In the 2016 presidential primaries, 2.1 million people under age 30 voted for democratic socialist Bernie Sanders. But do young Americans really know what it means to live under socialism?
Cambodia, like other countries in the past and present, offers clear evidence of the outcomes of socialist policies such as the Green New Deal championed today by many liberals in the U.S.
Bopha Sayavong, a family friend of this reporter, lived in Cambodia in the 1970s when it was underboth socialist and communist control. She survived the government’s work camps and was able to come to America in 1981.
“People that refer to themselves as the millennial [generation], they have no clue what socialism is,” Sayavong, now a pharmacist in Illinois, told me. “I lived in both socialism and communism, and then I lived in the world of the U.S. One thing I can tell you is there is no place like the U.S.”
However, the enthusiasm with which millennials advocate socialist policies suggests an ignorance about history, markets, and government. This is in part due to the failures of the education system.
Liberal arts courses in the United States are ripe with the opportunity to teach the proper context needed to understand the consequences of socialismand communism.
However, the education system’s failure to connect the dots leaves students with the impression that socialism is a venture yet to be tested.
“People think it’s so wonderful, it’s so fantastic, but that’s not true,” Sayavong said. “It’s just like a painting–it looks fantastic. But when you live in it, then you know it. It brings me pain to even think that our children go that far [consider socialism].”
Bopha Sayavong at a refugee camp in the Philippines in 1979. (Photo courtesy of Bopha Sayavong)
American college students have the luxury of viewing the world from an ivory tower, combating injustice through thought experiments.
Students approach the world’s problems as if this were a game in which there are no consequences, and every variable is easily known and controlled. They say: ”If we could remove markets, there would be no poverty, and if the government made the decisions, there would be no oppression.”
This critique of higher education has been made many times over many years by conservative academics. William F. Buckley Jr. shocked the academic world with his 1951 book, “God and Man at Yale,” and its scathing critique of the liberal bias at Yale University.
Still, to this day higher education don’t provide a more rounded view of the world.
History classes fail to teach that notions such as socialism already have failed the test of time, and the outcomes have birthed nothing but pain and suffering.
For example, 2 million people died between 1975 and 1979 at the hands of the communist Khmer Rouge regime. Headed by Pol Pot, that regime put Cambodians, including Sayavong’s family, in work camps.
That’s almost as many dead as the number of young Americans who voted in 2016 for Sanders.
Other such experiments include the Soviet Union, Vietnam, Cuba, and now Venezuela, all of which produced some of the most severe human rights violations known to man.
Economics classes in college fail to teach students that capitalism provided ubiquitous products such as the iPhone that almost every student takes for granted. These classes also fail to teach that competition and innovation provide affordable goods and services, as opposed to oppressing the poor.
Lauren Chen, a conservative YouTube blogger based in Canada, stated the issue clearly April 14 on “The Ben Shapiro Sunday Special” when she said: “Millennials don’t know who people like Pol Pot, or Stalin, or Mao are, which is kind of to me what being a millennial is all about–all of the enthusiasm with none of the knowledge.”
Just as college campuses don’t solve the world’s problems, Capitol Hill doesn’t solve the country’s problems. A few congressmen can’t pull a few levers and push a few buttons to secure equality.
The swipe of a pen at the bottom of a nonbinding resolution “creating” the Green New Deal doesn’t eradicate poverty.
“I do believe in equality,” Bopha Sayavong told me. “I want … no rich, no poor, all even; but as a human being, think about it: If the government tells you what to do, how to eat, how to breathe, how could that be equal? They are above you.”
Firsthand experience with socialism and communism has been around to offset academia’s utopian visions for a long time.
Perhaps because unlike baby boomers and Generation X they don’t have wars to fight, millennials and Generation Z have the privilege to disengage from history.
President Donald Trump reacted to the news Wednesday that Mexican soldiers had detained and disarmed two members of the United States National Guard on American soil.
“Better not happen again!” Trump wrote on Twitter. We are now sending ARMED SOLDIERS to the Border.”
The American soldiers allowed themselves to be disarmed, according to reports, after the Mexican soldiers held them at gunpoint. They were released after the soldiers explained in Spanish that they were still on American soil.
“Though they were south of the border fence, US soldiers remained in US territory, north of the actual border,” CBP officials explained in a statement after the incident. “After a brief discussion between the soldiers from the two nations, the Mexican military members departed the area.”
Trump suggested that Mexico was detaining American troops as a “diversionary tactic” for drug smugglers acting on the border.
“Mexico is not doing nearly enough in apprehending & returning!” he wrote.
Trump also raised the alarm of an enormous caravan of migrants traveling up through Mexico.
“It has been reduced in size by Mexico but is still coming,” he wrote. “Mexico must apprehend the remainder or we will be forced to close that section of the Border & call up the Military. The Coyotes & Cartels have weapons!”
A very big Caravan of over 20,000 people started up through Mexico. It has been reduced in size by Mexico but is still coming. Mexico must apprehend the remainder or we will be forced to close that section of the Border & call up the Military. The Coyotes & Cartels have weapons!
Mexico’s Soldiers recently pulled guns on our National Guard Soldiers, probably as a diversionary tactic for drug smugglers on the Border. Better not happen again! We are now sending ARMED SOLDIERS to the Border. Mexico is not doing nearly enough in apprehending & returning!
A 21-year-old migrant from Tunisia has been arrested following a brutal attack in which a homosexual man was stabbed to death and his friend was disembowelled just outside of Paris.
The attack took place over the night of April 10th and the early morning of April 11th and saw the two victims take a night bus back from a local nightclub in the Le Marais district of the city back to their home in Villejuif just south of the city. The two men are said to have met the Tunisian on the bus who followed them back to their apartment, Actu 17reports.
The first victim was found stabbed to death in a pool of blood by police in his apartment and soon after officers and firefighters found the second victim who had severe abdominal injuries that were described as disembowelment. emergency services were able to rush the latter to the hospital where he managed to survive the attack.
French Islamist Allegedly Plotted To Kill Men After Luring Them on Gay Dating Apps https://t.co/J2xGtsS5jQ
The victim who survived described the Tunisian man to police who then used video surveillance to identify the suspect and put out a warrant for his arrest. Several days after the arrest warrant was issued, police managed to catch 21-year-old Sami A. and arrest him over the Easter weekend after he was spotted near a market in the 12th arrondissement.
The murder and attempted murder are just the latest attacks on LGBT individuals in Paris by migrants and follow the fatal shooting of transgender prostitute Vanesa Campos last year in Paris’ 16th arrondissement. Nine migrants, believed to be members of a local gang that routinely robbed prostitutes and their clients, were arrested in connection with the murder.
Two Homosexual Men Attacked, Beaten In Paris After Kissing In Public https://t.co/xgC7Ian28L
Earlier this year a similar case saw four North African migrants arrested in connection to the drowning death of a transgender woman in Switzerland. The migrants were accused of sexually abusing 27-year-old Gaëlle P. after getting her intoxicated and then leaving her to drown in the nearby lake,
Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJor email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com
President Donald Trump defended the controversial citizenship question on the 2020 census on Wednesday.
“The American people deserve to know who is in this Country,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Yesterday, the Supreme Court took up the Census Citizenship question, a really big deal.”
The Supreme Court heard arguments on the legal case after the Southern District of New York sided with leftist lawsuits trying to block the question from being included in the census.
The question will ask participants if they are American citizens. Leftists argue that the citizenship question will cause illegal immigrants to be unwilling to participate in the census.
The Supreme Court heard opening arguments on the case on Tuesday.
The American people deserve to know who is in this Country. Yesterday, the Supreme Court took up the Census Citizenship question, a really big deal. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Sri Lanka’s Christians began mass burials this week for the victims of jihadist suicide bombings on Sunday as the government announced a spike in the death toll from 290 to 359.
Witnesses to the attacks – which successfully targeted three churches and three hotels in the Colombo area and may have failed in attacking several other Christian targets – told local media they have yet to fully comprehend the horror they experienced, particularly in the churches where the terrorists appeared to target children.
One eyewitness said a suicide bomber touched his grandchild’s head while passing by before detonating his explosives.
The Daily Mirror, a Sri Lankan newspaper, spoke to some of the survivors of the bombing of the churches, who said the jihadists left a trail of mangled limbs:
Sri Lankan local people pray near to St Anthony Church on April 23, 2019 evening in Colombo, Sri Lanka. (Atul Loke/Getty Images)
“I couldn’t bare to watch burning babies and children. But everyone rushed in to help. This is a brutal strike,” a man identified as Hamza, a local near St. Anthony’s Church, told the Mirror. “Whoever is responsible should be punished. I say that there is political force behind all this. They are seeking more and more power.”
Selvam Fernando, another eyewitness, told the newspaper that no one entered the church after the blast, but victims “with severe burns” began running out of the church and many died in the street, as medical care arrived late and the victims relied on only the generosity of panicked neighbors for treatment.
“None of us went inside the church. About 15 minutes later, two police officers at a nearby security checkpoint rushed to the scene. It took 30 minutes or so for the emergency services to reach the venue. Until then it was the residents of the area who led the rescue efforts,” he said.
Relatives carry the coffin of a bomb blast victim for a burial ceremony at a cemetery in Colombo on April 24, 2019, three days after a series of suicide attacks targeting churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka. (Jewel SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images)
A policeman with a K9 searches a cemetery before a burial ceremony for a bomb blast victim in Colombo on April 24, 2019, three days after a series of bomb attacks targeting churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)
Members of the clergy walk past new graves as they wait for the funerals of people killed in the Easter Sunday attack on St Sebastian’s Church, on April 24, 2019 in Negombo, Sri Lanka. (Carl Court/Getty Images)
The Mirror attributed to unnamed “residents” the theory that jihadists, aware that those with young children often stand in the back of churches so that they can make an easy escape if the child gets loud or upset, set off their bombs closer to the door:
People who were at the front of the altar were not affected as much as the others. Devotees accompanying small children prefer to stay at the back. The parents and children, who took their places at the rear, were caught in the explosion. I feel these problems were worsened because there was no security presence. Almost a decade ago, police security was provided for every festival and mass held at the church. Even before the terrorist threats during the war, adequate security was provided, as a large number of devotees gather here from across the island. There is clearly a lack of security here. This area received a lot of support from the Navy, before their camp was relocated. Now we don’t have their support either” residents said.
A man speaking to another Sri Lankan outlet, the Daily News, said he believes the bomber responsible for destroying another target, St. Sebastian’s Church, gently touched his grandchild’s head before entering the church. Dilip Fernando intended to attend services there but left before the blast because it was too full.
“At the end of the mass they saw one young man go into the church in [sic] with a heavy bag,” Fernando said. “He touched my granddaughter’s head on the way past. It was the bomber.”
Fernando lost seven relatives in the attack.
UNICEF issued a statement Wednesday confirming the murders of at least 45 children in the attack:
News of how these attacks have affected children and adolescents is still coming in, but we now know that 45 children* – both Sri Lankan and other nationalities – have been killed, and scores more are injured, and are now fighting for their lives in intensive care units across the country. Many children have lost one or both parents, and countless children have been witness to shocking and senseless violence.
Fr. Jude Fernando who runs St. Anthony’s Church spoke to the Mirror shortly after the attack in a state the newspaper described as “clearly traumatized.”
“I still can’t understand what happened here inside the church,” he said. “It was around 8.45 am and we were celebrating the Tamil Easter Mass and I was about to walk into the church. If I had been one step ahead, I would have been injured, but I turned aside and in that moment it collapsed.”
Many relatives of the deceased buried in the first round of services this week mourned their entire families. Jude Fernando, speaking to Al Jazeera, said he lost his mother, as well as his sister and her three children in the attack. His nephew, the youngest, was eight months old.
Several people at the mass funeral Al Jazeera attended condemned Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena for attending and the government generally for doing nothing to prevent the attack, despite reports that officials knew of Islamic State activity in the country as early as 2016.
“The attacks would not have happened like this and people would still be alive if the government had acted,” a woman whose parents died in the attack – and whose grandmother was both gravely injured and missing in a hospital somewhere – told the outlet.
“A whole new cemetery had to be hastily dug to bury more than 100 bodies” at one of the mass burials on Tuesday, CBS News reported:
Friends, family and members of the clergy attend a mass funeral at St Sebastian’s Church on April 23, 2019 in Negombo, Sri Lanka. (Carl Court/Getty Images)
A child looks at a grave after the funeral in Katuwapity village on April 23, 2019 in Negambo, Sri Lanka. (Atul Loke/Getty Images)
Relatives of dead offer thier prayers during funeral in Katuwapity village on April 23, 2019 in Negambo, Sri Lanka. (Atul Loke/Getty Images)
A Sri Lankan woman cries during a burial service for a bomb blast victim in a cemetery in Colombo on April 23, 2019, two days after a series of bomb attacks targeting churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka. (Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP/Getty Images)
The world already knows that CNN’s Chris Cuomo is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Still, during an interview with former Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Tuesday night, Cuomo proved not only that he’s eager to mislead his audience, but that he doesn’t have the capacity to grasp even the fundamental bottom line of the Mueller Report and has no idea how our three separate branches of the federal government operate.
From Maggie Haberman to John Podhoertz to Bill Kristol to Mitt Romney to Chris Cuomo… Nepotism is replacing meritocracy and America is all that much stupider for it.
Sure, no one watches Cuomo’s show, but how did someone so breathtakingly dumb land on TV?
Cuomo Lies About Trump and His Campaign Being Exonerated for Collusion
MUKASEY: Russian interference happened for sure, but cooperation and conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russians did not happen. And that was—
CUOMO: To a criminal level, no says Mr. Mueller.
MUKASEY: To any level.
CUOMO: I don’t know about any level. But to a criminal level I’ll give you.
This is Cuomo deliberately misleading his audience into believing there was collusion, just not at a criminal level.
This is straight from the horse’s mouth of the Mueller Report: “The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
Total exoneration, no asterisk about criminal versus otherwise. Two years, dozens of partisan investigators, hundreds of witnesses, and $30 million later, no collusion… period.
Cuomo Doesn’t Know It’s the Attorney General’s Job to Decide About Indictments
CUOMO: So, when you say no crime, Mueller couldn’t decide on that one, gave it to your friend the Attorney General, he decided it.
MUKASEY: Right, which is his job.
CUOMO: It is whose job?
MUKASEY: The Attorney General’s job.
CUOMO: To do what?
MUKASEY: It was Mueller’s job initially to decide it and he punted.
Suddenly Cuomo is Bud Abbott wondering Who’s on first? Who are we talking about here, Chris? Can you not keep up with the conversation, which is right now focused on one man, Bill Barr, without getting all lost and confused? Can we feed the rabbits, George, can we feed the rabbits now…?
Cuomo Lies About Why Mueller Didn’t Indict for Obstruction
CUOMO: But who says—Well, I said that too, by the way Mike. Maybe I got it from you. I said that. I said Mueller punted. This was his job. He was supposed to make a decision to prosecute or not. But, the finesse position, I’m giving more weigh to now. He knows what his job is. And he sees this as difficult because of the OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] opinion, he can’t indict this President, so he’s leaving it to Congress and not the AG. Nowhere in the report does he ask the AG to do it.
MUKASEY: Number one, that’s not the only reason he saw it as difficult.
Cuomo is hoping to deliberately mislead his audience into believing the only reason Mueller did not indict Trump for obstruction was because he could not legally indict a sitting president due to Justice Department guidelines.
This is not even close to true.
To begin with, the Mueller Report clearly states “a criminal investigation during the President’s term is permissible” and “that a President does not have immunity once he leaves office.”
What’s more, there was nothing stopping the report from concluding Trump had obstructed justice but that he could not be indicted as president. Instead the report declaratively says — and this is important because it is the bottom line Cuomo wants to hide from his audience — “this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime” regarding obstruction.
The Special Counsel found not crime, therefore it is not the OLC stopping Mueller from recommending an indictment, it is the fact that NO CRIME WAS FOUND.
You need a crime in order to indict.
Cuomo Believed the Mueller Investigation was Separate from the Department of Justice
CUOMO: I didn’t say the only but it does seem to be predominate in his thinking.
MUKASEY: But secondly, the Justice Department doesn’t conduct investigations for the purpose of referring things to Congress. They conduct criminal investigations with two possible results: Either you charge or you don’t charge. We don’t need Robert Mueller or whoever wrote that section of the report to tell us that Congress has the power to conduct impeachment hearings. We all learned that in 8th grade civics and if we didn’t we saw it during the Clinton administration. We know that Congress has that power.
CUOMO: But this was a special counsel. And it was put together by Rosenstein because he wanted it separate from the DOJ [Department of Justice] because of what he saw as–
MUKASEY: It’s not separate from the DOJ, it’s within the DOJ.
The idea that the Special Counsel office is in any way separate from the DOJ is simply nuts, nor is it a separate branch of the DOJ. Rather, it is working on behalf of the DOJ to investigate something specific, return with recommendations, including recommendations to indict, which the DOJ ultimately decides on.
In this case, the DOJ appointed Mueller to investigate if Trump or anyone associated with his campaign colluded with the Russians and that investigation found that no one did. The investigation also found no crimes regarding obstruction.
Cuomo Believes the Special Counsel Office is a “Mechanism Separate” from the DOJ.
CUOMO: I know, but as a mechanism separate. I understand the DOJ. I understand how the guidelines are written. I understand why they were written, because we didn’t like what the independent counsel was.
MUKASEY: It’s not just the guidelines. We have three branches of government; this is within the Executive. We don’t sprout a new branch of government.
Duh.
And it is all downhill from here…
Cuomo Believes the Attorney General Barr Took It Upon Himself to Not Indict Trump Just Cuz…
CUOMO: But what your friend did is not just by the book. He took it on himself to decide this rule. He didn’t have to do that.
MUKASEY: Of course he had to do it.
CUOMO: Why?
MUKASEY: Who was going to decide if we were going to indict or not?
The Attorney General of the United States deciding whether or not to indict is as “by the book” as it gets.
Cuomo Believes Congress Decides Criminal Matters
CUOMO: Congress, as a political matter. Leave it to them.
MUKASEY: They decide whether to impeach or not. They don’t decide–
CUOMO: And Mike, you’re skipping the big point, which you taught me about very early on.
MUKASEY: That is the big point.
CUOMO: They can’t indict him. That is the opinion from the OLC so there’s nothing to decide on that level. It’s purely political. It always would be.
MUKASEY: Congress doesn’t indict. Congress can impeach.
CUOMO: I’m using it as just a metaphor here.
MUKASEY: But you’re misleading a lot of people. You have a big audience.
CUOMO: No, because we know the OLC says —
MUKASEY: Getting smaller by the minute now but it’s bigger.
Basically, what Fredo is arguing here is that the Attorney General should have … done nothing?
Should have … not have made a ruling on an indictment…?
Should have … punted to the Congress…?
Good heavens, the Special Counsel reports to the DOJ, is in the employ of the DOJ, not Congress. It is up to the DOJ to decide how to ultimately handle this — per the Special Counsel statute.
Apparently, Cuomo wants to live in a world where the DOJ acts as a political branch of Congress, where the DOJ does investigations on behalf of a Congress that has no power to indict or prosecute.
Cuomo Believes Only Congress Can Take Action on Mueller Report
CUOMO: — you can’t indict. Right? We know they say that. Mueller knows it. He lays it out in the piece. So, the only type of action would be Congressional. That’s what I’m saying.
MUKASEY: No. He can file a sealed indictment. He could say that there should be an indictment in these circumstances but the only reason he can’t is because of the OLC opinion. He didn’t say that.
CUOMO: No. He didn’t say that about a sealed indictment but he did go out of his way to say, “hey, I want to be fair to the President too. He can’t even respond to this because of the OLC opinion.” So he — I would suggest referred it to Congress.
This might not be idiocy on Cuomo’s part, but rather an attempt to deliberately mislead the small group of people who watch his last place show.
Cuomo is pretending Justice Department guidelines kept Mueller from taking any action against Trump regarding obstruction and that Barr should not have chose not to indict; instead, what Cuomo wanted Barr to do was leave a cloud over Trump’s head by doing nothing and simply handed the report over to the Congress.
Talk about propaganda.
AGAIN… on the issue of obstruction, the Mueller Report clearly states “this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime” — which is all that matters.
Secondly, the Mueller Report could have returned a sealed indictment against Trump to be used after he left office and could have said they found a crime but cannot indict due to DOJ regulations.
Moreover, the Mueller Report did NOT have to go out of its way to tell the world they did not find a crime. That wording could have easily been left out.
Cuomo Doesn’t Believe the Attorney General Should Have Ruled on Indictment
CUOMO: But Mr. Barr decided to end this. He didn’t have to.
MUKASEY: He did.
CUOMO: That’s not in the book. He could have left it alone. You can’t indict a sitting president. He didn’t need to tell us that.
MUKASEY: He needed to say whether an indictment was warranted or not. And he said it.
CUOMO: You can’t have one. Why did he need to tell us that?
MUKASEY: Because Mueller left it dangling out there and in the circumstances were you have evidence going one way and evidence going another way, you don’t indict.
Actually Mueller did not leave it dangling, he declaratively said “this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime.”
What’s more, the issue of an indictment, if warranted, would only be delayed until Trump left office, so of course Barr had to put an end to is, the same way Mueller put an end to it without putting forth a sealed indictment or a finding that a crime had been committed.
Cuomo Believes Trump Cannot Be Indicted
CUOMO: Except you can’t indict, Mike. And I don’t know why you’re ignoring that. It’s on page 1 of the second part of this report. He says, we take our guidance from the OLC, the Department of Justice guideline on our jurisdiction with respect to indicting a sitting president, they can’t do it. AD Barr didn’t need to do it for that reason. He needed to do it to protect the President. That’s why he did it.
MUKASEY: Protect the President from what? When he can’t be indicted?
The president can be indicted for crimes committed while in office, the DOJ need only wait until after he leaves office.
Mueller could have recommended that. Barr could have done the same. The idea that Barr should have stepped aside and said nothing based on the technicality about indicting a sitting president is beyond stupid, not to mention desperate.
Cuomo Lies About Attorney General Barr’s Letter Being Misleading
CUOMO: From criticism in the open question and giving Congress that kind of momentum. That’s why he did it.
MUKASEY: Oh, come on.
CUOMO: That’s why he did it. That’s why he wrote the letter the way he did. That’s why he gave the press conference the way he did. That’s why he misled us to what the report would look like the way he did.
MUKASEY: [Whistles] You done?
CUOMO: Yes, sir, respond, please.
MUKASEY: Let’s start with the letter because that’s what came first. That letter came at a time when, no criticism of you, but your network were devoting days of people sitting around and talking about a report that they didn’t — whose content they didn’t know, that they hadn’t seen, in essence panels of people sitting around a table inhaling their own exhaust and getting high on it. And trying to make the viewers—
CUOMO: Since when does the AG respond to that?
MUKASEY: Wait a second. The country was in a state of absolute hysteria. You had a countdown clock in the corner of not one but several networks about the release of the report. The release of the report. He did the responsible thing.
CUOMO: A misleading letter about what was in it.
MUKASEY: No, it wasn’t misleading at all.
CUOMO: How not?
MUKASEY: It summarized the bottom line of that report which was that there was no collusion and that the special counsel had found that he could not indict but could not vindicate the president. He put that language right in the letter.
CUOMO: He put in the letter about exoneration in there.
MUKASEY: Could not exonerate. I’m sorry. Not vindicate. Could not exonerate when it is in fact not the job of any counsel or anybody else to exonerate. God does that. Even juries that return acquittals don’t come back and say innocent, they say not guilty.
The Barr letter accurately stated that the Mueller investigation found no evidence of collusion and did not exonerate on the issue of obstruction.
MUKASEY: The special counsel said he couldn’t exonerate and Barr put that in his letter.
Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is attracting support from across the political establishment — the mainstream media, NeverTrump pundits like Bill Kristol, and Silicon Valley CEOs have all rallied to the South Bend mayor’s campaign. But why?
Given that the establishment wants to preserve the pre-Trump status quo, it’s perhaps not surprising that it’s fallen in love with a candidate who prefers soundbites over policy. That’s what the establishment wants a candidate to be — inoffensive, un-radical, perhaps with a few nods to fashionable identity politics.
Silicon Valley CEOs also seem to have been interested in Buttigieg even before he became a candidate. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited South Bend in 2017, long before the mayor announced his candidacy.
Zuckerberg did a casual ride-along with Buttigieg, praised the mayor as a “very humble guy” and politely listened to his stories about the decline of South Bend and the wider industrial midwest.
This is probably less about Buttigieg himself as it is about Silicon Valley’s guilt over its role in the rust belt’s decline. In 2018, venture capitalists toured the midwest — stopping at South Bend — as part of what they called a “comeback cities tour.” The tour’s purported aim was to encourage big tech investment in the midwest, but it was also plainly a PR stunt — big tech demonstrating how much they care about the lost jobs its industry has “disrupted.”
Visits from Zuckerberg and others might be as much due to Buttigieg courting big tech as it is about big tech courting Buttigieg. Buttigieg is one of the few midwestern mayors who has successfully attracted tech startups to his town, and the media never tires of talking about it.
Dig a little deeper, though, and the miraculous South Bend revival isn’t quite so miraculous. The Indiana town has two key advantages that comparable locations lack. First, how many declining rust belt towns have an international airport within their boundaries? South Bend does. Second, how many declining rust belt towns are situated on the doorstep of a renowned research university like Notre Dame? South Bend is.
Easy international transportation, low rent, and access to a pool of graduates are all highly tempting for startups. Taking this into account, the fact that Buttigieg has managed to attract a few tech startups to his town is less impressive than it seems.
It’s also no surprise that the establishment media likes a moderate neoliberal who plays up his gay identity. If there’s one thing the mainstream media believes in, it’s moderate neoliberalism and progressive identity politics. Rupert Murdoch’s son, known for his support of Democratic candidates, has already thrown in for Buttigieg.
A third establishment faction is also in the midst of a love affair with the South Bend mayor — neoconservative NeverTrump pundits. This is harder to figure out, because as far as I know, Buttigieg hasn’t pledged to invade Iran if he wins the presidency. National Interest has questioned whether he even has a foreign policy. Maybe the neocons know something we don’t?
Whatever the reason, every NeverTrump talking head appears to be giddy for Buttigieg. Here’s Ana Navarro gushing over how many languages the South Bend Mayor knows (strange, I don’t remember similar comments about Melania Trump). And here’s Jennifer Rubin praising him as “light years ahead” of other young Democrats “in substance and seriousness.” Speaking of substance and seriousness, here’s NeverTrump pundit Nicole Wallace calling Buttigieg “chicken soup for my soul.”
Former Jeb! campaign staffer Tim Miller, who declares his allegiance to “NevereverTrump” in his Twitter bio, wrote a piece for Bill Kristol’s new website, The Bulwark, praising Buttigieg for the apparently bold, radical step of being publicly gay. Kristol himself says that President Trump is “scared to run against Buttigieg.” And The Bulwark has even published a piece hailing the South Bend mayor for… his campaign logos.
Perhaps the establishment’s longing for Buttigieg says less about Buttigieg than it does about the establishment. From Ukraine to the Brexit party, populism continues its worldwide surge, leaving mainstream media pundits longing for the days of the neoliberal status quo, when a candidate could win on the basis of cutesy soundbites, campaign logos, and not much else.
During a segment on ABC’s The View Tuesday, Whoopi Goldberg defended Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) over his position that felons, including terrorists, should vote.
“Does anyone think a terrorist should have a right to vote?” Meghan McCain asked The View panel.
“Well, here’s what I’m going to say, if they let this terrorist out, because he served his time, he gets his — if he’s an American citizen…” Whoopi Goldberg said, pausing to ask McCain, “Why is your mouth open like that?”
“Because…Whoopi, he killed people,” McCain said.
“Yes, lots of people do this,” Goldberg replied.
“He is a terrorist…he’s a radicalized terrorist,” McCain said.
“Our constitution says, if you’ve done your time…you have, we hope, been reformed, you’ve been changed. If they let him out, that means they feel his time is up and he gets to become the American citizen,” Goldberg said.
“If you’ve done your time–that’s what prison reform is about–if they let this man out, they are saying, ‘He has been reformed, we have–fixed him…We have rehabilitated him,” Goldberg said later in the panel.
Controversy erupted after Bernie Sanders said at a CNN town hall event Monday that he agrees that felons, even those who committed sexual assault or terrorism, should be able to vote from prison.
“Yes, even for terrible people because once you start chipping away–you say, ‘That guy committed a terrible crime, we’re not going to let him vote,’ or ‘that person did that,’ you’re running down a slippery slope,” Sanders said.
This prompted a variety of responses, including from pop star Cher, who is typically liberal but voiced her disagreement with this policy on social media Tuesday.
“Does Bernie Sanders Really Believe Ppl In Prison Who Are Murderers⁉️ Rapists⁉️ Child Molesters⁉️ BOSTON BOMBERS.…STILL DESERVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE⁉️” she asked.
Later, she doubled down, then deleted her social media posts in the face of backlash.
The Texas police officer who arrested Rep. Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke (D-TX) for driving drunk in 1998 still believes the 2020 presidential candidate attempted to flee the scene of the ordeal, according to a report.
Now-former Anthony Police Department officer Richard Carrera, who arrested O’Rourke, along with his sergeant, Gary Hargrove, told the Texas Tribune Wednesday that they still maintain that the police report detailing the 20-year-old incident is accurate.
“I believe we have contradicting stories here,” Carrera acknowledged the Texas Tribune, before adding “I stand by my report.”
After giving the police report yet another read, Carrera said he has “no doubt” that O’Rourke tried to flee the scene in his Volvo.
Hargrove, 71, oversaw the crash scene but does not remember being there. However, he said he believes what his officers told him about the two-vehicle collision that occurred in Anthony, a tiny town near the Texas-New Mexico border west of El Paso.
Hargrove said the report, which he reread after the Houston Chroniclepublished it last year, shows O’Rourke “struck the [other] car from the rear and he ended up in the median pointed the wrong way, and he took that as his chance to get away.”
“He did something to lead the officers to believe that he was trying to get away,” Hargrove said. “What they put down, I believed them.”
“Beto’s DWI is something he has long publicly and openly addressed over the last 20 years at town halls, on the debate stage, during interviews and in Op-Eds, calling it a serious mistake for which there is no excuse,” O’Rourke spokesman Chris Evans told the Texas Tribune. “This has been widely and repeatedly reported on.”
Last year, the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News obtained copies of state and local police reports pertaining to the arrest. The documents state O’Rourke was found intoxicated after losing control of his vehicle on Interstate 10 and hitting a truck. Nobody was hurt in the accident in Anthony, Texas, about 20 miles from El Paso. A witness told police that O’Rourke tried to drive away, but the witness stopped him until officers arrived, the documents show. The witness also said that O’Rourke had been driving at “a high rate of speed.”
O’Rourke has talked about the 1998 arrest while campaigning to unseat incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). However, news stories about the arrest earlier in the campaign did not include details such as the crash and the reported attempt to flee.
“I drove drunk and was arrested for a DWI in 1998. As I’ve publicly discussed over the last 20 years, I made a serious mistake for which there is no excuse,” O’Rourke said in a statement after reports broke about the arrest.
O’Rourke had just turned 26 when the arrest happened. He did a court-ordered diversion program and a drunken-driving charge was dismissed. According to police, O’Rourke recorded a 0.136 and 0.134 on breathalyzers, above a blood-alcohol level of 0.10, Texas’ legal limit for driving at the time.
A recent survey of 2,000 teachers in 22 states found 48 percent of teachers under 35 would prefer to negotiate their own salary and benefits for themselves, without the involvement of teachers’ unions.
However, 50 percent of teachers who are over 35, and 56 percent who have a total family income above $100,000, disagree with having to negotiate their own contract, according to the data.
The survey, commissioned by the nonprofit Teacher Freedom – which provides teachers with information about how to opt out of union membership and alternative associations to union membership – was conducted by Dynata, in March 2018, in states affected by the Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision delivered three months later in June.
“A collective bargaining agreement is a lot like a big cable package,” said Colin Sharkey, the executive director of the Association of American Educators (AAE), according to Education Week. AAE is a national professional organization for educators and the largest supporter of the Teacher Freedom group.
Education Week noted Sharkey likened the finding that younger teachers were more likely to prefer to negotiate their own contracts to millennials opting out of cable bundle contracts in favor of streaming services.
“[I]it’s not as ingrained in them to have one-size-fits-all bargaining,” he said.
The report continued:
[Sharkey] said teachers tend to think they could benefit financially if they were able to negotiate their own salary. Right now, salaries are determined on a step-and-lane schedule that applies to teachers across the district—teachers receive raises for years of service and degrees earned. But Sharkey said some teachers who work in hard-to-staff subjects, like high school science, want the opportunity to negotiate higher pay.
Other teachers say they want a chance to argue for a pay raise based on their performance in the classroom, Sharkey said. Also, he said, younger teachers might not stay in the profession as long as their predecessors, so the step-and-lane salary schedule wouldn’t necessarily make financial sense for them.
The survey also found that while the overall percentage of teachers preferring a pension versus a 401(k) retirement plan was equal (35 percent for each option), younger teachers (41-27 percent) and those with incomes less than $50,000 (42-24 percent) were more likely to prefer the 401(k) retirement plan option.
“It shouldn’t come as a surprise that so many educators want to be free of government-imposed union ‘representation,’ which far too often is used by union officials to boost their own power at the expense of the very teachers they claim to represent,” Patrick Semmens, vice president of National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, told Breitbart News. “It is indisputable that many provisions in union-imposed contracts actually harm wide swaths of teachers, especially rigid seniority rules and opposition to merit pay, which treat younger teachers as second-class employees no matter how effective they are in the classroom.”
Despite being forced to be members of teachers’ unions prior to the Janus decision, the survey found only 39 percent of teachers actually agree with how unions spend their money.
A study released by Center for Union Facts in May 2018 revealed that, from 2010 to 2017, labor unions sent $1.3 billion in member dues to progressive groups aligned with the Democrat Party without obtaining the approval of their members.
Among the recipients of union dues funds were the Clinton Foundation, Planned Parenthood, Center for American Progress, Democracy Alliance, and the Democratic Governors Association.
As expected, the Teacher Freedom survey showed Democrats (48 percent) and teachers with family incomes above $100,000 per year (45 percent) were more likely to be satisfied with how unions spend their dues, while Republicans (43 percent) were less likely to support how the union distributed its dues money. The survey also found that a fair number teachers in general either did not know much about how their union spent their dues or were neutral on the subject.
The data also showed that nearly half of the teachers (46 percent) disagreed with the requirement that union fees be paid as a condition of employment, while 36 percent agreed. Democrats (45 percent) were more likely to agree with forced union dues, but more Republicans (60 percent) said they disagreed. Among those teachers with income less than $50,000, 59 percent disagreed with forced union fees.
“Fortunately, a solution exists,” Semmens said. “End union bosses’ monopoly and let teachers decide to advocate for themselves or select a private organization to advocate on their behalf.”
“States like Virginia and North Carolina, which already ban government union monopoly bargaining, prove that letting teachers choose whether or not to associate with a union works,” he added. “That solution also fixes the First Amendment issues inherent in government-imposed union monopoly representation.”
Teacher Freedom provides a list of alternate associations teachers may voluntarily join that offer professional benefits, such as liability insurance and job resources.
The margin of sampling error for the Teacher Freedom survey’s aggregate results is 2.2%, but is higher for some subgroups.
