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Bluecheck journo doxxes, calls cops on Target worker over price of toothbrush — and it goes badly for him

For a whiff of who’s doing your news, take a gander at this idiocy from a vaunted member of the bluecheck-American community:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apparently, he mistook an inventory tag set up as a placeholder for an advertised price tag of $0.01 and intended to compel Target and its lowly manager to give him the $89.99 toothbrush for pretty much free. When he didn’t get what he wanted, he doxxed the manager on his big-follower Twitter account and called the police, even though it’s since been pointed out that he didn’t even have the law on his side in his utterly unreasonable demand.

As they say, “Journalism.”

It went over like a lead balloon on Twitter:

 

 

… and word spread fast with headlines like this, this, and this: 

The world is rallying around Tori, the Target employee Tweet-shamed by an irate cheapskate

Justice for ‘Target Tori’ After Reporter Trolls Store Manager on Twitter

Man Gets Dragged After He Admits to Calling Police Over Mispriced Toothbrush at Target

It wasn’t just Twitter tweets, either, people put their money where their mouths were, shelling out $13,500 at last count on a $5,000 GoFundMe page set up on her behalf a mere 12 hours ago. The logic of it was to buy this Target employee a vacation to compensate her for the sheer hideousness of Leavitt’s behavior.

Because what did we see here, really? This clown, who has a blue check by his name, puffs himself as an “award-winning” multi-media journalist (notice that photo composition, painstakingly put together on his first tweet) who’s worked for bluecheck media names like CBS and Yahoo!, and has 215,000 Twitter followers, tried to pull rank on this lowly Target employee, using his power to fire her for not selling him an $89.99 toothbrush for one cent. That kind of nuclear tantrum comes off as extortionary, actually, and like a very bad customer, he seems to think that Target will bend like a lot of them do just to get him out of there. They shouldn’t have and the manager was right to tell him no. Yet he’s so self-unaware of himself that he actually believed the public would rally around him and his toothbrush needs.

It’s hardly the first instance of such behavior. I’ve heard the worst stories about bluechecks and their behavior around hotel accommodations, for one. The bluecheck class seems to view itself well above ordinary Americans and expects even retailers to bow to them no matter how ridiculous their demands. Leavitt’s show is redolent of “Dear Diary” whining of CNN blowhard Jim Acosta, who went into meltdown when he was rebuked for interrupting others at a White House press conference and then later complained that nobody was buying his book and President Trump refused to call on him at press conferences so he could have his moment in the spotlight. So much for the public interest. Actually, it’s all about personal ailments and wounded egos now. Any questions as to why the public despises the press?

Apparently this kind of behavior is legion. And it’s repelling the public. It’s almost as if a watershed has been hit with this one. The bluecheck privilege thing is out of control. 

Leavitt also is one hell of a prevaricator and hypocrite, a pretty unseemly thing for someone whose purported job is to report the truth. In response to his “too-much-information” about his dental care, this came up.

 

 

The material is very very rich on this guy, who apparently has a long history of using his bluecheck status to extract concessions from retailers using his big Twitter megaphone following as leverage. Maybe it’s time to take away the blue checks.

Twitchy has much much more here.

Image credit: Twitter screen shot

For a whiff of who’s doing your news, take a gander at this idiocy from a vaunted member of the bluecheck-American community:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apparently, he mistook an inventory tag set up as a placeholder for an advertised price tag of $0.01 and intended to compel Target and its lowly manager to give him the $89.99 toothbrush for pretty much free. When he didn’t get what he wanted, he doxxed the manager on his big-follower Twitter account and called the police, even though it’s since been pointed out that he didn’t even have the law on his side in his utterly unreasonable demand.

As they say, “Journalism.”

It went over like a lead balloon on Twitter:

 

 

… and word spread fast with headlines like this, this, and this: 

The world is rallying around Tori, the Target employee Tweet-shamed by an irate cheapskate

Justice for ‘Target Tori’ After Reporter Trolls Store Manager on Twitter

Man Gets Dragged After He Admits to Calling Police Over Mispriced Toothbrush at Target

It wasn’t just Twitter tweets, either, people put their money where their mouths were, shelling out $13,500 at last count on a $5,000 GoFundMe page set up on her behalf a mere 12 hours ago. The logic of it was to buy this Target employee a vacation to compensate her for the sheer hideousness of Leavitt’s behavior.

Because what did we see here, really? This clown, who has a blue check by his name, puffs himself as an “award-winning” multi-media journalist (notice that photo composition, painstakingly put together on his first tweet) who’s worked for bluecheck media names like CBS and Yahoo!, and has 215,000 Twitter followers, tried to pull rank on this lowly Target employee, using his power to fire her for not selling him an $89.99 toothbrush for one cent. That kind of nuclear tantrum comes off as extortionary, actually, and like a very bad customer, he seems to think that Target will bend like a lot of them do just to get him out of there. They shouldn’t have and the manager was right to tell him no. Yet he’s so self-unaware of himself that he actually believed the public would rally around him and his toothbrush needs.

It’s hardly the first instance of such behavior. I’ve heard the worst stories about bluechecks and their behavior around hotel accommodations, for one. The bluecheck class seems to view itself well above ordinary Americans and expects even retailers to bow to them no matter how ridiculous their demands. Leavitt’s show is redolent of “Dear Diary” whining of CNN blowhard Jim Acosta, who went into meltdown when he was rebuked for interrupting others at a White House press conference and then later complained that nobody was buying his book and President Trump refused to call on him at press conferences so he could have his moment in the spotlight. So much for the public interest. Actually, it’s all about personal ailments and wounded egos now. Any questions as to why the public despises the press?

Apparently this kind of behavior is legion. And it’s repelling the public. It’s almost as if a watershed has been hit with this one. The bluecheck privilege thing is out of control. 

Leavitt also is one hell of a prevaricator and hypocrite, a pretty unseemly thing for someone whose purported job is to report the truth. In response to his “too-much-information” about his dental care, this came up.

 

 

The material is very very rich on this guy, who apparently has a long history of using his bluecheck status to extract concessions from retailers using his big Twitter megaphone following as leverage. Maybe it’s time to take away the blue checks.

Twitchy has much much more here.

Image credit: Twitter screen shot

via American Thinker Blog

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

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Has Ilhan Omar finally met her match?

Since her election to the House of Representatives, Ilhan Omar has had a knack for generating national headlines. Initially, the headlines were positive. Here was a young Muslim woman who had come to this country at age 10, after having escaped the Somalian civil war with her family and then spending four years in a Kenyan refugee camp. Omar is also extremely photogenic and had impeccable progressive credentials. She was a perfect fit for Minnesota’s 5th District, which encompasses Minneapolis and surrounding areas.

The last time the 5th District sent a Republican to the House of Representatives was in 1960. The same district has also begun to boast a large Muslim population in recent years. Indeed, it has the largest concentration of Somali immigrants in America. As of 2016, there were estimated to be between 40,000 and 52,000 Somalis, both immigrants and first generation children, in Minneapolis, with some putting the number as high as 80,000.

Omar’s problem has been that, since her ascension to the House and her high profile in “the Squad” of four newly elected Progressive young women, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she’s been dogged by controversy. She’s proven herself to be extremely hostile to Jews and Israel, so much so that the House tried to censure her specifically for that anti-Semitism, only to collapse before the rising anti-Semitism in the entire. Instead, it issued a vague pronouncement saying, essentially, that it hates hate.

Omar also aroused the wrath of many Americans when video footage emerged showing her at a CAIR event describing 9/11 as a day on which “some people did something.” That statement came wrapped in a package of complaining that Muslims in America have  been “second-class” citizens since 9/11, never mind that not a single law or other government initiative has passed downgrading Islam in America. It was a false, whining, disrespectful thing to say.

Just recently, Omar joined with other Democrats in expressing outrage that Trump would dare kill an Iranian terrorist. She also showed what’s becoming common with her, which is a signal lack of intelligence, when she confused copper nickel mining with oil mining.

Given Minneapolis’s true Blue politics, none of the above should affect her standing with voters there. On the things that matter to them, she has a perfect record political slate: She supports student loan debt forgiveness, Medicare-for-All (i.e., socialized medicine), open borders, ending ICE, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, LGBT rights, high minimum wages and, of course, she despises Trump. Indeed, through Tweet, she’s occasionally entered into a war of wits with Trump, despite the handicap that she is manifestly unarmed.

The big problem for Omar now is that she’s being investigated by the FBI and other federal agencies for immigration fraud, tax fraud, and student loan fraud. It’s entirely possible that the federal government, because she’s in a protected class under the progressive rubric, will back down from the investigation, just as the British police refused to look into all the child-trafficking and sex abuse in Rotherham and Manchester. It wasn’t politically worth it for them to run afoul of Britain’s Muslim community and the feds may feel the same about America’s Muslim community vis-à-vis Omar’s potentially criminal actions.

Still, it’s a stain on Omar’s record. Moreover, scuttlebutt has it that many in Minneapolis’s Muslim community are not happy with Omar’s progressive politics or her increasingly open America hatred.

Enter Dalia al-Aqidi. Dalia is also a Muslim refugee, having left war torn Iraq for American when she was a child. Unlike Omar, Dalia loves her new country. She became a journalist and covered the Middle East, especially Iraq. She understands what happens when a political party is dedicated to tearing the country apart.

Dalia is running as a Republican to take Omar’s seat. She exploded into national awareness Friday when she posted an extraordinary campaign video, one in which she celebrates America’s virtues and promises, if elected, to work for, not against, America and its values:

Being a Republican in Minneapolis is a handicap, but Dalia is attractive, a fighter, and should appeal to the more conservative element amongst the city’s Somali voters, as well as disaffected Democrats who, while liberal in their values, have tired of the newly woke Democrat party’s hard leftism.

Since her election to the House of Representatives, Ilhan Omar has had a knack for generating national headlines. Initially, the headlines were positive. Here was a young Muslim woman who had come to this country at age 10, after having escaped the Somalian civil war with her family and then spending four years in a Kenyan refugee camp. Omar is also extremely photogenic and had impeccable progressive credentials. She was a perfect fit for Minnesota’s 5th District, which encompasses Minneapolis and surrounding areas.

The last time the 5th District sent a Republican to the House of Representatives was in 1960. The same district has also begun to boast a large Muslim population in recent years. Indeed, it has the largest concentration of Somali immigrants in America. As of 2016, there were estimated to be between 40,000 and 52,000 Somalis, both immigrants and first generation children, in Minneapolis, with some putting the number as high as 80,000.

Omar’s problem has been that, since her ascension to the House and her high profile in “the Squad” of four newly elected Progressive young women, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she’s been dogged by controversy. She’s proven herself to be extremely hostile to Jews and Israel, so much so that the House tried to censure her specifically for that anti-Semitism, only to collapse before the rising anti-Semitism in the entire. Instead, it issued a vague pronouncement saying, essentially, that it hates hate.

Omar also aroused the wrath of many Americans when video footage emerged showing her at a CAIR event describing 9/11 as a day on which “some people did something.” That statement came wrapped in a package of complaining that Muslims in America have  been “second-class” citizens since 9/11, never mind that not a single law or other government initiative has passed downgrading Islam in America. It was a false, whining, disrespectful thing to say.

Just recently, Omar joined with other Democrats in expressing outrage that Trump would dare kill an Iranian terrorist. She also showed what’s becoming common with her, which is a signal lack of intelligence, when she confused copper nickel mining with oil mining.

Given Minneapolis’s true Blue politics, none of the above should affect her standing with voters there. On the things that matter to them, she has a perfect record political slate: She supports student loan debt forgiveness, Medicare-for-All (i.e., socialized medicine), open borders, ending ICE, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, LGBT rights, high minimum wages and, of course, she despises Trump. Indeed, through Tweet, she’s occasionally entered into a war of wits with Trump, despite the handicap that she is manifestly unarmed.

The big problem for Omar now is that she’s being investigated by the FBI and other federal agencies for immigration fraud, tax fraud, and student loan fraud. It’s entirely possible that the federal government, because she’s in a protected class under the progressive rubric, will back down from the investigation, just as the British police refused to look into all the child-trafficking and sex abuse in Rotherham and Manchester. It wasn’t politically worth it for them to run afoul of Britain’s Muslim community and the feds may feel the same about America’s Muslim community vis-à-vis Omar’s potentially criminal actions.

Still, it’s a stain on Omar’s record. Moreover, scuttlebutt has it that many in Minneapolis’s Muslim community are not happy with Omar’s progressive politics or her increasingly open America hatred.

Enter Dalia al-Aqidi. Dalia is also a Muslim refugee, having left war torn Iraq for American when she was a child. Unlike Omar, Dalia loves her new country. She became a journalist and covered the Middle East, especially Iraq. She understands what happens when a political party is dedicated to tearing the country apart.

Dalia is running as a Republican to take Omar’s seat. She exploded into national awareness Friday when she posted an extraordinary campaign video, one in which she celebrates America’s virtues and promises, if elected, to work for, not against, America and its values:

Being a Republican in Minneapolis is a handicap, but Dalia is attractive, a fighter, and should appeal to the more conservative element amongst the city’s Somali voters, as well as disaffected Democrats who, while liberal in their values, have tired of the newly woke Democrat party’s hard leftism.

via American Thinker Blog

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

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Trump Administration Protects School Prayer

Trump Administration Protects School PrayerWASHINGTON, D.C. —The U. S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Education announced a proposed rule that will provide guidance on legal protections for prayer and other religious expression in public schools. The purpose of this updated guidance is to provide information on the current state of the law and to clarify the extent to which prayer in public schools is legally protected.

The updated guidance generally addresses principles of religious liberty that relate to religious expression more broadly, including prayer, in accordance with President Trump’s executive order and the Attorney General’s Memorandum on Federal Law Protections for Religious Liberty. It is also meant to advise state educational agencies (SEAs) and local educational agencies (LEAs) on how to comply with governing constitutional and statutory law. It also discusses the Equal Access Act, which provides statutory protection for religious expression in public schools.

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act, requires the secretary of education to issue guidance to SEAs, LEAs, and the public on constitutionally protected prayer in public elementary and secondary schools. It requires the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel to review the guidance prior to distribution to ensure that it represents the current state of the law. In addition, it requires that, as a condition of receiving ESEA funds, an LEA must certify in writing to its SEA that it has no policy that prevents, or otherwise denies participation in, constitutionally protected prayer in public schools as detailed in this updated guidance.

via CanadaFreePress.Com

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The Supreme Court has agreed to address a challenge to the Electoral College

In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Donald Trump, however, won the Electoral College by focusing on all states, not just the most populous ones. Since then, Democrats have been bent on destroying the Electoral College by any means short of a constitutional amendment. The Supreme Court has now agreed to take up one of its attacks on the Electoral College.

The Founders created the Electoral College via Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 in the Constitution. Its purpose reflects the fact that America is not a direct democracy but is, instead, a representative democracy. The Electoral College is one of the many layers the Founders put between the government and the possible madness of the mob.

Before the 17th Amendment, Senators were originally meant to be picked by state governors, putting them at a remove from voters. The president nominates judges and the Senate votes on them. Only representatives come to D.C. via direct democracy — and the Senate tempers their initiatives (including impeachment), again protecting against voters’ passions of the moment.

In addition to blocking mob rule, the Electoral College has another, extremely important, perhaps even more important, purpose: It ensures that presidents cannot campaign only in large population centers, pandering to the preferences of those centers, while ignoring the rest of the United States.

Without the Electoral College, presidential candidates would only campaign in, and shape their policies for, New York (Leftist), California (Leftist), Illinois (Leftist), Texas (generally conservative, but with its population centers rapidly going Left), Florida (a swing state, hewing Left because of northeastern snowbirds), Ohio (another swing state), Washington state (Leftist), Colorado (Leftist), and Massachusetts (Leftist). They would ignore the rest of America.

The Electoral College stands as a bright line between an Executive who must campaign in all of the states, taking note of the needs and values of all Americans, and an Executive who can govern to the Left of Bernie Sanders, after getting votes from a handful of states. No wonder Democrats hate the Electoral College.

One of the challenges to the Electoral College is the “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.” The 15 states (plus D.C.) that have already agreed to that compact want to ignore their citizens’ votes and, instead, assign their Electoral votes to the candidate with the most national popular votes. 

In the short-term, immediately after President Trump won the Electoral College, Democrats began to bully Democrat and NeverTrump electors in states Trump won, demanding that they vote for Hillary to protect America from the insanity of Trump voters. Those who, out of “principle” or fear, switched their votes came to be called “faithless electors.” Prof. William Jacobson described the faithless elector movement as “nothing short of an attempt to steal the election.”

Thirty-two states have laws mandating that electors must cast their vote consistent with the will of the state’s voters. Washington and Colorado are among that number and, in cases arising out of faithless electors, it is their laws that the Supreme Court is going to address. William Jacobson, a law professor at Cornell, has weighed in on the issue:

I don’t know enough about the legal issues to opine — I have some reading up to do.

But the politics are clear. This may be the single most important case this year. If the Supreme Court rules that electors can be faithless, then there is going to be mayhem in 2020 when Trump wins again. Those who sought to intimidate and bully electors in 2016 were largely viewed as being out of bounds.

But if given a legal green light, there’s no telling how much damage could be done to the stability of the nation if the electoral counts is close and bullying a small number of electors to go faithless swings the Electoral College to Democrats.

Perhaps because I’m less informed than Prof. Jacobson, I am willing to opine on the matter: One of the Founder’s wanted to ensure that voters in each state had a say in electing the president. Any attempt to warp the Electoral College into a vehicle for enacting the national popular vote is antithetical to that purpose.

It’s true that Founders also wanted to protect against mob passions, but one has to ask: In 2016, was the mob the people who politely voted for a candidate who was consistent with American norms before 2008 or was the mob the people who took to the street after the election, threatening to destroy American institutions if their demands were not met? Moreover, would the Founders side with the existential screamers if that meant erasing the voters of most American states?

Ultimately, those Leftists who want to destroy the Electoral college still can, but they must do so via the constitutional amendment process.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Donald Trump, however, won the Electoral College by focusing on all states, not just the most populous ones. Since then, Democrats have been bent on destroying the Electoral College by any means short of a constitutional amendment. The Supreme Court has now agreed to take up one of its attacks on the Electoral College.

The Founders created the Electoral College via Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 in the Constitution. Its purpose reflects the fact that America is not a direct democracy but is, instead, a representative democracy. The Electoral College is one of the many layers the Founders put between the government and the possible madness of the mob.

Before the 17th Amendment, Senators were originally meant to be picked by state governors, putting them at a remove from voters. The president nominates judges and the Senate votes on them. Only representatives come to D.C. via direct democracy — and the Senate tempers their initiatives (including impeachment), again protecting against voters’ passions of the moment.

In addition to blocking mob rule, the Electoral College has another, extremely important, perhaps even more important, purpose: It ensures that presidents cannot campaign only in large population centers, pandering to the preferences of those centers, while ignoring the rest of the United States.

Without the Electoral College, presidential candidates would only campaign in, and shape their policies for, New York (Leftist), California (Leftist), Illinois (Leftist), Texas (generally conservative, but with its population centers rapidly going Left), Florida (a swing state, hewing Left because of northeastern snowbirds), Ohio (another swing state), Washington state (Leftist), Colorado (Leftist), and Massachusetts (Leftist). They would ignore the rest of America.

The Electoral College stands as a bright line between an Executive who must campaign in all of the states, taking note of the needs and values of all Americans, and an Executive who can govern to the Left of Bernie Sanders, after getting votes from a handful of states. No wonder Democrats hate the Electoral College.

One of the challenges to the Electoral College is the “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.” The 15 states (plus D.C.) that have already agreed to that compact want to ignore their citizens’ votes and, instead, assign their Electoral votes to the candidate with the most national popular votes. 

In the short-term, immediately after President Trump won the Electoral College, Democrats began to bully Democrat and NeverTrump electors in states Trump won, demanding that they vote for Hillary to protect America from the insanity of Trump voters. Those who, out of “principle” or fear, switched their votes came to be called “faithless electors.” Prof. William Jacobson described the faithless elector movement as “nothing short of an attempt to steal the election.”

Thirty-two states have laws mandating that electors must cast their vote consistent with the will of the state’s voters. Washington and Colorado are among that number and, in cases arising out of faithless electors, it is their laws that the Supreme Court is going to address. William Jacobson, a law professor at Cornell, has weighed in on the issue:

I don’t know enough about the legal issues to opine — I have some reading up to do.

But the politics are clear. This may be the single most important case this year. If the Supreme Court rules that electors can be faithless, then there is going to be mayhem in 2020 when Trump wins again. Those who sought to intimidate and bully electors in 2016 were largely viewed as being out of bounds.

But if given a legal green light, there’s no telling how much damage could be done to the stability of the nation if the electoral counts is close and bullying a small number of electors to go faithless swings the Electoral College to Democrats.

Perhaps because I’m less informed than Prof. Jacobson, I am willing to opine on the matter: One of the Founder’s wanted to ensure that voters in each state had a say in electing the president. Any attempt to warp the Electoral College into a vehicle for enacting the national popular vote is antithetical to that purpose.

It’s true that Founders also wanted to protect against mob passions, but one has to ask: In 2016, was the mob the people who politely voted for a candidate who was consistent with American norms before 2008 or was the mob the people who took to the street after the election, threatening to destroy American institutions if their demands were not met? Moreover, would the Founders side with the existential screamers if that meant erasing the voters of most American states?

Ultimately, those Leftists who want to destroy the Electoral college still can, but they must do so via the constitutional amendment process.

via American Thinker Blog

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

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Claim: Women Quitting Jobs in Swedish No-Go Area Mall Due to Harassment from Migrant Men

Independent journalist Joakim Lamotte has claimed that women working at Stockholm’s Kista Galleria shopping centre are quitting their jobs due to harassment from foreign men who refuse to be served by women.

Mr Lamotte has claimed that several women have contacted him about their experiences at the shopping centre, which is located near the notorious no-go Stockholm suburbs of Husby and Rinkeby, stating they were unable to work due to sexual harassment from foreign men, Nyheter Idag reports.

The women also allegedly claimed that many of the male customers would refuse to be served by them, demanding to be served by a male coworker instead. Lamotte published an audio clip of one of the women who alleged that a man with a full beard and white cap would not speak to any female staff.

When the man was told he can go to another shop if he does not want to be served by a woman, the man allegedly threatened to call the police.

“But this is unfortunately not the first time this has happened to me. My female colleagues have also been subjected to the same degrading discrimination and soon this is more or less an everyday thing,” the woman said.

The report comes nearly three years after feminists in nearby Husby and Tensta claimed that they were also harassed by religious fundamentalists, with former Social Democrat parliamentarian Nalin Pekgul stating that Muslim fundamentalists had largely taken over Tensta.

Zeliha Dagli, a former Left Party politician, claimed the same problems existed in Husby, going as far as to say the areas had so-called “morality police”.

In an attempt to combat the issue of women feeling safe in areas like Husby, the local government announced in 2017 that it would be adopting “feminist urban planning” that would include brightening street lights at night.

Despite the plans, a survey released in 2018 revealed that nearly half of the residents of no-go areas were afraid for their safety when going out after dark.

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

via Breitbart News

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Christian Charity CEO: Religious Freedom Must Be a Baseline Human Right for Our Global Trade Partners

As the number of Christians living under severe persecution around the world grows, American officials must make clear to nations that profit from American business that “human rights are a concern of the American people,” David Curry, the CEO of the Christian aid group Open Doors, told Breitbart News in an interview this week.

Open Doors’ released the 2020 edition of its annual World Watch List report, which ranks the top 50 countries in which Christians face the most intense persecution for their faith, on Wednesday. The report identified a population of 260 million Christians experiencing extreme persecution for their faith, a six-percent increase from 2019.

North Korea – arguably the most repressive regime for all its citizens on the globe and home to one of the world’s most vibrant Christian populations before falling to communism in 1950 – once again took the top spot, followed by Afghanistan, Somalia, and Libya, respectively. While nations with significant adversarial bents towards the United States made up most of the rest of the top ten, like Iran (number nine) and Sudan (number seven), number ten on the World Watch List is India, one of America’s closest trade partners.

China, America’s top foreign trade partner outside of North America, ranked at 23. Saudi Arabia, a country that generations of presidents have insisted is a top security and counter-terrorism ally, rank ten spots higher at #13.

Open Doors' World Watch List Countries 2020 (courtesy Open Doors)

Open Doors’ World Watch List Countries 2020 (courtesy Open Doors)

“The reality is, on the World Watch List, there are people we do business with – China, India, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia – where we need to make sure that it’s clear in our trade discussions and otherwise that human rights are a concern of the American people,” Curry told Breitbart News on Thursday.

American officials must make clear, he urged, “if we’re going to do business together, if we’re going to have friendly relationships, we expect people to have a common set of human rights where people can worship freely and be secure, where churches are sacred places that will not be attacked. That people will have a civil force that will protect people’s religious freedom whether you’re Christian or Jewish or Muslim or have no faith at all.”
Curry did not limit this suggestion to the American government, emphasizing that “every government, including this government, needs to make that a standard that we all can agree on.”

While emphasizing that Open Doors is not a political organization, Curry expressed support for the work the State Department under President Donald Trump has done in elevating the topic of religious freedom as a diplomatic challenge.

“The State Department and others in the administration have really focused on, ‘how do we integrate this? imperfectly, I think they have done a better job than anybody certainly in my lifetime, so I want to give them high marks on that,” he said. But Curry added that the universal human rights standard in diplomacy is far from reality “because we do have people, Saudi Arabia – India is number ten on our list we do a lot of business with them – China and elsewhere” that benefit greatly from ties to the United States.

Open Doors has highlighted China in its report this year as a nation of particular concern due to the sophistication of its totalitarian surveillance state, which it uses to monitor and punish Christians who dare worship without Communist Party supervision. China rose four points from the 27th spot on the list in the 2019 edition.

“They are going to fully implement this technological surveillance as a way of monitoring religious practice, not solely against Christians,” Curry noted. “Obviously, what they are doing to the Uyghur Muslims in the northwest part of the country is abhorrent and, while we are reporting on Christian persecution, we recognize what’s happening in China against the smaller Muslim minority group there is exactly what we expect to happen with the Christian groups.”

China’s Communist Party is believed to have imprisoned between 1 and 3 million Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities in concentration camps in the past year. Survivors say they experienced torture, rape, forced sterilization, slavery, and other human rights atrocities. Uyghurs outside of the camps in western Xinjiang province live under a strict and advanced totalitarian surveillance system – Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, is flooded with police cameras and microphones to document every second of Uyghurs’ lives, looking for evidence to use to imprison them.

China claims the concentration camps are “vocational training centers” and the surveillance is necessary to prevent terrorist activity due to the large Muslim population in the region.

“So they’ve got the surveillance,” Curry noted, “they’ve got, you might say, the social credit system, They’re bringing those things together. That’s why we are drawing attention to it. It’s moving quickly.”

The “social credit system” is a points-based evaluation in which China gives communists points for fealty to the regime and removes them for suspicious or potentially adversarial activity. “Illegal” religious activity such as prayer in the home results in point losses. Lose enough points, and a Chinese citizen faces bans from flights, public transportation, and basic government services.

While Curry states his organization has not documented China oppressing Christians outside of its borders, it has begun to sell its technology to other nations on the World Watch List.

“They have the willingness to spread it,” he asserted,” which could result in the technology being used “to more closely monitor the house church movement in Iran and other places.”

In Saudi Arabia, another nation with friendly ties to the United States, statistics on native Christian populations do not exist because churches are simply illegal. Curry contended that this did not have to be the case for the regime to remain secure, citing the existence of Christianity freely in neighboring Bahrain.

“[Saudi Arabia] denies people the ability to have church. Look next door to Bahrain … Bahrain has allowed people to have churches. … Bahrain is an example of a country that has over time began to have these discussions about how can we give people the choice,” he noted. “In Saudi Arabia right now it may be said that there’s no Christians there, but there are people who have freedom of conscience, they have an opinion of their own, and what we’re asking is – can these people have the ability to have a Bible, read it, decide for themselves what they think?”

“That’s all the basis of freedom of religion: the ability to read it, choose to, and decide what they think. Right now, that’s not possible in Saudi Arabia,” he noted. “It needs to be part of the discussion: what does freedom of conscience mean for the people of Saudi Arabia?”

Curry noted that the overlap in persecution of Christians with persecution of other faith or faithless identities – the Muslims of China, the atheists of Saudi Arabia – provides an opportunity for unity and clarity in the objective of Open Doors in its mission: to make the world a safer place for individuals to decide what they believe on their own. Open Doors, he noted, organizes many programs around the world to connect free Christians to oppressed ones. Individuals asserting their principles on their own, however, can have a tremendous impact, he said, as well.

“I don’t underestimate the power of people speaking out and saying ‘this is our standard.’ The right of conscience is the first freedom, it’s the ability to decide for yourself what you think and to practice your faith freely – or if you have no faith at all, to experience that,” he said in the interview. “Atheists are also constrained in Saudi Arabia and these other places because they are forced into a faith. So that’s the fundamental human rights idea. I think speaking out on that, sharing these ideas and letting people know that we’re exposing it – when people share the list, when they talk about it, when they share the stories behind it … people see these are human beings they have emotions and thoughts and intellect just like you and I.”

Read through the full Open Doors 2020 World Watch List here.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.

 

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People are dying in racial violence across the country so that the Democrats can win elections

People are dying in racial violence across the country so that the Democrats can win electionsAfter a black nationalist attack on a Jewish supermarket in Jersey City, a member of the Jersey City Board of Education defended the murder of two Jewish people and a Latino employee.

“Drugs and guns are planted in the Black community,” Joan Terrell Paige ranted on Facebook.

The two Black Hebrew Israelite killers, the former community organizer wrote, “went directly to the kosher supermarket. I believe they knew they would come out in body bags. What is the message they were sending? Are we brave enough to explore the answer to their message? Are we brave enough to stop the assault on the Black communities of America?”

While some Democrats called on Joan Terrell Paige to resign, others defended her hatred of Jews.

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Trump Trade War Works as US Economy Sizzles & China Sees Weakest Growth in 29 Years

“Phase One” of the resolution of the United States-China trade war was signed earlier this week, and it had some pretty big wins for the Trump administration.

Writ large in media headlines were two things the United States did well to get Beijing to sign onto — agreements from China to crack down on intellectual property theft and to increase imports from the United States by $200 billion over 2 years.

Whether or not Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government actually enforces any of this is another question entirely, but that’s why it’s called “Phase One.”

President Donald Trump insisted, according to CNBC, that the agreement had “total and full enforceability.”

During the signing, he said the two countries were “righting the wrongs of the past and delivering a future of economic justice and security for American workers, farmers and families.”

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Most of the tariffs from the trade war will remain in place, according to Reason, and the deal is still a rough sketch.

Still, the fact that China was even willing to agree to any of this in the first place was, at the very least, a major win for the United States — particularly since we were told how the trade war with China was going to end in tears.

As it turns out, if there are any tears being shed, they’re likely coming from Beijing.

On the same week that the “Phase One” agreement was signed, China revealed its economic growth in 2019 was the lowest it’s been in 29 years — 6.1 percent, according to Reuters.

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While that growth was by no means slow by global standards, it was a major cooling-off from the 6.6 percent growth China experienced in 2018.

Furthermore, experts predicted the world’s second-largest economy would further cool to 5.9 percent growth in 2020.

The sluggish growth was, according to Reuters, recorded “amid a bruising trade war with the United States, and more stimulus is expected this year as Beijing tries to boost sluggish investment and demand.”

“We expect China’s growth rate will come further down to below 6% percent in 2020,” Masaaki Kanno, chief economist at Sony Financial Holdings in Japan, told Reuters.

“The Chinese economy is unlikely to fall abruptly because of … government policies, but at the same time the trend of a further slowdown of the economy will remain unchanged.”

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Reuters reported that “[e]asing trade tensions have made manufacturers more optimistic about the business outlook, analysts said, though many of the tit-for-tat tariffs both sides imposed during the trade war remain in place.”

While U.S. GDP growth isn’t exactly as robust as China’s — we’re a far more mature economy, which means we don’t put up rocket-ship numbers the same way that Beijing does — our third-quarter gross domestic product growth was actually higher than expected.

“The Commerce Department said Wednesday that economic activity grew at an annualized rate of 1.9% in the third quarter, down slightly from the 2% pace in the second quarter. Economists polled by Dow Jones had expected the first look at third-quarter economic growth to come in at 1.6%,” CNBC reported in October.

As the White House pointed out, too, the third-quarter results made this the longest run of economic expansion in recorded U.S. history.

“As today’s advance Gross Domestic Product (GDP) release confirms, economic growth continued in the third quarter of 2019, beating market expectations and adding to the expansion’s record length. The release also confirms that the Trump Administration’s policies support sustained economic growth and lead to higher incomes for American families,” the White House said in a statement upon the release of the numbers.

“In its final projection before the 2016 election, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that real GDP would grow at a 2.1 percent annual rate in the first 11 quarters of a new Administration. Instead, under President Trump, real GDP as of the third quarter has grown at a strong 2.6 percent annual rate since the election. As of the third quarter, real GDP is $230 billion — or 1.2 percent — higher than CBO’s projection.

“Furthermore, under President Obama’s expansion period, real GDP grew at only a 2.2 percent annual rate compared to the Trump Administration’s 2.6 percent rate.”

Now, protectionism for protectionism’s sake and modern-day mercantilism are things any sensible conservative should be against, which is why an all-out economic war over mere trade deficits is something the United States would do well to avoid.

This being said, using tariffs as a means to an end — particularly when it comes to China, which has been a bad actor on the economic stage for decades and has made little effort to change — is a very necessary evil.

Beijing has long promised that it will open up its economy and protect intellectual property. It hasn’t.

Whether or not “Phase One” makes any difference remains to be seen, but it’s a promising first step,

What we do know is that the trade war has hurt China. And, from the looks of things, it’s hurt them more than it’s hurt us.

Furthermore, it’s changed the “calculus” of the matter, according to George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen.

“The U.S. has established its seriousness as a counterweight to China, something lacking since it largely overlooked China’s various territorial encroachments in the 2010s,” he wrote in an Op-Ed for Bloomberg on Wednesday.

“Whether in economics or foreign policy, China now can expect the U.S. to push back — a very different calculus. At a time when there is tension in North Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the South China Sea, that is potentially a significant gain.

“President Donald Trump’s tariffs did hurt U.S. consumers, and while that is indeed an economic cost of the deal, it is also a credibility benefit,” he continued.

“It shows that the U.S. is in fact willing to incur some pain to oppose China, contrary to the common Chinese view that Americans are ‘soft.’ U.S. credibility has also been improved among its allies and some neutral nations.”

Trump’s tariffs, in the end, haven’t been deadly for us and they’ve forced Beijing to the table.

That’s a major change from where we were a few short years ago — and it’s one for the better

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Judge Smacks Down Transgender Pronouns, Says They’re a Courtesy, Not a Right for People Before the Court

You can get yourself into an awful lot of trouble these days for the mere act of living in reality. Such is the case of Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Duncan is a Trump appointee, one who was savaged by the left during his confirmation hearings because they said he couldn’t rule fairly in cases involving LGBT individuals, in large part due to the fact he once represented a school board fighting against a transgender student who wanted to use the bathroom of their choice.

He finds himself again at the center of a controversy regarding whether transgender identity and pronouns are a right in the legal system as opposed to a courtesy.

In an advisory opinion Wednesday, as The Hill reported, Duncan said that it was “convention,” not “binding precedent,” for the courts to refer to a transgender-identifying litigant by their chosen gender pronouns.

The case involves Kathrine Nicole Jett, a transgender biological male.

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Jett, back in 2012, pleaded guilty to child pornography charges when he was legally known as Norman Varner.

Jett wanted the court records updated to reflect the fact he had a different name. He also wanted all gender pronouns in the paperwork to be changed to “she/her.”

A lower court ruled that Jett had no claim given that there was no “defect” in the original paperwork, considering that he was legally referred to as Norman Varner at the time of the crimes.

In his majority opinion, Duncan called Jett’s efforts to have his gender pronouns changed in court records a “quixotic undertaking.”

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“No authority supports the proposition that we may require litigants, judges, court personnel, or anyone else to refer to gender-dysphoric litigants with pronouns matching their subjective gender identity,” Duncan’s opinion read.

“But the courts that have followed this ‘convention,’” he added, “have done so purely as a courtesy to parties.”

“None has adopted the practice as a matter of binding precedent, and none has purported to obligate litigants or others to follow the practice.”

Congressional legislation regarding “gender identity discrimination,” he said, didn’t apply inasmuch as Congress “has said nothing to prohibit courts from referring to litigants according to their biological sex, rather than according to their subjective gender identity.”

The outrage circus immediately came to town, as evidenced by this purportedly straight news piece from NBC News.

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“In his majority opinion, Duncan vacated the lower court ruling that denied Jett’s appeal, saying the court lacked jurisdiction, but then he proceeded to mock Jett’s court motion that she be referred to using female pronouns and her new name,” the Friday article by Tim Fitzsimons read.

Fitzsimons argued that the 5th Circuit had mostly gone with using an individual’s preferred pronouns, although Duncan’s ruling cited three cases in which they didn’t. There’s also no explanation about how this constitutes mocking other than the fact that Duncan said something which went against liberal transgender dogma.

The remainder of the piece seemed to be handed over to Duncan’s adversaries from his confirmation to the court.

“The idea that Mr. Duncan will cast aside his bigoted beliefs overnight, and miraculously transform into an impartial judge, is ludicrous and reckless,” Lambda Legal Executive Director Rachel Tiven is quoted as saying back in 2018.

American Civil Liberties Union attorney and transgender rights advocate Chase Strangio said Duncan’s ruling was “far outside the standard practice within the entire legal profession” and that he went “on this long advisory opinion about the legal implications of pronouns and the nature of sex discrimination and things that have nothing to do with the case or the question before it.”

Almost as much column space, meanwhile, was given over to the dissenting opinion from Clinton appointee Judge James L. Dennis.

A short excerpt: “As the majority notes, though no law compels granting or denying such a request, many courts and judges adhere to such requests out of respect for the litigant’s dignity,” he wrote.

“[O]ut of respect,” however, isn’t a binding thing.

It’s a matter of courtesy, and it’s nothing that the court has an obligation to rule on, particularly in a case such as this.

While much of what Duncan had to say may be a novelty for a media outlet like NBC, his ruling is both legally sound and should be a welcome guide on an emerging set of rules involving how courts and law enforcement should deal with transgender-adjacent issues.

No one, especially not our court system, ought to be forced to change their language based on one person’s demands.

Going into 2020, it’s well worth reminding voters that control over judicial appointments is going to be one of the key factors in the battle for the White House.

It’s difficult to imagine what the landscape would look like were Hillary Clinton president.

Of course, say what you will about Clinton, but 2016 Hillary sounds an awful lot more reasonable than 2020 Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren.

Consider what this decision would be like without a Trump appointee — and then think about what might happen if the Democrats are allowed to nominate federal judges for the next 4 years.

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