by just about every measurable standard.  More jobs than expected were added in January.  Wages are up.  Labor force participation has correspondingly risen to 63.4 percent.

How do Democrats plan to beat that?  Apparently, they didn’t — they hoped impeachment would solve their problems for them, because the odds of winning at the ballot box are slim and getting slimmer by the day.  Even the AP has been forced to ask how much of an advantage Trump has over his potential opponents due to the success of his economy.

We should never celebrate victory until all the votes have been counted, but the best chance the Democrats seem to have at this point would be by cheating.  It won’t be by championing socialism.  Carville also said:

Here’s another stupid thing: Democrats talking about free college tuition or debt forgiveness.  I’m not here to debate the idea.  What I can tell you is that people all over this country worked their way through school, sent their kids to school, paid off student loans.  They don’t want to hear this s—.  And you saw Warren confronted by an angry voter over this.  It’s just not a winning message.

True fact.  Incompetence is usually caused by stupidity or laziness, and not malicious like corruption.  However, a third possibility has occurred to me, thanks to James Carville — and insanity might be the best explanation of them all.

John Leonard writes novels, books, and occasional articles and blog posts for American Thinker . You may follow him on Facebook or his website (and blog, which includes the AT “rejected” pieces) at southernprose.com.

Image: AFGE via Flickr.

Probably my favorite line in the movie Moneyball is uttered in the wonderful scene where Billy Bean (Brad Pitt) is trying to teach his protégé (Joshua Hill) how to cut a professional baseball player.  Bean explains that delivering bad news works best if done with a detached, businesslike manner.  He compares the unpleasant task to the job of a hired assassin by asking, “Would you rather get a bullet to the head, or five to the chest and bleed to death?”

Hill replies, “Are those my only two options?”  

Therein lies the problem for Democrats come November.  There are only two possible explanations for the debacle in Iowa, and neither of them is good.  Either Democrats have corrupted the elections process so that Bernie Sanders cannot possibly win the nomination, no matter how well he does with their primary voters, or they are so incompetent that they can’t even run a caucus in a state with a relatively small population.

The largest city in Iowa, Des Moines, is about the same size as Augusta (home of the Masters golf tournament), the second largest city in Georgia.  The entire population of Iowa (3 million) is only a little more than half the size of metropolitan Atlanta (5 million).  It seems almost inconceivable that a caucus in which the top four candidates received less than two thousand votes combined could get so screwed up that there are calls for the results to be scrapped and a second caucus held.  Is the Iowa election process being run by the Three Stooges?

There is reason to believe that corruption is the better explanation.  The results of the very last poll taken prior to the caucus by CNN and the Des Moines Register were never released to the public.  Hillary allegedly defeated Bernie in the 2016 Iowa caucus by a very narrow margin.  In 2020, the Iowa Democratic Party has this time declared that Pete Buttigieg won the State Delegate Equivalent Count (not to be confused with an actual vote count, which Sanders won) and would receive 1.5 more delegates to the national convention than Sanders as a result.

Unfortunately, we can’t take incompetence completely off the table as a possibility only because we don’t have any proof of corruption — just a lot of compelling evidence that seems to point in that direction.  Why are the Democrats allowing Bernie to run in their primaries if the fix is in so he cannot possibly win?  Why do they let him run as a Democrat when he leaves the party as soon as he loses and reverts to his “independent” socialist position?

And why would Bernie let the Democrats screw him over in two consecutive presidential campaigns, if the best explanation is incompetence?  Wouldn’t he be better off to run as a third-party candidate, assuming he really hoped to win the 2020 election?

The answer to both sets of questions is money.  For a socialist with a lot of love for communism, Bernie does seem to love money — but just as my daughter whined when she was ten, he doesn’t want to work for it.  After 2016, Sanders cashed in his chips and bought his third house, a lakefront vacation home in Vermont that cost only about a hundred grand more than my only house.  Obviously, as a member of the oligarchy, Bernie doesn’t really relate to the proletariat or the bourgeoisie.

Why doesn’t he care about winning?  Probably because Bernie knows he can’t win…the closer he gets to becoming the nominee, the more light gets shed on his economic policies that cannot withstand close scrutiny.  Bernie’s “single payer” health care plan couldn’t succeed even in Vermont.  How could it possibly work on a national scale?  It can’t.  Bernie is making lots of promises he can’t possibly keep and spending more money we don’t have.  He routinely demonizes anything resembling success via capitalism and pits Americans against each other, accusing the successful of achieving at the expense of his constituents.

My wife had an interesting response to my question of why the Democratic Party allows Bernie Sanders to use its party apparatus to run for POTUS, given that he probably wouldn’t be able to achieve anywhere near the same fundraising numbers if he was considered a third-party candidate instead of a Democrat.  If the Democratic Party power brokers aren’t going to let Bernie win, why let him run?  She thinks the party is afraid of Bernie’s supporters, and I suspect she’s absolutely right.  Kyle Jurek, the field organizer for the Sanders campaign, has threatened to burn American cities if Sanders loses to Trump and to send opposition voters to American gulags if they win in November.

The violent radicals are largely part of the Sanders crowd — never forget that James Hodgkinson, the man who tried to assassinate Congressman Steve Scalise and other Republicans at baseball practice, was a Sanders campaign volunteer.  The problem is, no matter whether the perception is incompetence or corruption, those who currently “feel the Bern” won’t be feeling the love for anybody else.  If Bernie isn’t the nominee, the enthusiasm won’t be there, so they won’t be dependable votes.

Check out what the Ragin’ Cajun himself, James Carville, said in this recent interview with Vox:

Iowa caucus can’t even count votes.  What the hell am I supposed to think?

You can think the party is either incompetent or corrupt, James.  No matter how you slice it, either the party cannot manage simple arithmetic and accurately count votes in a relatively small state, or it won’t accurately count the votes because it doesn’t like the nominee.

Meanwhile, the headlines at the Drudge Report show Trump winning on the economy and unemployment by just about every measurable standard.  More jobs than expected were added in January.  Wages are up.  Labor force participation has correspondingly risen to 63.4 percent.

How do Democrats plan to beat that?  Apparently, they didn’t — they hoped impeachment would solve their problems for them, because the odds of winning at the ballot box are slim and getting slimmer by the day.  Even the AP has been forced to ask how much of an advantage Trump has over his potential opponents due to the success of his economy.

We should never celebrate victory until all the votes have been counted, but the best chance the Democrats seem to have at this point would be by cheating.  It won’t be by championing socialism.  Carville also said:

Here’s another stupid thing: Democrats talking about free college tuition or debt forgiveness.  I’m not here to debate the idea.  What I can tell you is that people all over this country worked their way through school, sent their kids to school, paid off student loans.  They don’t want to hear this s—.  And you saw Warren confronted by an angry voter over this.  It’s just not a winning message.

True fact.  Incompetence is usually caused by stupidity or laziness, and not malicious like corruption.  However, a third possibility has occurred to me, thanks to James Carville — and insanity might be the best explanation of them all.

John Leonard writes novels, books, and occasional articles and blog posts for American Thinker . You may follow him on Facebook or his website (and blog, which includes the AT “rejected” pieces) at southernprose.com.

Image: AFGE via Flickr.

via American Thinker

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.americanthinker.com/