Chris Plante: The Liberal Media Is ‘Tube Feeding’ Lies to America

In an energized appearance on the Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson Tonight Monday to talk about the pompous White House Correspondents Dinner, talk radio host Chris Plante blasted the liberal media for their First Amendment hypocrisy between Presidents Obama and Trump. On top of that, he described how he left his job at CNN because they were “tube feeding” lies and deceit to America.

via NewsBusters – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

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Steve Hilton: China Is ‘Funding Biden Family Businesses’ with ‘Billions of Dollars’

On Sunday, Fox News Channel’s Steve Hilton reported on Peter Schweizer’s investigation of former vice president Joe Biden’s family’s business dealings with China’s government, concluding that Biden was “compromised by a foreign power and unfit to be president.”

Hunter Biden — Biden’s second son —  secured $1 billion in financing  from the Bank of China — an arm of the Chinese government — for a private equity firm founded by himself and Christopher Heinz, the stepson of former Secretary of State John Kerry. That private equity firm was named Bohai-Harvest RST (BHR).

Joe Biden “is the very definition of a corrupt insider,” said Hilton, rejecting left-wing and partisan Democrat marketing of Joe Biden as “a man of the working people.” He profiled Biden in a segment entitled, “Swamp Watch.”

Hilton added, “With Joe Biden … there is a much more worrying relationship with a foreign power, one that presents a vastly bigger threat to America than Russia — China.”

Hilton recalled Joe Biden’s December 2013 trip to China as vice president with Hunter Biden:

In December 2013, then-Vice President Biden rode Air Force Two on an official trip to Asia, as tensions were high over disputed territories in the East China Sea. Biden was joined by his son, Hunter, who was building a private equity firm along with his business partner and friend, Chris Heinz – heir of the Heinz Ketchup family fortune and stepson of then-Secretary of State John Kerry.

Joe Biden struck a soft, friendly tone with the Chinese leadership, disappointing allies in the area, like Japan, who were alarmed by China’s increasing aggression. But perhaps Joe had other issues besides the global balance of power on his mind, issues like his son’s business deals.

Hunter’s presence on the trip was far from coincidence. Just 10 days later, his company, Rosemont Seneca, signed an exclusive $1 billion deal with the state-owned Bank of China, creating an investment fund called Bohai Harvest, with money backed by the Chinese government. In the words of Peter Schweizer, who first unveiled these conflicts of interest in his book “Secret Empires,” “the Chinese government was literally funding a business that it co-owned along with the sons of two of America’s most powerful decision makers.” That is what it looks like to be “compromised by a foreign power.”

Hilton noted the values and origins of some of BHR’s other investments, including, “$145,000 from a Kazak oligarch, $1 million from Chinese entities, $1.2 million from a mysterious LLC tied to a Swiss bank that’s been implicated in money laundering, [and] $3.1 million from corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs.”

“Joe Biden obviously loves his children and would do anything for them,” remarked Hilton. “I feel the same way about mine. But when you’re the vice president, you can’t run around doing favors for America’s enemies to help make money for your son.”

Hilton continued, “When it came to a choice between working Americans and his donors, he chose the donors. When it came to a choice between working Americans and China, he chose China. He may have started out as a blue-collar boy from Scranton, Pennsylvania, but he ended up as a swampy stooge for Beijing, China.”

“Joe Biden is ‘Joe China,’ and he must never be allowed anywhere near the White House again,” concluded Hilton.

Schweizer previously described the aforementioned deal as an illustration of what he dubbed “the new corruption,” where foreign governments procure political influence through “sweetheart deals” with the children of American and Western politicians.

 

Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.

via Breitbart News

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Democrat Officials in Massachusetts Sue to Block ICE Arrests

Two progressive District Attorneys in Massachusetts are suing the ICE enforcement agency to stop courthouse arrests and deportations of illegal migrants.

The lawsuit comes a week after federal officials indicted a progressive judge and a courtroom officer in Newton, Mass., for helping a twice departed suspected drug smuggler escape from deportation. The two Newton officials are facing huge fines and years in prison.

“This lawsuit seeks a declaration from the court that the written ICE directive, which authorized the arrest of people on civil charges using the courts of the Commonwealth, is unlawful,” said a statement from Marian Ryan, the District Attorney in the huge Middlesex county, northeast of Boston. She describes herself as “a proven progressive,” and she said:

[The lawsuit] also seeks a finding that the policy in place and being enforced by ICE violates both the constitutional rights of individuals to access the courts and the longstanding federal and Massachusetts common law privilege against such arrests.

Ryan helped to create a political coalition to champion the interests of immigrants in her country.

The lawsuit is also led by Rachel Rollins, the District Attorney in Suffolk County, which lies south and east of Boston. She argued that ICE deportations “chill” the willingness of locals to testify against legal immigrants and illegal migrants:

I do not take this action lightly. But standing by silently as immigration officials under the explicit direction of the president of the United States strip our justice system of its ability to function simply isn’t an option.

As prosecutors, we cannot fulfill our statutory obligation to victims of crimes when ICE unilaterally engages in civil arrests. Our legislature here in Massachusetts under Mass. General Laws Chapter 258B created a victim’s bill of rights, which could be violated every time ICE conducts a civil arrest and removes someone from a courthouse without our knowledge

Her statement also suggested that the victims of crime by foreigners may be afraid of ICE deportation officers, as might happen if the victims are themselves illegal migrants:

When federal immigration authorities place themselves inside the very courthouses that vulnerable individuals rely on for hope and justice, it creates a chilling effect. And an even greater sense of fear. Not only are people afraid of violent offenders, but they are also terrified of the authorities.

Rollins also suggested that illegals should not be deported unless they commit a “serious felony,” saying:

I have made clear time and time again that I take no issue with immigration officials removing a noncitizen convicted of a serious felony.

Nationwide, one million illegal migrants are eluding deportation from the United States, even after getting final orders of removal from federal judges.

Another ten million to 20 million illegals live in the United States, despite deportation laws.

via Breitbart News

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US Sovereignty and the UN’s Pathetic Agenda 2030

The UN has morphed from being an organization for greater world cooperation to a body strategizing for world governance. And shockingly, too many Americans are unwittingly embracing those strategies. There is a fifth column in our country that is committed to subverting our sovereignty.  However, President Donald Trump came out foursquare in defense of American sovereignty when he withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords. His announcement of that withdrawal was made in the Rose Garden almost two years ago. 

Although President Ronald Reagan’s comments often expressed love for and pride in America, the word “sovereignty” did not leap off his speech notes. Then, in post-Reagan years, conservatives were labeled American exceptionalists.  But going to the term sovereignty is more palatable and more accurate than exceptionalism.  Sovereignty draws attention more to the distinct right of a people to write its own laws, define and defend its borders, and to maintain its traditions without outside interference.  Exceptionalism suggests a superiority that some people (not this writer) find offensive.  Sovereignty draws our minds back to the aftermath of WWI when Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations was rejected because the League was seen as an actual and potential infringement on American sovereignty. Whether we are exceptional or not (and I believe we are), our political sovereignty is a jewel that must not be diluted by global initiatives.

Recently, our President has also withdrawn the U.S. signature on the UN Arms Trade Treaty, and he has sent a letter to the U.S. Senate recommending that this pact not be considered for a vote by the Senate.  Again, the premise for formal withdrawal is the threat perceived by the President to U.S. sovereignty.

Meanwhile, Trump’s political opposition has bitterly and unconscionably turned against his emphasis on sovereignty by characterizing it first as “nationalism,” and then as “white nationalism,” and ultimately as “Hiterlian” or “Nazi-style nationalism.”  For any reasonable person who studied history in high school and in college, it is obvious that there are good nationalisms and bad nationalisms. Our Judeo-Christian ethical values, legal system, spiritual foundation, prosperity, emphasis upon rights, respect for the individual, private ownership of property, belief in autonomy and personal responsibility, and commitment to “liberty and justice for all” (always a work in progress) make for a unique and successful nation-state worthy of upholding and defending.

However, “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” was adopted by the United Nations during the Obama Presidency (2015), and thus far has not met with any unusual objections from the Trump administration even though it poses a threat to our sovereignty. 

Although the original U.N. “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (1948) placed its greatest emphasis upon rights, that document is now supplemented and superseded by Agenda 2030 which only mentions “rights” one time in Article 19.  In the other 90 articles of this latest document, the word “rights” does not appear.  Instead, in its stream-of-consciousness, mellifluous writing style, it repeatedly refers to “needs” and “sustainable development” as the buzz words around which to justify governance on a global scale, interference with local laws and institutions, and the ideals of a world economy that is anything but free. 

For example, consider Article 9, which states: “We envisage a world in which every country enjoys sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth and decent work for all. A world in which consumption and production patterns and use of all natural resources — from air to land, from rivers, lakes and aquifers to oceans and seas — are sustainable.”  Agenda 2030 is driven by the fear that in our race for productivity, “decent work,” and growth we will destroy our planet.  This “vision” is of a planet that cannot sustain itself because of the contamination of the planet occasioned by the intense productivity of major developed countries. 

But is there not a kind of schizophrenia built into the above conception?  On the one hand, the most developed countries have an obligation not to use up the planet’s resources and not to use resources in a way that they destroy the planet; but on the other hand, the poorer and poorest of countries will need to become more productive and need to get even more cash and more resources from the wealthier countries at the same time as those countries are presumably downsizing to “protect” the world. 

How can richer countries successfully help poorer countries unless they increase their productivity and thus their wealth?  And how can poor countries without flush toilets, regular brushing of teeth, a consistent, disciplined work ethic, viable banking and governmental institutions, and leadership with integrity, hope to increase their wealth? 

A pastor I know worked for the civil service in India — but is now happily a U.S. citizen — and was relentlessly mocked by his coworkers in India because he did not take bribes.  Yet, because he had left Hinduism for Christianity, he understood the true significance of the commandment “Thou shalt not steal.”  An important work, Tropical Gangsters: One Man’s Experience With Development And Decadence In Deepest Africa, details the problems the International Monetary Fund faces with giving money to countries where ethical standards and accounting standards are severely lacking. 

We might also want to look at Article 3 of Agenda 2030 which states, “We resolve, between now and 2030… to protect human rights and promote gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls; and to ensure the lasting protection of the planet and its natural resources.”  How does the U.N. even begin to see itself as qualified to bring the above goals into being?  Most of the societies in the U.N. are unjust and noninclusive.  And what about gender equality?  Vast numbers of countries — especially the Sharia-dominant Muslim countries — reject “gender equality and the empowerment of women.”

It is interesting to note that UN peacekeepers, referred to as “Blue Helmets,” have a Ten Point Code of Conduct pertaining to their presence in a country.  None of the points pertains to fighting, surrendering, or becoming a prisoner.  None refers to honor or duty.  In light of the U.N.’s gender equality reference in Article 3, this writer could only shake his head when reading rule #4 which states, “Do not indulge in immoral acts of sexual physical or psychological abuse or exploitation of the local population or United Nations staff, especially women and children.”  In other words, do not rape or torture any women or children. Does this “rule” show commitment to gender equality or does it show the crude level at which the peacekeepers are operating? The U.S. Military Code of Conduct has only six articles.  Article VI is particularly instructive for revealing who is more willing to respect women and children abroad, a U.S. soldier or a U.N. “Blue Helmet.” Article VI states, “I will never forget that I am an American, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free.  I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.”

The UN has morphed from being an organization for greater world cooperation to a body strategizing for world governance. And shockingly, too many Americans are unwittingly embracing those strategies. There is a fifth column in our country that is committed to subverting our sovereignty.  However, President Donald Trump came out foursquare in defense of American sovereignty when he withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords. His announcement of that withdrawal was made in the Rose Garden almost two years ago. 

Although President Ronald Reagan’s comments often expressed love for and pride in America, the word “sovereignty” did not leap off his speech notes. Then, in post-Reagan years, conservatives were labeled American exceptionalists.  But going to the term sovereignty is more palatable and more accurate than exceptionalism.  Sovereignty draws attention more to the distinct right of a people to write its own laws, define and defend its borders, and to maintain its traditions without outside interference.  Exceptionalism suggests a superiority that some people (not this writer) find offensive.  Sovereignty draws our minds back to the aftermath of WWI when Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations was rejected because the League was seen as an actual and potential infringement on American sovereignty. Whether we are exceptional or not (and I believe we are), our political sovereignty is a jewel that must not be diluted by global initiatives.

Recently, our President has also withdrawn the U.S. signature on the UN Arms Trade Treaty, and he has sent a letter to the U.S. Senate recommending that this pact not be considered for a vote by the Senate.  Again, the premise for formal withdrawal is the threat perceived by the President to U.S. sovereignty.

Meanwhile, Trump’s political opposition has bitterly and unconscionably turned against his emphasis on sovereignty by characterizing it first as “nationalism,” and then as “white nationalism,” and ultimately as “Hiterlian” or “Nazi-style nationalism.”  For any reasonable person who studied history in high school and in college, it is obvious that there are good nationalisms and bad nationalisms. Our Judeo-Christian ethical values, legal system, spiritual foundation, prosperity, emphasis upon rights, respect for the individual, private ownership of property, belief in autonomy and personal responsibility, and commitment to “liberty and justice for all” (always a work in progress) make for a unique and successful nation-state worthy of upholding and defending.

However, “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” was adopted by the United Nations during the Obama Presidency (2015), and thus far has not met with any unusual objections from the Trump administration even though it poses a threat to our sovereignty. 

Although the original U.N. “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (1948) placed its greatest emphasis upon rights, that document is now supplemented and superseded by Agenda 2030 which only mentions “rights” one time in Article 19.  In the other 90 articles of this latest document, the word “rights” does not appear.  Instead, in its stream-of-consciousness, mellifluous writing style, it repeatedly refers to “needs” and “sustainable development” as the buzz words around which to justify governance on a global scale, interference with local laws and institutions, and the ideals of a world economy that is anything but free. 

For example, consider Article 9, which states: “We envisage a world in which every country enjoys sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth and decent work for all. A world in which consumption and production patterns and use of all natural resources — from air to land, from rivers, lakes and aquifers to oceans and seas — are sustainable.”  Agenda 2030 is driven by the fear that in our race for productivity, “decent work,” and growth we will destroy our planet.  This “vision” is of a planet that cannot sustain itself because of the contamination of the planet occasioned by the intense productivity of major developed countries. 

But is there not a kind of schizophrenia built into the above conception?  On the one hand, the most developed countries have an obligation not to use up the planet’s resources and not to use resources in a way that they destroy the planet; but on the other hand, the poorer and poorest of countries will need to become more productive and need to get even more cash and more resources from the wealthier countries at the same time as those countries are presumably downsizing to “protect” the world. 

How can richer countries successfully help poorer countries unless they increase their productivity and thus their wealth?  And how can poor countries without flush toilets, regular brushing of teeth, a consistent, disciplined work ethic, viable banking and governmental institutions, and leadership with integrity, hope to increase their wealth? 

A pastor I know worked for the civil service in India — but is now happily a U.S. citizen — and was relentlessly mocked by his coworkers in India because he did not take bribes.  Yet, because he had left Hinduism for Christianity, he understood the true significance of the commandment “Thou shalt not steal.”  An important work, Tropical Gangsters: One Man’s Experience With Development And Decadence In Deepest Africa, details the problems the International Monetary Fund faces with giving money to countries where ethical standards and accounting standards are severely lacking. 

We might also want to look at Article 3 of Agenda 2030 which states, “We resolve, between now and 2030… to protect human rights and promote gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls; and to ensure the lasting protection of the planet and its natural resources.”  How does the U.N. even begin to see itself as qualified to bring the above goals into being?  Most of the societies in the U.N. are unjust and noninclusive.  And what about gender equality?  Vast numbers of countries — especially the Sharia-dominant Muslim countries — reject “gender equality and the empowerment of women.”

It is interesting to note that UN peacekeepers, referred to as “Blue Helmets,” have a Ten Point Code of Conduct pertaining to their presence in a country.  None of the points pertains to fighting, surrendering, or becoming a prisoner.  None refers to honor or duty.  In light of the U.N.’s gender equality reference in Article 3, this writer could only shake his head when reading rule #4 which states, “Do not indulge in immoral acts of sexual physical or psychological abuse or exploitation of the local population or United Nations staff, especially women and children.”  In other words, do not rape or torture any women or children. Does this “rule” show commitment to gender equality or does it show the crude level at which the peacekeepers are operating? The U.S. Military Code of Conduct has only six articles.  Article VI is particularly instructive for revealing who is more willing to respect women and children abroad, a U.S. soldier or a U.N. “Blue Helmet.” Article VI states, “I will never forget that I am an American, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free.  I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.”

via American Thinker

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The So-Called Equality Act: Making Some Americans More Equal than Others

Allan Josephson, M.D., is one of the nation’s top child and adolescent psychiatrists.  So why was he just fired by the University of Louisville?

It started when Dr. Josephson spoke at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., where he expressed his concern as a medical professional over what is becoming common treatment for children with gender dysphoria — puberty blockers, hormones, multiple surgeries.  He disputed the notion that gender identity “should trump chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive organs, external genitalia, and secondary sex characteristics,” calling it “counter to medical science.”

In today’s political climate, however, it is considered unacceptable to offer anything other than complete affirmation of a child’s claimed transgender identity.  To ideologues, it does not matter that for nearly fifteen years Dr. Josephson headed up the University of Louisville’s Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology Division, leading it to national prominence.  It does not matter that he provided such outstanding leadership that he was awarded perfect marks in his 2014, 2015, and 2016 annual reviews.

All that matters is that he committed a sin against the dictates of political correctness.  The university first demoted Dr. Josephson and then, a few months later, terminated him.

Dr. Josephson is suing the university for violating his constitutional right to freedom of speech.  But if the deceptively named Equality Act passes, this man of science won’t stand a chance.  And neither will anyone else who does not pledge allegiance to the state-sanctioned sexual ideology.

Introduced by Nancy Pelosi, the Equality Act inserts “sexual orientation and gender identity” (SOGI) into the Civil Rights Act, elevating them to the status of protected categories, like race and religion.  If the act passes, any person or institution that does not bow before a radical sexual ideology will be silenced.

We can predict the Equality Act’s likely impact based on what is happening in states, cities, and local jurisdictions that already have SOGI laws, Here are a few of the ways they have been used to silence dissent from a state-imposed sexual orthodoxy:

  • Individuals are losing their jobs, from medical professionals like Dr. Josephson to schoolteachers to tech innovator Brendan Eich, the founder of Mozilla, who was kicked out of his own company.
  • Schools collude with trans activists by refusing to tell parents which gender identity their children claim at school.  Teachers are using the students’ opposite-sex names and connecting them with therapists who help them transition — without informing their parents.
  • Women’s spaces are being invaded by men who identify as women.  For example, the Downtown Hope Center, a shelter for homeless, abused, and trafficked women in Anchorage, Alaska, is being sued for not accepting a biological male.
  • Small business owners whose craft involves expression are being sued for declining to express views on sexuality that they disagree with.  The Colorado baker Jack Phillips was taken to court twice, when activists asked him to bake a cake with a pro-homosexual message and later with a pro-trans message.

The Equality Act would universalize SOGI laws, imposing a single coercive set of rules that constrains all schools, all therapists, all medical professionals, all sports leagues, all charities, all business owners.  All dissent would be silenced. 

More ominously, even silence will not be not tolerated.  Failure to use a person’s preferred pronoun will be interpreted as failure to adequately support the SOGI agenda.  Already laws are being passed that require a positive affirmation: In 2016 the New York City Human Rights Commission released a list of thirty-one terms of gender expression (androgynous, genderqueer, nonbinary, pangender, bi-gendered, gender fluid, third sex, two spirit, and so on), which you must use with your employees, tenants, customers, or clients — or face exorbitant fines of up to $250,000.

In essence, the Equality Act would punish anyone who does not affirm the state’s preferred viewpoint of marriage and biological sex. 

Moreover, the Equality Act explicitly rejects (SEC. 1107) the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which would have permitted religious exemptions for Christian churches, schools, ministries, and charities.  No diversity will be allowed. 

Every totalitarian system has used the tactic of coercing people to affirm the regime’s agenda, even when they disagree.  Forcing people to mouth politically correct dogmas that they know are false is designed to break their spirit and their resistance.  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said the worst aspect of Communist totalitarianism was not the economic poverty or the lack of political rights; it was being forced to repeat the regime’s lies: “The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie.” 

Just a few years ago, few imagined that the greatest threat to liberty would come via the sexual revolution.  Its promise of liberation for some has turned into repression for everyone else.  Homosexual and transgender people are not a “vulnerable and marginalized population,” as their propaganda puts it; they are now the favored few.

The Equality Act will write into law the Orwellian notion that some Americans are more equal than others.

Nancy Pearcey is a professor and scholar in residence at Houston Baptist University. Her most recent book is Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality.

Allan Josephson, M.D., is one of the nation’s top child and adolescent psychiatrists.  So why was he just fired by the University of Louisville?

It started when Dr. Josephson spoke at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., where he expressed his concern as a medical professional over what is becoming common treatment for children with gender dysphoria — puberty blockers, hormones, multiple surgeries.  He disputed the notion that gender identity “should trump chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive organs, external genitalia, and secondary sex characteristics,” calling it “counter to medical science.”

In today’s political climate, however, it is considered unacceptable to offer anything other than complete affirmation of a child’s claimed transgender identity.  To ideologues, it does not matter that for nearly fifteen years Dr. Josephson headed up the University of Louisville’s Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology Division, leading it to national prominence.  It does not matter that he provided such outstanding leadership that he was awarded perfect marks in his 2014, 2015, and 2016 annual reviews.

All that matters is that he committed a sin against the dictates of political correctness.  The university first demoted Dr. Josephson and then, a few months later, terminated him.

Dr. Josephson is suing the university for violating his constitutional right to freedom of speech.  But if the deceptively named Equality Act passes, this man of science won’t stand a chance.  And neither will anyone else who does not pledge allegiance to the state-sanctioned sexual ideology.

Introduced by Nancy Pelosi, the Equality Act inserts “sexual orientation and gender identity” (SOGI) into the Civil Rights Act, elevating them to the status of protected categories, like race and religion.  If the act passes, any person or institution that does not bow before a radical sexual ideology will be silenced.

We can predict the Equality Act’s likely impact based on what is happening in states, cities, and local jurisdictions that already have SOGI laws, Here are a few of the ways they have been used to silence dissent from a state-imposed sexual orthodoxy:

  • Individuals are losing their jobs, from medical professionals like Dr. Josephson to schoolteachers to tech innovator Brendan Eich, the founder of Mozilla, who was kicked out of his own company.
  • Schools collude with trans activists by refusing to tell parents which gender identity their children claim at school.  Teachers are using the students’ opposite-sex names and connecting them with therapists who help them transition — without informing their parents.
  • Women’s spaces are being invaded by men who identify as women.  For example, the Downtown Hope Center, a shelter for homeless, abused, and trafficked women in Anchorage, Alaska, is being sued for not accepting a biological male.
  • Small business owners whose craft involves expression are being sued for declining to express views on sexuality that they disagree with.  The Colorado baker Jack Phillips was taken to court twice, when activists asked him to bake a cake with a pro-homosexual message and later with a pro-trans message.

The Equality Act would universalize SOGI laws, imposing a single coercive set of rules that constrains all schools, all therapists, all medical professionals, all sports leagues, all charities, all business owners.  All dissent would be silenced. 

More ominously, even silence will not be not tolerated.  Failure to use a person’s preferred pronoun will be interpreted as failure to adequately support the SOGI agenda.  Already laws are being passed that require a positive affirmation: In 2016 the New York City Human Rights Commission released a list of thirty-one terms of gender expression (androgynous, genderqueer, nonbinary, pangender, bi-gendered, gender fluid, third sex, two spirit, and so on), which you must use with your employees, tenants, customers, or clients — or face exorbitant fines of up to $250,000.

In essence, the Equality Act would punish anyone who does not affirm the state’s preferred viewpoint of marriage and biological sex. 

Moreover, the Equality Act explicitly rejects (SEC. 1107) the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which would have permitted religious exemptions for Christian churches, schools, ministries, and charities.  No diversity will be allowed. 

Every totalitarian system has used the tactic of coercing people to affirm the regime’s agenda, even when they disagree.  Forcing people to mouth politically correct dogmas that they know are false is designed to break their spirit and their resistance.  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said the worst aspect of Communist totalitarianism was not the economic poverty or the lack of political rights; it was being forced to repeat the regime’s lies: “The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie.” 

Just a few years ago, few imagined that the greatest threat to liberty would come via the sexual revolution.  Its promise of liberation for some has turned into repression for everyone else.  Homosexual and transgender people are not a “vulnerable and marginalized population,” as their propaganda puts it; they are now the favored few.

The Equality Act will write into law the Orwellian notion that some Americans are more equal than others.

Nancy Pearcey is a professor and scholar in residence at Houston Baptist University. Her most recent book is Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality.

via American Thinker

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

The Left Continues to Peddle the Lie that Trump Represents a Threat to Press Freedom

Saturday night’s White House Correspondents dinner once again came and went without most Americans having paid it any serious attention, and for the third straight year, our president chose to miss this increasingly farcical event where journalists pat each other on the back for the fine jobs they believe themselves to be doing.  What made this year’s event a little different than years past is that none of the other senior members of the White House staff attended, either.

“That decision came after Sarah Huckabee Sanders endured cruel taunts at the hands of last year’s featured speaker, comedian Michelle Wolf,” Emily Zanotti reports at The Daily Wire.  “[D]espite a longstanding tradition of good-natured ribbing between the press and the president, through dueling speeches, the White House simply stopped RSVPing to the event.”

Without the luxury of roasting their political enemies in attendance to feign a comedic tone rather than a purely adversarial one, the organizers of the event dropped the façade of humor in favor of a “funerary tone” led by a historian rather than the traditional choice of a comedian. 

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the event offered anything short of bad comedy.

For example, the White House Correspondents Association’s president Olivier Knox committed to a “dark sermon,” according to Grabien News. 

Olivier Knox at the WHCA Dinner

Photo credit: NBC screen grab via YouTube

In February of 2017, he told the audience, “the president called us the enemy of the people,” he said.  A few days later, he said, his son asked if Donald Trump was going to put him in prison.  “At the end of a trip to Mexico,” he continued, “he mused that if the president tried to keep me out of the country, at least Uncle Josh is a good lawyer and will get you home.”

For the record, Trump has never threatened to imprison a journalist or prevent a citizen journalist from reentering the country from abroad.  If Knox were an honest man, he might have told his son: “No, son, none of that will happen.  You only believe that because a lot of people make their living by making up such nonsensical stories about how this president might do such things.”

But he certainly wouldn’t say that, because those are the lies upon which this entire event was centered.  There was a calculated effort to portray this administration as uniquely at odds with a free and critical press in the scope of American history.  For example, historian and host Ron Chernow quipped that “George Washington felt maligned and misunderstood by the press, but he never generalized that as a vendetta against the institution.”

Can any sane person, much less a “historian,” actually argue that Trump is the only president to malign the free press, as an institution, for spreading “fake news?”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt certainly did, and he remains a hero of the left despite having done so.

According to Columbia professor Raymond Moley, a close confidant of FDR, his president believed that a “long list” of newspapers was “guilty of falsifying news.”  He said that “nothing would help him more [in the 1936 election] than to have it known that the newspapers were all against him.”

Sure enough, in the 1936 election campaign, FDR “claimed that 85% of newspapers were against him,” complaining about their “poisonous propaganda.”  Despite there being an awful lot of criticism about the employment of his “new instruments of public power,” FDR was almost certainly exaggerating the extent of the newspapers’ bias against him.  Even still, he was none too kind toward the press about their consistent criticism, and generalized his opinion as a “vendetta against the institution” of the then-mainstream press. 

Should we expect Trump, today, to be any different?  Trump endures a constant barrage of criticism via 24-hour news cycles, prominently disseminated by mainstream coverage, and practical data has suggested that as much as 91% of that coverage is negative.  So, while it’s easy to argue that FDR was imagining (or purposely fabricating) such widespread opposition among the press, such bias against President Trump definitely exists, and it’s obvious to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention. 

The difference is that Trump hasn’t used his power to clamp down on his opposition in the press beyond offering harsh criticism.  Sure, he’s been highly critical of the mainstream media which is obviously aligned against him, but he’s never used the power of the federal government to punish journalists.  The closest he’s come, one might argue, is temporarily revoking Jim Acosta’s White House press pass, which was certainly warranted due to his childlike, attention-seeking antics in refusing to surrender his microphone after asking several questions and grandstanding for political effect. 

FDR, on the other hand, famously used the power of the federal government to strongarm newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.  A one-time supporter of Roosevelt in 1932, Randolph had “turned against his ally,” leading FDR to instruct the “Treasury Department to closely monitor Hearst’s taxes,” according to David Beito of Reason.com.

It’s convenient for the left to occasionally ignore this sort of activity, obviously.  After all, the leftist media chose to ignore Barack Obama’s secret monitoring of phone call records of New York Times, AP, and Fox News reporters and exclusion of Fox News from conference calls available to other media, among other abuses. (But “not a whisper of a scandal” in the Obama years, says Joe Biden.)

On the contrary, Trump’s used his executive authority to do no such thing to his political opponents.  Yet, somehow, Trump is the real threat to the First Amendment?

Journalists like Olivier Knox pretending that there’s any realistic possibility that they could be jailed or prevented from reentering the country by this president for having said nasty things about him is worse than an honest fear or fantasy.  It’s nothing more than a comical effort to earn a badge of heroism from his media colleagues on the cheap.  Firstly, there is nothing more fashionable in the broad media circles than criticizing President Trump.  Secondly, the possibility that President Trump might abuse his power in any such way is nothing more than a phantom threat that Knox’s kid might believe, but few others would.

But with some other presidents in American history, such a threat might have been very real. 

In 1917, Woodrow Wilson “warned that those who were disloyal had given up their civil liberties,” and would face “stern repression.”  He used an executive order to create “a new federal agency that would put the government in the business of actively shaping press coverage,” called the Committee on Public Information (CPI). The Committee recruited 75,000 “Four-Minute Men” for their skills in propagandizing Wilson’s agenda in speeches, and it produced newsreels rallying support for the war.  It produced “guidelines” for U.S. newspapers for “patriotic” newspaper editors to follow, and actually published a daily “Official Bulletin,” which some view as the “closest the United States has come to a paper like the Soviet Union’s Pravda.”  Even outside the government press, the CPI publications appeared, at taxpayer expense, in “20,000 newspaper columns each week,” effectively burying the private press beneath mountains of government propaganda.

The Wilson administration’s most famous action against the free press was the Espionage Act of 1917, under which 2,000 people were charged during WWI, and jailed many members of the press.

Interestingly enough, it was under the auspices of the Espionage Act that President Obama cracked down on journalists “more than any other administration since Woodrow Wilson,” according to Michael Barone at the Washington Examiner in 2013.  He cites 20-year veteran of The New York Times, David Sanger, as having called the Obama administration “the most closed, control-freak administration” he’d ever witnessed.

And yet, the same leftist media mouthpieces claiming that Trump is some monumental threat to press freedom were oddly silent during Obama’s presidency while all of that was going on.

Members of the media today suggesting that Donald Trump represents some uniquely dangerous presidential threat to our free press are either in desperate need of education, or they knowingly lack an interest in truth.  And all of the evidence suggests the latter, and that they are willing to sell lies in order to claim some specious mantle of victimhood. 

William Sullivan blogs at Political Palaver and can be followed on Twitter.

Saturday night’s White House Correspondents dinner once again came and went without most Americans having paid it any serious attention, and for the third straight year, our president chose to miss this increasingly farcical event where journalists pat each other on the back for the fine jobs they believe themselves to be doing.  What made this year’s event a little different than years past is that none of the other senior members of the White House staff attended, either.

“That decision came after Sarah Huckabee Sanders endured cruel taunts at the hands of last year’s featured speaker, comedian Michelle Wolf,” Emily Zanotti reports at The Daily Wire.  “[D]espite a longstanding tradition of good-natured ribbing between the press and the president, through dueling speeches, the White House simply stopped RSVPing to the event.”

Without the luxury of roasting their political enemies in attendance to feign a comedic tone rather than a purely adversarial one, the organizers of the event dropped the façade of humor in favor of a “funerary tone” led by a historian rather than the traditional choice of a comedian. 

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the event offered anything short of bad comedy.

For example, the White House Correspondents Association’s president Olivier Knox committed to a “dark sermon,” according to Grabien News. 

Olivier Knox at the WHCA Dinner

Photo credit: NBC screen grab via YouTube

In February of 2017, he told the audience, “the president called us the enemy of the people,” he said.  A few days later, he said, his son asked if Donald Trump was going to put him in prison.  “At the end of a trip to Mexico,” he continued, “he mused that if the president tried to keep me out of the country, at least Uncle Josh is a good lawyer and will get you home.”

For the record, Trump has never threatened to imprison a journalist or prevent a citizen journalist from reentering the country from abroad.  If Knox were an honest man, he might have told his son: “No, son, none of that will happen.  You only believe that because a lot of people make their living by making up such nonsensical stories about how this president might do such things.”

But he certainly wouldn’t say that, because those are the lies upon which this entire event was centered.  There was a calculated effort to portray this administration as uniquely at odds with a free and critical press in the scope of American history.  For example, historian and host Ron Chernow quipped that “George Washington felt maligned and misunderstood by the press, but he never generalized that as a vendetta against the institution.”

Can any sane person, much less a “historian,” actually argue that Trump is the only president to malign the free press, as an institution, for spreading “fake news?”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt certainly did, and he remains a hero of the left despite having done so.

According to Columbia professor Raymond Moley, a close confidant of FDR, his president believed that a “long list” of newspapers was “guilty of falsifying news.”  He said that “nothing would help him more [in the 1936 election] than to have it known that the newspapers were all against him.”

Sure enough, in the 1936 election campaign, FDR “claimed that 85% of newspapers were against him,” complaining about their “poisonous propaganda.”  Despite there being an awful lot of criticism about the employment of his “new instruments of public power,” FDR was almost certainly exaggerating the extent of the newspapers’ bias against him.  Even still, he was none too kind toward the press about their consistent criticism, and generalized his opinion as a “vendetta against the institution” of the then-mainstream press. 

Should we expect Trump, today, to be any different?  Trump endures a constant barrage of criticism via 24-hour news cycles, prominently disseminated by mainstream coverage, and practical data has suggested that as much as 91% of that coverage is negative.  So, while it’s easy to argue that FDR was imagining (or purposely fabricating) such widespread opposition among the press, such bias against President Trump definitely exists, and it’s obvious to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention. 

The difference is that Trump hasn’t used his power to clamp down on his opposition in the press beyond offering harsh criticism.  Sure, he’s been highly critical of the mainstream media which is obviously aligned against him, but he’s never used the power of the federal government to punish journalists.  The closest he’s come, one might argue, is temporarily revoking Jim Acosta’s White House press pass, which was certainly warranted due to his childlike, attention-seeking antics in refusing to surrender his microphone after asking several questions and grandstanding for political effect. 

FDR, on the other hand, famously used the power of the federal government to strongarm newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.  A one-time supporter of Roosevelt in 1932, Randolph had “turned against his ally,” leading FDR to instruct the “Treasury Department to closely monitor Hearst’s taxes,” according to David Beito of Reason.com.

It’s convenient for the left to occasionally ignore this sort of activity, obviously.  After all, the leftist media chose to ignore Barack Obama’s secret monitoring of phone call records of New York Times, AP, and Fox News reporters and exclusion of Fox News from conference calls available to other media, among other abuses. (But “not a whisper of a scandal” in the Obama years, says Joe Biden.)

On the contrary, Trump’s used his executive authority to do no such thing to his political opponents.  Yet, somehow, Trump is the real threat to the First Amendment?

Journalists like Olivier Knox pretending that there’s any realistic possibility that they could be jailed or prevented from reentering the country by this president for having said nasty things about him is worse than an honest fear or fantasy.  It’s nothing more than a comical effort to earn a badge of heroism from his media colleagues on the cheap.  Firstly, there is nothing more fashionable in the broad media circles than criticizing President Trump.  Secondly, the possibility that President Trump might abuse his power in any such way is nothing more than a phantom threat that Knox’s kid might believe, but few others would.

But with some other presidents in American history, such a threat might have been very real. 

In 1917, Woodrow Wilson “warned that those who were disloyal had given up their civil liberties,” and would face “stern repression.”  He used an executive order to create “a new federal agency that would put the government in the business of actively shaping press coverage,” called the Committee on Public Information (CPI). The Committee recruited 75,000 “Four-Minute Men” for their skills in propagandizing Wilson’s agenda in speeches, and it produced newsreels rallying support for the war.  It produced “guidelines” for U.S. newspapers for “patriotic” newspaper editors to follow, and actually published a daily “Official Bulletin,” which some view as the “closest the United States has come to a paper like the Soviet Union’s Pravda.”  Even outside the government press, the CPI publications appeared, at taxpayer expense, in “20,000 newspaper columns each week,” effectively burying the private press beneath mountains of government propaganda.

The Wilson administration’s most famous action against the free press was the Espionage Act of 1917, under which 2,000 people were charged during WWI, and jailed many members of the press.

Interestingly enough, it was under the auspices of the Espionage Act that President Obama cracked down on journalists “more than any other administration since Woodrow Wilson,” according to Michael Barone at the Washington Examiner in 2013.  He cites 20-year veteran of The New York Times, David Sanger, as having called the Obama administration “the most closed, control-freak administration” he’d ever witnessed.

And yet, the same leftist media mouthpieces claiming that Trump is some monumental threat to press freedom were oddly silent during Obama’s presidency while all of that was going on.

Members of the media today suggesting that Donald Trump represents some uniquely dangerous presidential threat to our free press are either in desperate need of education, or they knowingly lack an interest in truth.  And all of the evidence suggests the latter, and that they are willing to sell lies in order to claim some specious mantle of victimhood. 

William Sullivan blogs at Political Palaver and can be followed on Twitter.

via American Thinker

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

California wildfire prevention: Unplugging Grandma’s ventilator

PG&E will respond to California’s reckless environmental policies that cause huge wildfires by unplugging electricity on windy days, despite risks to shut-ins and the elderly.

The California public utility, forced into its second bankruptcy in 16 years after facing $30 billion in liability claims from 2017 and 2018 wildfires, announced a ‘Public Safety Power Shutoff’ policy that will shut down its electrical grid for up to 5.4 million users during ‘Red Flag’ periods with low humidity and sustained winds above 25 mph.

The bankrupt company stated that the shutoff could last up to five days and suggested that special needs, such as the elderly and shutins that “require electricity to sustain life,  may wish to Create An Emergency Preparedness Plan” that could include having public service phone numbers, a backup location, and informing local authorities.

County officials were stunned by the new PG&E policy, expressing fear that patients on medical equipment could be at risk of dying. There are also concerns that PG&E electrical shutoffs during the Carr Fire that swept through Redding and Camp Fire that burned Paradice to the ground, many seniors could not open garage doors to escape.

PG&E argues it has been forced to adopt electrical shutoffs under a bizarre 1999 California Court of Appeals opinion that made utility assets subject to “inverse condemnation” through legal claimant “taking,” without regard any determination of negligence by the utility or its staff, for wind-driven power line sparking wildfires along PG&E’s 18,466 circuit miles of interconnected electric transmission lines.

California has suffered more and larger wildfires since the Clinton administration in 1994 adopted the Northwest Forest Plan that prioritized protecting endangered species, water quality, and old-growth forests in 4.5 million acres of Northern California national forests. Logging roads that acted as fire breaks were abandoned as the industry shriveled, resulting in heavier underbrush and forest tree spacing becoming much denser. As a result, wildfires became bigger, hotter, and more remote from firefighters.

The Bush administration tried to reverse the policies, but environmentalists used lawsuits until the Obama administration reinstated the anti-logging policies and supported Gov. Brown’s California ‘Forest Practice Rules 2015’ that led to even less logging and more road abandonments.

After insurance companies suffered a shockingly high $5.1 billion in wildfires losses over a 10-year period through 2016, underwriting consultant Verisk Solutions warned at the start of the 2017 fire season: “4.5 million U.S. homes were identified at high or extreme risk of wildfire, with more than 2 million in California alone.”

The National Interagency Coordination Center found that Northern California in the last decade had suffered a 385 percent annual increase in acres burned, versus prior years. Of the 129,582 U.S. wildfires that burned 18,793,578 acres between 2017 and 2018, California accounted 15 percent of fires and almost 20 percent of the area burned.  

Facing a high-wind event In October 2018, PG&E shut off power lines in high-risk areas. After no fire occurred, customers protested and the utility was hit with 146 claims for losses, including 25 claims of business economic impacts. A similar wind event the next month sparked the Camp Fire that killed 86 people and destroyed 18,661 structures.

PG&E has not disclosed health issue claims for shutting off power to the 3.8 million, or about 20 percent, of its service area that are over age 60, because under Senate Bill 901 passed by the California Legislature and signed by former Gov. Brown, in 2018 relieved all utilities for liability during a so-called wildfire “de-energizing” event.

With the utilities financially off the hook for wildfire de-energizing claims, the financial liability and burden to care for seniors now falls directly on state and local government.

Newly elected Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a ‘Wildfire State of Emergency’ on March 22 that suspended all environmental mitigation mandates to expedite a $50 million for forest clean-up projects before the fire season. Radical environmental and progressive activists that were key to his election were furious when Newsom stated:

“The increasing wildfire risks we face as a state mean we simply can’t wait until a fire starts in order to start deploying emergency resources.”

PG&E will respond to California’s reckless environmental policies that cause huge wildfires by unplugging electricity on windy days, despite risks to shut-ins and the elderly.

The California public utility, forced into its second bankruptcy in 16 years after facing $30 billion in liability claims from 2017 and 2018 wildfires, announced a ‘Public Safety Power Shutoff’ policy that will shut down its electrical grid for up to 5.4 million users during ‘Red Flag’ periods with low humidity and sustained winds above 25 mph.

The bankrupt company stated that the shutoff could last up to five days and suggested that special needs, such as the elderly and shutins that “require electricity to sustain life,  may wish to Create An Emergency Preparedness Plan” that could include having public service phone numbers, a backup location, and informing local authorities.

County officials were stunned by the new PG&E policy, expressing fear that patients on medical equipment could be at risk of dying. There are also concerns that PG&E electrical shutoffs during the Carr Fire that swept through Redding and Camp Fire that burned Paradice to the ground, many seniors could not open garage doors to escape.

PG&E argues it has been forced to adopt electrical shutoffs under a bizarre 1999 California Court of Appeals opinion that made utility assets subject to “inverse condemnation” through legal claimant “taking,” without regard any determination of negligence by the utility or its staff, for wind-driven power line sparking wildfires along PG&E’s 18,466 circuit miles of interconnected electric transmission lines.

California has suffered more and larger wildfires since the Clinton administration in 1994 adopted the Northwest Forest Plan that prioritized protecting endangered species, water quality, and old-growth forests in 4.5 million acres of Northern California national forests. Logging roads that acted as fire breaks were abandoned as the industry shriveled, resulting in heavier underbrush and forest tree spacing becoming much denser. As a result, wildfires became bigger, hotter, and more remote from firefighters.

The Bush administration tried to reverse the policies, but environmentalists used lawsuits until the Obama administration reinstated the anti-logging policies and supported Gov. Brown’s California ‘Forest Practice Rules 2015’ that led to even less logging and more road abandonments.

After insurance companies suffered a shockingly high $5.1 billion in wildfires losses over a 10-year period through 2016, underwriting consultant Verisk Solutions warned at the start of the 2017 fire season: “4.5 million U.S. homes were identified at high or extreme risk of wildfire, with more than 2 million in California alone.”

The National Interagency Coordination Center found that Northern California in the last decade had suffered a 385 percent annual increase in acres burned, versus prior years. Of the 129,582 U.S. wildfires that burned 18,793,578 acres between 2017 and 2018, California accounted 15 percent of fires and almost 20 percent of the area burned.  

Facing a high-wind event In October 2018, PG&E shut off power lines in high-risk areas. After no fire occurred, customers protested and the utility was hit with 146 claims for losses, including 25 claims of business economic impacts. A similar wind event the next month sparked the Camp Fire that killed 86 people and destroyed 18,661 structures.

PG&E has not disclosed health issue claims for shutting off power to the 3.8 million, or about 20 percent, of its service area that are over age 60, because under Senate Bill 901 passed by the California Legislature and signed by former Gov. Brown, in 2018 relieved all utilities for liability during a so-called wildfire “de-energizing” event.

With the utilities financially off the hook for wildfire de-energizing claims, the financial liability and burden to care for seniors now falls directly on state and local government.

Newly elected Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a ‘Wildfire State of Emergency’ on March 22 that suspended all environmental mitigation mandates to expedite a $50 million for forest clean-up projects before the fire season. Radical environmental and progressive activists that were key to his election were furious when Newsom stated:

“The increasing wildfire risks we face as a state mean we simply can’t wait until a fire starts in order to start deploying emergency resources.”

via American Thinker Blog

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

What if conservatives had done it?

Pete Ingemi of the DaTechGuy blog asked some basic what ifs.  What if the perpetrators of the recent tragedies or other newsworthy items had been conservatives — or, horrors, Trump-supporters — rather than identify, so to speak, as politically correct and/or professional victims and therefore immune to criticism by the liberal media?  Would the incident have been covered differently by the media?

If the National Review had run the cartoon that the NYT did the day before a shooting at a synagogue would not the media be calling for it to be closed down and blaming it for the attack.

If the shooter at the Synagogue in California had a manifesto attacking Barack Obama rather than Donald Trump would that not be the only story in the media today.

If the Baltimore shooter was a white male targeting a group of blacks at an event rather than a black man would the media be demanding a national conversation on “race”

If Halima Aden was not a [Muslim] would the very suggestion that she pose in what is called a “burkini” for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue be seriously considered (Note: she’s still pretty hot but in this woke age are we still allowed to notice this?)

Finally Imagine for a moment that Stephen A Smith is a white sports commentator and he told the story of a white athlete expecting him to defend him based on their shared race.  Would that athlete still be on his team?

While all the individuals or institutions (except Aden) were criticized to varying degrees, there really was none of the foaming-at-the-mouth daily condemnation of the perp’s philosophy that motivated such a heinous act that would have occurred had it been done by an approved politically incorrect and therefore evil entity.  Indeed, Aden has been showered with praise for appearing in modest Muslim attire for such usual politically incorrect institutions — to the politically correct — as the Miss Minnesota beauty pageant and the famous SI swimsuit issue.  Normally, feminists condemn beauty pageants and whine about the millions in profits SI’s swimsuit issue generates.

So Smith’s job at ESPN is safe, and the New York Times will still be read by all those in-the-know P.C. types  because it contains “all the news fit to print.”

No what ifs — the conservatives are really the cause of all the mayhem.  Yes!  According to all the politically correct liberals, the truly guilty person for the Poway and Pittsburgh shootings is not the shooter, but…President Donald J. Trump (R).  Oh, and by the way, he is  also responsible for last month’s massacre in a mosque in faraway New Zealand.

Of course.

Pete Ingemi of the DaTechGuy blog asked some basic what ifs.  What if the perpetrators of the recent tragedies or other newsworthy items had been conservatives — or, horrors, Trump-supporters — rather than identify, so to speak, as politically correct and/or professional victims and therefore immune to criticism by the liberal media?  Would the incident have been covered differently by the media?

If the National Review had run the cartoon that the NYT did the day before a shooting at a synagogue would not the media be calling for it to be closed down and blaming it for the attack.

If the shooter at the Synagogue in California had a manifesto attacking Barack Obama rather than Donald Trump would that not be the only story in the media today.

If the Baltimore shooter was a white male targeting a group of blacks at an event rather than a black man would the media be demanding a national conversation on “race”

If Halima Aden was not a [Muslim] would the very suggestion that she pose in what is called a “burkini” for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue be seriously considered (Note: she’s still pretty hot but in this woke age are we still allowed to notice this?)

Finally Imagine for a moment that Stephen A Smith is a white sports commentator and he told the story of a white athlete expecting him to defend him based on their shared race.  Would that athlete still be on his team?

While all the individuals or institutions (except Aden) were criticized to varying degrees, there really was none of the foaming-at-the-mouth daily condemnation of the perp’s philosophy that motivated such a heinous act that would have occurred had it been done by an approved politically incorrect and therefore evil entity.  Indeed, Aden has been showered with praise for appearing in modest Muslim attire for such usual politically incorrect institutions — to the politically correct — as the Miss Minnesota beauty pageant and the famous SI swimsuit issue.  Normally, feminists condemn beauty pageants and whine about the millions in profits SI’s swimsuit issue generates.

So Smith’s job at ESPN is safe, and the New York Times will still be read by all those in-the-know P.C. types  because it contains “all the news fit to print.”

No what ifs — the conservatives are really the cause of all the mayhem.  Yes!  According to all the politically correct liberals, the truly guilty person for the Poway and Pittsburgh shootings is not the shooter, but…President Donald J. Trump (R).  Oh, and by the way, he is  also responsible for last month’s massacre in a mosque in faraway New Zealand.

Of course.

via American Thinker Blog

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

Report: Religious Freedom Conditions Worsening in China

The 2019 annual report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) highlights worsening religious freedom conditions in China over the past year.

The report observes that "religious freedom conditions in China trended negative," especially after new regulations "effectively banned ‘unauthorized’ religious teachings and required religious groups to report any online activity." China’s government "continued to persecute all faiths in an effort to ‘sinicize’ religious belief, a campaign that attempts not only to diminish and erase the independent practice of religion, but also the cultural and linguistic heritage of religious and ethnic communities, particularly Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims."

The report focuses on the persecution of Uighur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, Christians, and the Falun Gong.

Over the past two years, China has detained up to more than two million Uighurs and other Muslims in "internment camps," which the Chinese government initially denied existed, but has since defended "as a means to combat terrorism and provide vocational training." Former prisoners say those in the camps had to renounce their faith and swear loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party.

The government has taken other steps to interfere in the lives of Muslims in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, "including discriminatory profiling at armed checkpoints and police stations; travel restrictions both within and outside of China; and Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking systems, facial and iris recognition, DNA sampling, and voice pattern sampling to monitor Muslims." USCIRF also received "credible reports" Chinese security services tried to harass Uighur Muslims living outside of China, including those in the United States.

Anurima Bhargava, one of USCIRF’s commissioners, said the situation for China’s Uighurs has worsened more rapidly in recent years, although the apparent increase in persecution could be a result of the fact that abuse was not documented as closely in past years.

"We are certainly building off of what is an increased sense of awareness of the scope, how many people, the ways in which people are being [treated]…. There’s a sense that it’s getting worse, that we’re in sort of an internment camp situation," Bhargava told the Washington Free Beacon.

In Tibet, Chinese officials "continued to pursue a strategy of forced assimilation and suppression of Tibetan Buddhism." The government imprisoned monks and nuns who would not renounce the Dalai Lama and confiscated the Chinese passports of several hundred Tibetans who attended teachings given by the Dalai Lama in India.

The Chinese government and Catholic Church reached a provisional agreement in September 2018 whereby "the pope would rehabilitate seven bishops from the state-run Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) who had been excommunicated, in return for a veto over any future appointments by the Chinese government." China’s government used the deal to justify pressuring clergy and underground church members to join the CCPA. There were many reports of Chinese officials closing underground churches and destroying crosses.

Protestants also suffered under an intensified crackdown, as thousands of Christians were arrested and thousands of churches or religious sites were demolished.

Chinese authorities also arrested practitioners of Falun Gong, and many reportedly "suffered physical violence, psychiatric abuse, sexual assault, forced drug administration, and sleep deprivation."

The post Report: Religious Freedom Conditions Worsening in China appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

via Washington Free Beacon

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Rep. Dan Crenshaw should become the GOP House public point man on urgent reform of asylum law

The word has gone out (including via radio ads), not just to Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador but to the entire world.  If you show up at the US border with a child and claim asylum even if you are simply seeking a better standard of living, you will be released after at most a brief detention, and will be able to melt into the interior for years, never bothering to show up for your hearing scheduled years from now. . Unsurprisingly a tidal wave of asylum seekers is overwhelming the system, and potentially millions will show up to exploit this loophole.

Legislation is required urgently. President Trump knows it, and so do the GOP House lackeys of the US Chamber of Commerce, who see their interests lying in an unimpeded flow of low cost labor, as well as the Democrats who see their voters in the faces of the “migrants.” They need to be pushed by public pressure. What’s required is a sustained campaign to introduce and force the Democrat leadership to vote on a simple bill that would require asylum seekers to wait for adjudication of their asylum claims outside the USA, even if they claim to arrive as a family.

Fortunately, Representative Dan Crenshaw, the most impressive freshman House member I have seen in a long time, is ideally situated to assume leadership in this PR campaign that is necessary to force the hands of the House Democrats. Until I saw this tweet, I did not realize how fluent Crenshaw is in Spanish. Even better, he makes his case cogently and persuasively, appealing to the majority of Hispanics who want immigration laws enforced. Democrats would have a hard time standing up against pressure from US Hispanics.

 

 

You may remember that Crenshaw leapt to national prominence when he deftly and graciously handled a nasty bit of criticism from a Saturday Night Live comedian, winning him over with his good humor in an appearance on the show the following Saturday.

Since then, he has handled all sorts of challenges with incredible skill. Watch this, from last weekend, as he was called a “Nazi.”

 

 

Graphic credit: Twitter video screen grab

The word has gone out (including via radio ads), not just to Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador but to the entire world.  If you show up at the US border with a child and claim asylum even if you are simply seeking a better standard of living, you will be released after at most a brief detention, and will be able to melt into the interior for years, never bothering to show up for your hearing scheduled years from now. . Unsurprisingly a tidal wave of asylum seekers is overwhelming the system, and potentially millions will show up to exploit this loophole.

Legislation is required urgently. President Trump knows it, and so do the GOP House lackeys of the US Chamber of Commerce, who see their interests lying in an unimpeded flow of low cost labor, as well as the Democrats who see their voters in the faces of the “migrants.” They need to be pushed by public pressure. What’s required is a sustained campaign to introduce and force the Democrat leadership to vote on a simple bill that would require asylum seekers to wait for adjudication of their asylum claims outside the USA, even if they claim to arrive as a family.

Fortunately, Representative Dan Crenshaw, the most impressive freshman House member I have seen in a long time, is ideally situated to assume leadership in this PR campaign that is necessary to force the hands of the House Democrats. Until I saw this tweet, I did not realize how fluent Crenshaw is in Spanish. Even better, he makes his case cogently and persuasively, appealing to the majority of Hispanics who want immigration laws enforced. Democrats would have a hard time standing up against pressure from US Hispanics.

 

 

You may remember that Crenshaw leapt to national prominence when he deftly and graciously handled a nasty bit of criticism from a Saturday Night Live comedian, winning him over with his good humor in an appearance on the show the following Saturday.

Since then, he has handled all sorts of challenges with incredible skill. Watch this, from last weekend, as he was called a “Nazi.”

 

 

Graphic credit: Twitter video screen grab

via American Thinker Blog

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