It’s Actually OK to Be Proud of the Military on Independence Day

Some
are hyperventilating over reports that this year’s annual Independence Day
celebration in Washington will feature remarks by President Donald Trump, military
flyovers, and stationary displays of Army equipment, including tanks. 

The
Washington Post highlighted
the increased costs of the event and expressed anxiety over how there was a
chance that tanks and other heavy equipment could damage the grounds surrounding
the National Mall.

Time magazine, referring to the celebration as “controversial,” said it “blurs the lines between politics and the military, and offers visuals reminiscent of Chinese or Russian events.” 

National
Public Radio described
its frantic search to find the true cost for the celebration and quoted Sen.
Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., saying, “There’s going to be a big price tag for this,
and the taxpayers will have to pick up the tab.” 

Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., echoing Van Hollen, speaking about the cost said, “We haven’t heard anything. It’s disturbing.”

But Fourth of July celebrations have been taking place on the National Mall for at least 38 years and have typically featured live performances by the Beach Boys, Jimmy Buffett, the National Symphony Orchestra, and other nationally known performers. They always feature world-class fireworks and a big parade.

So, why the sudden interest in the cost of the celebration?

Is adding a flyover—the same thing we do for big football games—and a stationary display of a handful of tanks—really grounds for extraordinary consternation and newfound frugality on the part of congressional leaders?

Do
we even remember the reason we celebrate Independence Day? It was the day our
nation declared its independence from Great Britain.

Would
the simple act of declaration have sufficed to achieve our freedom? Hardly. It
took a long and bloody eight-year war in order for America to gain its
independence. 

Subsequent
wars, such as the War of 1812, were fought to maintain that freedom and protect
the nation.

In
those wars, it was the American military and the men and women who served in
uniform that gave our Declaration of Independence actual meaning.

Now, it seems we have reached a point where some think Independence Day is only about barbecues, concerts, and fireworks, and that introducing elements like a military flyover or (gasp!) stationary displays of tanks somehow sullies the festivities and introduces an undesirable martial element.  

It
was the nation’s armed forces that actually won the independence and maintained
it at great cost over the past 240-odd years.

Others find fault with the president’s decision to make remarks at the celebration, citing potential problems with traffic, cost, and possible politicization of the holiday.

Yet those same people have never expressed concerns over the president’s traditional speaking role on Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery.

Indeed,
it’s altogether appropriate and fitting for the president of the United States to
address the nation on Independence Day, reminding us of the blessings of
liberty and the sacrifices made to achieve the freedom we all now enjoy.

The small town where I grew up in Illinois was near the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Fifty years later, I can still remember the pride and awe I felt when the sailors and military marching bands from the base marched down Main Street at our Independence Day parade. 

That same spirit and appreciation for our military is no less appropriate in Washington today than it was in Lake Bluff, Illinois, then.

The post It’s Actually OK to Be Proud of the Military on Independence Day appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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Cruz Calls on DHS to Make It Easier for Americans to Donate to Migrants at Border

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is asking the Department of Homeland Security to accept donations from charities for migrants at the Southern border.

“I … urge you to establish and publicize a process for accepting donations from charitable organizations, faith-based organizations, and [nongovernmental organizations] to aid individuals in [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] custody,” the Republican senator wrote in a letter Monday to acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan.

“Even with the additional supplemental emergency funding, I am confident that DHS and CBP can still use the generosity of the American people to help manage the humanitarian crisis on our border,” Cruz added, referring to the $4.6 billion aid package recently passed by Congress. 

Currently, there’s no system in place to allow Border Patrol stations to accept private donations.

“A Customs and Border Protection official told reporters … that officials were working with the agency’s Office of Chief Counsel to determine whether Border Patrol stations can legally accept donations,” NPR reported last week, not naming the official. 

When Texas state Rep. Terry Canales, a Democrat, asked Border Patrol how his constituents could help those affected at the border, he “received an email response saying, ‘We don’t accept donations,’” he told NPR. 

“It just befuddles me and I think it’s just heartbreaking to know that there’s so many people that want to help, and that help is being denied for no definable reasons that anybody’s been able to communicate,” Canales told CNN late last month.

In his letter to McAleenan, Cruz also wrote

Many Americans … want to provide more direct and tangible help—they want to donate basic items such as diapers and toothbrushes to children in CBP custody. This desire is laudable, and deeply rooted in our nation’s history. Americans have long banded together to form charities and faith-based organizations to aid those in need. But I understand that many of these organizations are currently having difficulties making donations because DHS and CBP currently lack procedures to accept their donations.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said he agreed with Cruz in a tweet:

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on Cruz’s letter in time for publication.

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John Adams Wanted Independence Day Celebrated With ‘Devotion to God…Pomp and Parade…Guns, Bells, Bonfires’

A portion of John Adams July 3, 1776 letter to his wife, in which he discusses his vision for America’s Independence Day.
(CNSNews.com) – Americans declared their independence from Britain on July 2, 1776, a date that John Adams called "the most memorable epocha in the history of America.”

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Court Blocks Another Trump Immigration Order; DHS-IG Finds ‘Dangerous Overcrowding and Prolonged Detention’

Overcrowding of families observed by DHS-OIG on June 10, 2019, at Border Patrol’s McAllen, TX, Station. (Source: OIG)
(CNSNews.com) – A federal court in Seattle on Tuesday delivered another setback to the Trump administration’s immigration control efforts.

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The Left’s Endgame Is Not Chaos. It’s Worse.

On an episode of The Candace Owens Show that aired this past May, Owens had as her guest Dennis Prager.  While I agreed with most of the points made by both Ms. Owens and Mr. Prager, one item struck me as an example of superficial analysis.  They declared that the primary objective of the Left is “chaos.”  In an immediate sense, this seems true; the so-called “progressive left” does appear to be deliberately sowing chaos in America today.

However, I submit that the Left’s “chaos” is an intermediate objective, the means to an end.  They have a well defined endgame.  The Communist Bloc countries were a lot of things, but they were generally not chaotic.  They were highly regimented societies, and while they did not have the material standard of living or political freedoms enjoyed in the West, there were some agreeable aspects, as related by the wife of one Carlo Alcos in an online feature story on the Matador Network about her early childhood experiences growing up in East Germany:

It wasn’t all trying, though.  Everyone had a job, school lunches were free, after-school care was free, people were generally happy, necessities were extremely cheap, and there was more community spirit than there is nowadays.  In those times, there were no Joneses to keep up with.

Rigidly communist East Germany hardly sounded like “chaos.”  So what is the progressive left’s game in the Era of Trump? 

First, at present, leftists want to create a state of political cultural chaos in the U.S. for a specific reason.  They need chaos as a smokescreen to defend their current leaders — that is to say, Obama, Hillary & Co. — from prosecution.  Make no mistake: Obama, Hillary, and their cohorts committed some  serious crimes of an unprecedented nature for people at their level.  We executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for far less. Their degree of culpability is suggested in an October 2016 email from Hilary Clinton to then DNC Chair Donna Brazile, revealed by WikiLeaks, in which Hillary shrieked to the effect that ”if that f‑‑‑‑‑‑ b‑‑‑‑‑‑ wins, we’re all going to hang from nooses.  You better fix this s‑‑‑!”

Consider the metaphor of a dogfight between two fighter planes.  One is firmly camped on the six o’clock of the other, ready to deliver the deathblow.  The other, facing imminent destruction, engages in all manner of crazy maneuvers in order to prevent his adversary from achieving a firing solution.  That is what the Left is doing with all this “chaos.”  For if Trump gets enough political breathing space to lock on for the kill and hold them accountable, they are through.  Their whole program is derailed, and many principals will indeed wind up in jail.  

What is the agenda of the Left, if it is not simply chaos?

Leftists rationalize what they are doing as being in the service of what will ultimately be a Star Trek–like “United Earth,” a one-world community ruled by the bureaucrats of the U.N., where there will be no more war, all resources will be shared, all conflicts will be “managed,” and the “masses” will be doled out whatever the elites decree the latter “needs” in return for World Peace Forevermore.  In real day-to-day terms, this enables an unaccountable, parasitic globalist elite class to decide what is best for everybody.  Ultimately, the progressive left elites of the West are busy selling out their own countries in order to appease the other major actors on the world stage, especially China and political Islam, to get the latter to cooperate in this globalist fantasy.

In reality, China; political Islam; and the other major independent political actor, Russia, will merely pocket the concessions of the West and continue to pursue their particular interests, in traditional great power fashion, at the West’s expense.  The corrupt Western elites who have sold their souls for this paradigm don’t really care, as they fundamentally do not believe that what the West represents is worth fighting for.  In short, what these corrupt globalist Western elites are engaged in is a highly rationalized form of treason.  

There are many collateral policies to this overall goal.  Three prominent issues include:

Israel: In order to get political Islam on board the globalist train, the price the Islamists ask is to get rid of Israel.  This really won’t make the Islamists any more peaceful or cooperative; it will instead embolden them.  But traditionally anti-Semitic segments of Western elites are happy to rationalize the need to force Israel into a suicidal “peace deal” — or worse, if Israel balks, to satisfy the bloodlust of her immediate adversaries…in the service of “World Peace,” of course.

Gun control: Imagine the Yellow Vest movement in France with American-level private gun ownership.  Civilian gun-owners can’t hope to defeat a modern military intent on simply destroying them, but if the objective is control and enslavement, that complicates matters (just ask the governor of Oregon).  A bunch of corpses can’t create wealth for the parasite globalist elite class to feed on.  That is why the Left wants our guns so, so badly.

Abortion/LGBT: The Left offers unlimited sexual freedom as a substitute for political freedom.  

The Left holds out traditional sexual roles and mores as a form of “bondage,” of “restriction.”  Why was it called the “sexual revolution”?  When people are encouraged to indulge in much of this nonsense in the context of making a “political statement,” this is intended to make whoever is doing this to feel “free”…but the price of this “freedom” is to uncritically accept all of the other political positions of the Left.  That is why, for example, it is not acknowledged by the Left when President Trump appoints an openly gay ambassador to Germany; that concession to “sexual freedom” doesn’t “count” if someone on the wrong side of the political fence does it.  Sexual freedom, in what passes for public discourse in the mass media and academia today, is the monopoly of the Left.

Writ large, what the self-styled “progressive left” is selling amounts to a modern version of feudalism, in which a self-appointed elite, whose status is maintained by the promotion of a self-serving “progressive,” neo-Marxist dogma, is anointed to tell the rest of us peasants how we must live our lives, not unlike the Divine Right of Kings.  The Rest of Us will be compelled to create wealth for them, as they enjoy an opulent existence without earning it; the likes of Obama, Hillary, Macron, Merkel, etc., couldn’t produce something genuinely useful if their lives depended on it.  In their world, over-educated uselessness becomes a virtue, as they are simply “above” having to produce anything.  It certainly beats actual work.  

That is what the Left wants.  It isn’t chaos.  It is integration into global feudalism.  In the end, if they are “successful,” American society will be saddled with a permanent belligerent parasite immigrant class (brought about by “open borders”), a greatly reduced standard of living for most citizens, our Constitution made an irrelevant relic, Islamism unbound, and subservience to a China-dominated world.

On an episode of The Candace Owens Show that aired this past May, Owens had as her guest Dennis Prager.  While I agreed with most of the points made by both Ms. Owens and Mr. Prager, one item struck me as an example of superficial analysis.  They declared that the primary objective of the Left is “chaos.”  In an immediate sense, this seems true; the so-called “progressive left” does appear to be deliberately sowing chaos in America today.

However, I submit that the Left’s “chaos” is an intermediate objective, the means to an end.  They have a well defined endgame.  The Communist Bloc countries were a lot of things, but they were generally not chaotic.  They were highly regimented societies, and while they did not have the material standard of living or political freedoms enjoyed in the West, there were some agreeable aspects, as related by the wife of one Carlo Alcos in an online feature story on the Matador Network about her early childhood experiences growing up in East Germany:

It wasn’t all trying, though.  Everyone had a job, school lunches were free, after-school care was free, people were generally happy, necessities were extremely cheap, and there was more community spirit than there is nowadays.  In those times, there were no Joneses to keep up with.

Rigidly communist East Germany hardly sounded like “chaos.”  So what is the progressive left’s game in the Era of Trump? 

First, at present, leftists want to create a state of political cultural chaos in the U.S. for a specific reason.  They need chaos as a smokescreen to defend their current leaders — that is to say, Obama, Hillary & Co. — from prosecution.  Make no mistake: Obama, Hillary, and their cohorts committed some  serious crimes of an unprecedented nature for people at their level.  We executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for far less. Their degree of culpability is suggested in an October 2016 email from Hilary Clinton to then DNC Chair Donna Brazile, revealed by WikiLeaks, in which Hillary shrieked to the effect that ”if that f‑‑‑‑‑‑ b‑‑‑‑‑‑ wins, we’re all going to hang from nooses.  You better fix this s‑‑‑!”

Consider the metaphor of a dogfight between two fighter planes.  One is firmly camped on the six o’clock of the other, ready to deliver the deathblow.  The other, facing imminent destruction, engages in all manner of crazy maneuvers in order to prevent his adversary from achieving a firing solution.  That is what the Left is doing with all this “chaos.”  For if Trump gets enough political breathing space to lock on for the kill and hold them accountable, they are through.  Their whole program is derailed, and many principals will indeed wind up in jail.  

What is the agenda of the Left, if it is not simply chaos?

Leftists rationalize what they are doing as being in the service of what will ultimately be a Star Trek–like “United Earth,” a one-world community ruled by the bureaucrats of the U.N., where there will be no more war, all resources will be shared, all conflicts will be “managed,” and the “masses” will be doled out whatever the elites decree the latter “needs” in return for World Peace Forevermore.  In real day-to-day terms, this enables an unaccountable, parasitic globalist elite class to decide what is best for everybody.  Ultimately, the progressive left elites of the West are busy selling out their own countries in order to appease the other major actors on the world stage, especially China and political Islam, to get the latter to cooperate in this globalist fantasy.

In reality, China; political Islam; and the other major independent political actor, Russia, will merely pocket the concessions of the West and continue to pursue their particular interests, in traditional great power fashion, at the West’s expense.  The corrupt Western elites who have sold their souls for this paradigm don’t really care, as they fundamentally do not believe that what the West represents is worth fighting for.  In short, what these corrupt globalist Western elites are engaged in is a highly rationalized form of treason.  

There are many collateral policies to this overall goal.  Three prominent issues include:

Israel: In order to get political Islam on board the globalist train, the price the Islamists ask is to get rid of Israel.  This really won’t make the Islamists any more peaceful or cooperative; it will instead embolden them.  But traditionally anti-Semitic segments of Western elites are happy to rationalize the need to force Israel into a suicidal “peace deal” — or worse, if Israel balks, to satisfy the bloodlust of her immediate adversaries…in the service of “World Peace,” of course.

Gun control: Imagine the Yellow Vest movement in France with American-level private gun ownership.  Civilian gun-owners can’t hope to defeat a modern military intent on simply destroying them, but if the objective is control and enslavement, that complicates matters (just ask the governor of Oregon).  A bunch of corpses can’t create wealth for the parasite globalist elite class to feed on.  That is why the Left wants our guns so, so badly.

Abortion/LGBT: The Left offers unlimited sexual freedom as a substitute for political freedom.  

The Left holds out traditional sexual roles and mores as a form of “bondage,” of “restriction.”  Why was it called the “sexual revolution”?  When people are encouraged to indulge in much of this nonsense in the context of making a “political statement,” this is intended to make whoever is doing this to feel “free”…but the price of this “freedom” is to uncritically accept all of the other political positions of the Left.  That is why, for example, it is not acknowledged by the Left when President Trump appoints an openly gay ambassador to Germany; that concession to “sexual freedom” doesn’t “count” if someone on the wrong side of the political fence does it.  Sexual freedom, in what passes for public discourse in the mass media and academia today, is the monopoly of the Left.

Writ large, what the self-styled “progressive left” is selling amounts to a modern version of feudalism, in which a self-appointed elite, whose status is maintained by the promotion of a self-serving “progressive,” neo-Marxist dogma, is anointed to tell the rest of us peasants how we must live our lives, not unlike the Divine Right of Kings.  The Rest of Us will be compelled to create wealth for them, as they enjoy an opulent existence without earning it; the likes of Obama, Hillary, Macron, Merkel, etc., couldn’t produce something genuinely useful if their lives depended on it.  In their world, over-educated uselessness becomes a virtue, as they are simply “above” having to produce anything.  It certainly beats actual work.  

That is what the Left wants.  It isn’t chaos.  It is integration into global feudalism.  In the end, if they are “successful,” American society will be saddled with a permanent belligerent parasite immigrant class (brought about by “open borders”), a greatly reduced standard of living for most citizens, our Constitution made an irrelevant relic, Islamism unbound, and subservience to a China-dominated world.

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Nike May Think The ‘Betsy Ross Flag’ Is Racist, But Look Who Flew It

After former San Francisco quarterback and Nike endorser Colin Kaepernick complained about an American-themed Betsy Ross flag adorning a new Nike shoe, reportedly saying he and others felt the Betsy Ross flag was an offensive symbol because of its connection to an era of slavery, Nike capitulated, pulling the shoe from production. The Wall Street Journal reported, “After images of the shoe were posted online, Mr. Kaepernick, a Nike endorser, reached out to company officials saying that he and others felt the Betsy Ross flag is an offensive symbol because of its connection to an era of slavery …”

On Wednesday, social media pointed out something to Nike that they either ignored or were unwilling to acknowledge: the famed flag, which featured 13 white stars in a circle to represent the thirteen original American colonies, was flown at former President Barack Obama’s 2nd inaugural.

That precipitated a host of comments from conservatives:

Donald Trump Jr.: “Weird that no one had a problem with The Betsy Ross Flag when it flew over Obama’s inauguration. Now it’s not patriotic… ok got it.”

Byron York, chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner: “Attention Nike: The flag Colin Kaepernick told you was unacceptable on your shoes was displayed rather prominently at Barack Obama’s inauguration.”

Guy Benson from Fox News: “It ‘fell out of fashion’ with a small group of loud, disproportionately influential Woke Olympians. I suspect it’ll be back in fashion among many Americans as an anti-PC totem.”

Steve Deace from Blaze TV: “Truly amaze-balls to learn America’s first black President not only had a racist VP for eight years, but now he proudly flew the flag of white supremacists.”

In September 2016, a student waved a flag supporting Donald Trump as he joined other students waving a Betsy Ross 13-star flag at a Grand Rapids, Michigan, high school football game, chanting “USA.” That prompted one parent to claim the flag had been appropriated by white supremacy groups, adding the flag waving “left a lot of members of my community unsettled … Your team, your coaches, your families were our guests, yet it seems many of your students are unaware of the negative impact these actions would have on members of our community in our home field,” according to MLive.

Although it has long been debated whether or not Betsy Ross actually created the “Betsy Ross flag,” the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation notes, “Congress recognized that the new nation needed a flag. On June 14, 1777, it passed the country’s first flag law. As legislation goes, it was refreshingly brief: ‘Resolved. That the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.’”

The Foundation adds:

We probably will never know who made the first flag. We do, however, have a good idea about who originated its design. Credit for that achievement may go to Francis Hopkinson, a New Jersey representative to the Continental Congress and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Hopkinson was a talented man with a strong interest in designing symbols. He played a role in creating the Great Seal of the United States, the Continental Board of Admiralty seal, treasury seal, and American currency. Documents also show that he worked on the first official United States flag.

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‘Mini AOC’ Deletes Social Media After Being Doxxed, Getting Death Threats

For those who didn’t have time to make copies of the Mini AOC pics before the left chased them off the twitter with death threats and harassment. pic.twitter.com/TRpksB9WUo — Foggy Anabasis (@foggyanabasis) July 3, 2019 Because leftist AOC cultists are now so bankrupt they have to threaten an eight year old and her family? Ava […]

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