Leading 2020 Democrat contenders participated in the last debate of 2019 Thursday evening in Los Angeles.
2020 Dem front runner Joe Biden admitted on Thursday night that if he were president, he would be willing to sacrifice economic growth and hundreds of thousands of blue collar jobs to transition to a ‘Green’ economy.
“As president, would you be willing to sacrifice some of that growth, even knowing potentially that it could displace thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of blue collar workers in the interest of transitioning to that greener economy?” the moderator asked Biden.
Without hesitation, Biden said, “The answer is yes!”
Attention Trump’s 2020 team: Here is your ad against Biden — play it on repeat!
Biden said the blue collar workers in oil and natural gas will transition to high paying jobs in green energy .
Because Solyndra worked out so well.
WATCH:
.@JoeBiden says he would be willing to sacrifice economic growth and the displacement of blue collar jobs in order to transition to a Green economy pic.twitter.com/4lLd6GgKay
As leftists are free to torch U.S. flags across the nation, an Iowa man is paying a heavy price for burning a rainbow LGBT pride flag.
Adolfo Martinez of Ames was sentenced Wednesday to a whopping 15 years in prison for the hate crime of arson, according to The Associated Press.
In addition to spending a decade and a half in prison for burning the LGBT flag, the 30-year-old Martinez also will be serving an additional year for his use of fire and 30 days for harassment.
Martinez was arrested in June after taking the rainbow flag from the United Church of Christ in Ames.
The act was considered a hate crime because the flag represents a sexual orientation.
Shockingly, the same charges don’t seem to stick to those who burn the red, white and blue flag of the United States.
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As the Iowa City Press-Citizen reported in 2017, protesters there were able to not only burn multiple American flags but insult the very country that guaranteed them the freedom to do so without being persecuted.
“When I see the flag, I see racial injustice,” one protester said. “I see social injustice from Native American genocide to African-American slavery to failing to recognize women as citizens until the 20th century.”
Video of the 2017 flag burning can be seen below.
Despite burning multiple flags using fire, it seems these protesters didn’t even get a slap on the wrist.
For Martinez, however, his actions will haunt him for the rest of his life. After spending 16 years in prison, he will have to explain a hate crime charge to any prospective employers.
This lopsided definition of hate crime appears to be the new normal in many places in America.
Earlier this month, Florida prosecutors declined to pursue hate crime charges after a young boy was viciously ganged up on and beaten, reportedly over his support of President Donald Trump.
While it’s never OK to destroy others’ property, it seems Martinez’s punishment is incredibly harsh considering how other flag burners are able to get away with their crimes against the symbol of America itself.
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Celebrated evangelical pastor Franklin Graham revealed Friday his father, Billy Graham, voted for Donald J. Trump in 2016 because he believed he was the best man for the job.
“My father knew Donald Trump, he believed in Donald Trump, and he voted for Donald Trump,” Graham wrote on Facebook early Friday. “He believed that Donald J. Trump was the man for this hour in history for our nation.”
Rev. Franklin Graham was responding to an article that appeared Thursday in Christianity Today — a magazine founded by “America’s pastor” Billy Graham — declaring that President Trump should be removed from office.
Since “they invoked my father’s name (I suppose to try to bring legitimacy to their statements),” Rev. Graham wrote, “I feel it is important for me to respond.”
“Yes, my father Billy Graham founded Christianity Today; but no, he would not agree with their opinion piece. In fact, he would be very disappointed,” Graham said, noting that the misappropriation of his father’s name is what moved him to reveal whom his father voted for in 2016.
Rev. Graham then proceeded to offer his own searing indictment of the behavior of House Democrats in their “politically motivated, 100% partisan” impeachment of the president.
“For Christianity Today to side with the Democrat Party in a totally partisan attack on the President of the United States is unfathomable,” Graham wrote. “Christianity Today failed to acknowledge that not one single Republican voted with the Democrats to impeach the President.”
“I know a number of Republicans in Congress, and many of them are strong Christians,” he declared. “If the President were guilty of what the Democrats claimed, these Republicans would have joined with the Democrats to impeach him. But the Democrats were not even unanimous—two voted against impeachment and one voted present.”
“This impeachment was politically motivated, 100% partisan. Why would Christianity Today choose to take the side of the Democrat left whose only goal is to discredit and smear the name of a sitting president?” Graham asked. “They want readers to believe the Democrat leadership rather than believe the President of the United States.”
Rev. Graham next offered a tally of some of the president’s accomplishments, asking rhetorically why Christianity Today had not bothered to take them into consideration.
“Look at all the President has accomplished in a very short time,” he wrote. “The economy of our nation is the strongest it has been in 50 years, ISIS & the caliphate have been defeated, and the President has renegotiated trade deals to benefit all Americans.”
“The list of accomplishments is long, but for me as a Christian, the fact that he is the most pro-life president in modern history is extremely important — and Christianity Today wants us ignore that, to say it doesn’t count?” he continued. “The President has been a staunch defender of religious freedom at home and around the world — and Christianity Today wants us to ignore that? Also the President has appointed conservative judges in record number — and Christianity Today wants us to ignore that?”
The evangelical leader then moved into discuss the real motivation behind Christianity Today’s hit piece on the president.
“Christianity Today said it’s time to call a spade a spade,” he wrote. “The spade is this — Christianity Today has been used by the left for their political agenda. It’s obvious that Christianity Today has moved to the left and is representing the elitist liberal wing of evangelicalism.”
“Is President Trump guilty of sin?” Graham concludes. “Of course he is, as were all past presidents and as each one of us are, including myself. Therefore, let’s pray for the President as he continues to lead the affairs of our nation.”
That is essentially the foreign policy and national security strategy of the bipartisan elites in recent years. That principle was enshrined in a massive 3,400-page defense authorization bill that just passed both houses of Congress and received Trump’s praise and promise of signing it. No, this is not the 2,000-page set of omnibus bills full of bad provisions, including amnesty for MS-13 traffickers. This is another massive bill full of provisions nobody has read. One of them is an amnesty provision.
The defense bill contains no provision to rectify our mistakes in Afghanistan, nothing about arming our soldiers on bases after the Pensacola terror attack, nothing about refocusing our military mission on our border, and nothing about ending military training and aid for dubious and often unreliable actors in Afghanistan and in Lebanon. So what does it contain? An amnesty for Liberian illegal aliens that was likely missed by almost every single member and the president himself.
Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) is one of the many amnesty programs concocted by the executive branch over the years. Aside from the statutorily grounded humanitarian deferments of removal for various classes of illegal aliens, such as Temporary Protected Status (TPS), DED was fabricated by President Bush specifically to shield Liberian illegal aliens who claim they can’t return to their home country. President Trump promised to end this lawless program created in 2007, which would end amnesty for 4,000 Liberians, but in March he agreed to extend it for another 12 months. Now, the NDAA, if Trump follows through with his promise to sign it, will give them a permanent pathway to citizenship.
On page 2,659 of the NDAA conference report is the Orwellianly named “Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness.” It bars their removal and offers a pathway to citizenship to any Liberian here illegally since before November 2014.
Liberia has overcome its civil war and is now prospering. Now is the time to repatriate its citizens so they can help rebuild their country.
This bill establishes a terrible precedent, namely that any time a president lawlessly creates an amnesty program for illegal aliens, Congress will come in and codify it, the exact opposite of how the legislative process works. Isn’t it sad that the numerous immigration enforcement laws that are not enforced by the executive branch and the courts don’t seem to be of concern to Congress, while benefits for illegal aliens who violate law get approval from Congress? American citizens last: Who saw that coming in a national defense bill? What about immigration “fairness” for Americans?
How many other anti-security provisions are in a 3,400-page national defense bill? We have no way of knowing, nor does the president.
Both the omnibus and the NDAA are the last two remaining leverage points of the president for his first term. Sadly, we got nothing but a lump of coal. The president wrongly tweeted out that we got “all out priorities.”
Wow! All of our priorities have made it into the final NDAA: Pay Raise for our Troops, Rebuilding our Military, Paid Parental Leave, Border Security, and Space Force! Congress – don’t delay this anymore! I will sign this historic defense legislation immediately!
If by that, he means amnesty, endless social engineering in Afghanistan, and the socialist paid family leave for government workers who already have more generous benefit packages than taxpayers, then he’s right. Other than that, he can do better. He must do better.
This is the perfect opportunity for the president to veto both the omnibus bills and the defense bill by demanding that the public discover and debate the new provisions in these bills that are thousands of pages long. At its core, this is what the president was elected to stop. There will be no government shutdown if the NDAA doesn’t pass quite yet. An extra few weeks of sunshine won’t harm anyone, except for those working against the security of the American people.
Mr. President, don’t reward those impeaching you with all their budget and policy priorities. Make your veto pen great again.
A Florida man who once spent Christmas without power is literally paying it forward by paying off the power bills for 36 families with accounts that were past due.
Mike Esmond said he never forgot the Christmas he spent with his daughter in 1983 in Pensacola, back when he did not have heat or power because he could not pay his bill, the Associated Press reported.
Esmond, 73, recalled it was one of the coldest days on record in the area at 9 degrees, and remembered seeing icicles hanging from the windows.
The 73-year-old small business owner went to the city of Gulf Breeze this month, requested a list of all utility accounts past due and at risk of having their power shut off, and paid off all 36 accounts on that list.
The grand total of the accounts paid off amounted to $4,600.
The Pensacola News Journalreported that instead of sending out notices that their utilities would be shut off, the city sent out cards notifying them of Esmond’s gesture.
“It is our honor and privilege to inform you that your past due utility bill has been paid by Gulf Breeze Pools and Spas,” the card read. “You can rest easier this holiday season knowing you have one less bill to pay.”
Resident Angela Cascio said she was stunned by Esmond’s act of kindness.
“Without (Gulf Breeze Pools) paying that bill, my kids’ Christmases would have greatly suffered,” Cascio told the News Journal on Monday. “Angels absolutely walk among us, and they are the epitome of kindness and what ‘paying it forward’ means to me.
Eighty-six of Virginia’s 95 counties have declared themselves to be Second Amendment Sanctuaries.
The Washington Examinerreports that “15 towns and cities” in Virginia have also made the declaration. This bring the total number of Second Amendment Sanctuaries to more than 100.
Early Tuesday Breitbart News reported that Virginia was hovering around 100 Second Amendment Sanctuary declarations. That night, Stafford County adopted a Second Amendment Sanctuary declaration, taking the state across the 100-resolution threshold.
Stafford County is now a sanctuary! That’s the last for tonight and number 101!
On December 12, Breitbart News reported Gov. Ralph Northam vowing “consequences” for counties that refuse to enforce gun control. During the same time-frame, Rep. Donald McEachin (D-VA) suggested Northam may want to send in the National Guard to compel compliance with various laws.
The Washington Examinerquoted McEachin saying, “I’m not the governor, but the governor may have to nationalize the National Guard to enforce the law. That’s his call, because I don’t know how serious these counties are and how severe the violations of law will be. But that’s obviously an option he has.”
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.
American taxpayers are once again being forced to subsidize border security measures in the Middle East as part of the latest government spending bill.
While construction for barriers at the United States-Mexico border receives explicitly less than $1.4 billion in federal funds for Fiscal Year 2020, foreign countries are again sweeping up billions more in U.S. taxpayer money to strengthen their borders.
The spending bill, which is set to pass the Senate, provides Jordan with more than $7.3 billion to be used to help the country “enhance the ability of the armed forces … to increase or sustain security along its borders.” An additional $500 million is allocated to help “security along [Jordan’s] borders.”
Another nearly $1.2 billion is available until September 2021 to “enhance the border security of nations” such as Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Tunisia.
This is at least the third conservative year that American taxpayers have been forced to pay for border security enhancement in foreign countries in the Middle East, as Breitbart News has chronicled.
Meanwhile, U.S. Border Patrol caught more than 851,500 border crossers crossing illegally into the nation in Fiscal Year 2019 — a 115 percent increase in illegal immigration compared to the year before. Federal immigration officials estimate that only about half of all border crossers are caught, indicating that potentially an additional 851,500 illegal aliens successfully entered the U.S. this past year, undetected by Border Patrol.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court decided it would consider two cases involving religious schools’ right to control which teacher it chooses to teach its religion classes.
In both cases, Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru and St. James Catholic School v. Biel, the schools involved are Catholic schools and are being defended by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled against both schools, prompting Becket to appeal to the Supreme Court.
In Biel, a former teacher said she was fired after she told the school she would have to take time off for surgery and chemotherapy for her breast cancer, according to EdWeek, which added that the principal informed her that she was not being renewed because she was not strict enough with her class. When Biel sued, the school asked for summary judgment based on the ministerial exception recognized by the court in Hosanna-Tabor.
In Morrissey-Berru, the teacher’s contract was not renewed because the school said she could not keep order in the classroom. The teacher sued, claiming age bias.
Becket Law wrote, “In Hosanna-Tabor, a similar Becket case in 2012, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the ‘ministerial exception’ for a church school, a First Amendment right that allows religious schools to choose their own religion teachers. The ministerial exception protects all religious groups’ freedom to choose ‘ministerial’ employees without interference from bureaucrats or courts.”
Other religious groups joined the Catholic schools in fighting for the right to choose their own religious teachers; in a brief filed by the Church of God in Christ and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the petitioners write,
The Court should step in now to resolve this split of authority that subjects religious groups to different rules depending on the accident of geography. The Ninth Circuit’s elevation of formalities such as title over substantive duties invites judges to make inappropriate determinations about the affairs of religious organizations and leads to arbitrary and discriminatory results … The Ninth Circuit’s subordination of religious function to other, often more superficial considerations upends the historical and constitutional tradition embodied in Hosanna-Taborand swings open the door to judicial meddling with religious doctrine. To further minimize the risk of judicial interference in internal religious affairs, courts should defer to religious institutions’ good-faith understanding that duties are religiously important rather than crediting plaintiffs’ characterizations.
Eric Rassbach, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, summed up, “Do we really want judges, juries, or bureaucrats deciding who ought to teach Catholicism at a parish school, or Judaism at a Jewish day school? Of course not. Religion teachers play a vital role in the ecosystem of faith. We are confident that the Supreme Court will recognize that under our Constitution government officials cannot control who teaches kids what to believe.”
“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.” – James Madison, The Federalist No. 62
In the year 2019, nine years after the constitutionalist and populist Tea Party wave midterm election of 2010, how many Republicans in Congress actually agree with James Madison?
While all the eyes of political media this week remain fixated upon the dueling melodramas of expected House impeachment later today and the next Democratic Party presidential primary debate tomorrow evening, Congress is gearing up to pass yet another year-end budget betrayal. To be sure, we already knew that fiscal conservatism was dead and that Republicans themselves killed it. But it seems that Republicans’ insatiable desire for fiscal profligacy will not be quenched until they can also spit upon fiscal conservatism’s proverbial corpse.
Daniel Horowitz of Blaze Media has a devastating breakdown of the nature of the latest boondoggle — a boondoggle rearing its ugly head, lest we forget, less than two years after President Donald Trump himself vowed to “never sign a bill like this again.” Over 2,400 pages of legislation. Nearly one and a half trillion dollars of additional spending. Increased funding for the EPA, but no increased funding for ICE. MS-13 trafficking and amnesty loopholes galore. More backdoor amnesty for Liberian nationals. Incentivizing illegal aliens to attempt to enter the federal workforce. Re-authorization of the corporate welfare- and crony capitalism-abetting Export-Import Bank. Raising the national tobacco purchasing age to 21. Tens of millions of dollars toward “gun violence research.” Zero attention paid to the neo-Confederate nationwide plague of sanctuary city lawlessness. Zero attention paid to the fact that murderous transnational criminal cartels still effectively control large swaths of our southern border. Zero attention paid to our nationwide crisis of revanchist and power-hungry judicial supremacism.
And so forth. It’s enough to make one wonder why we elect Republicans into office, in the first instance. Is there anyone on the Republican side of the aisle who still cares about the forgotten American?
Over the past few years, there has been an ongoing and roiling dialogue over the intellectual meaning and political future of American conservatism. It is undoubtedly an important and healthy discussion for us conservatives to air out among ourselves. My own take is that there will be no going back to the pre-Trump “dead consensus,” with the only open question being the proper pathforward.
But as every card-carrying conservative knows, “Republican” and “conservative” are hardly synonymous terms. And while the debate over what it means to be a conservative rages on, it is an entirely distinct question to ask what exactly it is that contemporary elected Republicans claim to actually stand for. After all, it certainly does not seem to be fiscal restraint. It certainly does not seem to be cultural traditionalism. It certainly does not seem to be national sovereignty.
Instead, the least common denominator that unifies seemingly all elected Republicans, in the year 2019, seems to be a shared hatred of the Left — or “triggering the libs,” as my colleague Michael Knowles aptly phrased it yesterday. Indeed, there is actually some historical precedent for this: The sole unifying factor among all three “legs” of the traditional post-William F. Buckley Jr./Reagan-era conservative “stool” — fiscal conservatism, social conservatism, and national security hawkishness — was opposition to the existential threat of Soviet-era communism.
The modern, post-Kavanagh fiasco Left is indeed a vicious and malicious political foe. The Left’s reckless radicalization and trend toward full-on totalitarian socialism is one of the three factors that fortifies my confidence in voting for Donald Trump next November. But surely it is not too much to ask Republicans to actually stand for something beyond mere hatred of the dreaded enemy.
Climate Protesters Try To Stop Coal Train, Learn Important Lesson About Momentum
Leadinglights / Getty ImagesA stock image of a coal train on the rails. (Leadinglights / Getty Images)
A group of climate protesters got a lesson in basic physics during an attempt to stop a moving freight train loaded down with coal.
The incident occurred after activists attempted to stop the cargo in Massachusetts late Monday night. It doesn’t appear anyone was hurt, despite the potentially deadly nature of the stunt.
According to WBUR, the protesters jumped away from the tracks when the train was a mere 50 feet away.
“A train carrying coal to NH nearly ran over a dozen climate activists who tried to block it in Worcester,” WBUR’s Miriam Wasser tweeted. “This happened after someone farther south on the tracks called the emergency hotline twice to report there were people on the tracks.”
#BREAKING A train carrying coal to NH nearly ran over a dozen climate activists who tried to block it in Worcester. This happened after someone farther south on the tracks called the emergency hotline twice to report there were people on the tracks. pic.twitter.com/uaUa12mauQ
The protesters belong to groups that have made a habit of blockading coal shipments in New England, including Climate Disobedience Center and 350 New Hampshire Action.
According to 350 New Hampshire, the train crew knew protesters were on the tracks and simply refused to stop.
Of course, anyone who knows the first thing about trains can tell you that these industrial behemoths can’t stop on a dime. Depending on the cargo weight and speed of the train, it can take miles for one of these massive machines to come to a complete halt.
Until the train stops, there’s not much that can slow it down.
With a full load, trains can weigh millions of pounds.
At speed, the momentum of these machines means that they can even shred tractor-trailer rigs like tissue paper. If that sounds impossible, just watch the video clip below.
WARNING: The following video contains profane language that some viewers may find offensive. Viewer discretion is advised.
OK, Firefighter Smokey here again with a lesson. My Father drove trains for Santa Fe for several years before the merger with BN, when he left them in a buyout. He’s told me about hitting cows, sofas, even cars, and drilled into my head, DO NOT try to beat a train! pic.twitter.com/k0LEk31UDT
If a train is able to tear an 18-wheeler apart like that, protesters don’t stand much of a chance.
Despite the danger in their particular type of climate activism, these protesters succeeded in stalling a train earlier this month. A post from the Climate Disobedience Center celebrated that blockage.
— Climate Disobedience Center (@ClimateDisobey) December 8, 2019
What this post failed to mention is the time the train spent idling because of the protesters. Running engines still consume fuel, and the extra fuel needed to get a train up to speed once the protesters were removed surely added to the trip’s total carbon footprint.
Perhaps most hypocritical is the technology these climate activists use to spread their message.
Unless these protesters are running their electronics off a solar charger, there’s a good chance that the trains being stopped are delivering coal that will go to power the very devices used to further their cause.
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