Saturday, July 17, 2021

Sorry, Mr. President: The ‘fight’ for voter rights is nothing like the Civil War

Rich Lowry   "If this is Joe Biden when he’s forceful and passionate, the country is better off with the passive and detached version. 

"The president gave a thunderous address in Philadelphia on Tuesday denouncing alleged Republican voter suppression. Playing on the darkest fears of Democrats and layering on the adjectival overkill, Biden blatantly distorted Republican state-level election laws in a frankly demagogic speech.

"Biden rightly excoriated former President Donald Trump, if not by name, for his conduct since the election. But he also lashed the Republican election bills. The approach seems designed to mirror Trump’s effort to undermine his side’s faith in the electoral process with a countervailing effort to undermine Biden’s own side’s faith in the electoral process.

"Indeed, if Democrats lose in 2022 or 2024, Biden’s speech may be seen by Democrats as providing an equally corrosive excuse: It was Republican voter suppression.

"According to Biden, the GOP election rules are one of the most grievous affronts to our democratic rights ever. “The 21st-century Jim Crow assault is real,” he said. “It’s unrelenting, and we’re going to challenge it vigorously.”

"He called this push “the most serious test of our democracy since the Civil War,” making sure to note that the statement wasn’t hyperbole, even though it’s hard to imagine a more hyperbolic assertion." . . .  More

Sister of pilot killed on Sept. 11 absolutely excoriates leftists who liken Jan. 6 Capitol riot to 9/11 terror attack that claimed nearly 3,000 lives

 We know that Huffington Post senior White House correspondent S.V. Dáte defended Will by saying the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was "1000 percent worse" than 9/11.

Dave Urbanske  . . . "She explained that her brother, Charles "Chic" Burlingame, was the pilot of American Airlines flight 77 and "was murdered in his cockpit at age 51 in a 6½-minute struggle for control of the airplane" — and then gave some facts to the fact-deprived."  More...

Why is Joe Biden still standing by his Earth First! nominee for Bureau of Land Management?

‘Not an innocent bystander’: Ex-agent disputes Biden nominee’s tree-spiking account


 Monica Showalter   "It's starting to look bad for Tracy Stone-Manning, Joe Biden's nominee to run the Bureau of Land Management.

"The latest news is that she lied to Congress about her involvement in eco-terrorism; an Earth First! tree-spiking incident in Idaho's Clearwater National Forest in 1989.  At the time, she wrote a profane threatening letter to "warn" loggers about the spikes and then told Congress she knew nothing about the whole thing and was merely an innocent college kid forced to do it to try to make sure nobody was "getting hurt."  It didn't happen that way, according to various sources.

"Normally, a person with any such involvement, lying or not, would be exceptionally unfit to run the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees 245 to 247 million acres of public land, and has 9,000 employees.  Putting her in charge of it would be like putting an embezzler in charge of the Federal Reserve. 

"Yet incredibly, Joe Biden continues to stand by her, even as one bad thing after another about her activity now rolls out. 

The Biden administration said Thursday it "stands by Tracy's statements and written submissions."  . . .  

Public documents obtained by the Journal tell the real story. According to that 1993 court transcript, Ms. Stone-Manning arrived in Missoula in 1988 and immediately moved into a house occupied by Earth First! members. This was the height of the wilderness wars, and Earth First! had by the mid-1980s defined itself as the tip of the fanatical spear. Its modus operandi was violence and terror, or what it called "monkeywrenching"—spectacular arsons, equipment destruction, and most notably the deadly practice of tree spiking.  (Emphasis added by TD)

All 10 Senate Energy Republicans urged Mr. Biden in a Wednesday letter to withdraw her nomination, noting that Bob Abbey, who led the agency under President Obama, pulled his support last month for Ms. Stone-Manning.

. . . " Mr. Merkley described her as an influential member who “played an active role in the Earth First! hierarchy.” He also said that he decided to retire early after 28 years with the Forest Service in part over harassment and death threats from Earth First!" 

'Squad' member Cori Bush, a 'defund the police' advocate, recently spent $70,000 on private security

Bush recently praised a vote to defund the St. Louis police

 Fox News

. . . "As Bush's campaign dished out tens of thousands on private security, a luxury most Americans can't afford, the Missouri Democrat was simultaneously a major critic of law enforcement and one of the most ardent advocates in favor of defunding the police. Bush has said that defunding the police is not a "radical" idea, and she praised St. Louis in April for its "historic" vote to defund police. 

" 'Today's decision to defund the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department is historic," Bush said in a statement at the time. "It marks a new future for our city. For decades, our city funneled more and more money into our police department under the guise of public safety, while massively underinvesting in the resources that will truly keep our communities safe."

"Bush's campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the payments. 

"The most recent payments are not the first time Bush's campaign has spent on security this year. During the first three months of the year, her committee pumped $35,000 into such services with RS&T, Davis and Whole Armor Executive Protection, a Maryland-based firm.

"Bush has also funneled taxpayer cash toward security detail. In June, the Daily Caller reported that Bush's congressional office had spent $880 on a day of protection with RS&T as the firm was collecting checks from her campaign." . . .

I’m A Middle School Teacher And See How Critical Race Curriculum Is Creating Racial Hostility In School

Providence, RI: Some Students Have Started Calling Me “America” Because I’m White, and Colleagues Accuse Me of Having “White Privilege.”

Ramona Bessinger at Legal Insurrection


"I have been a public school teacher for the past 22 years, with the past seven in Providence, Rhode Island.  I have had the honor of serving public school children and their families as an English teacher first at the high school level, and currently at the middle school level.

"During my career I have always tried to provide the best education for my students. I am designated by the Rhode Island Department of Education a ‘Highly Qualified’ teacher, meaning, I have tenure and experience in my certifications.  I was awarded the English Speaking Union Shakespeare Scholarship for excellence in teaching Shakespeare. I helped implement curriculum and I have hosted multiple student clubs, literary magazines, youth groups and community outreach programs.

"I love being a teacher and I care a great deal about my students, almost all of whom are non-white.  This past 2020/21 school year was a sad and worrisome turning point for me as an educator. Providence K-8 teachers were introduced to one of the most racially divisive, hateful, and in large part, historically inaccurate curriculums I have ever seen in my teaching career.

"Yes, I am speaking about the controversial critical race theory that has infiltrated our public schools here in Rhode Island under the umbrella of Cuturally Responsive learning and teaching, which includes a focus on identities. You won’t see the words “critical race theory” on the materials, but those are the concepts taught. The new, racialized curriculum and materials focuses almost exclusively on an oppressor-oppressed narrative, and have created racial tensions among students and staff where none existed before.

"During fall 2020 semester, we were given our curriculum timeline on the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War. I noticed the stories and books seemed to focus almost exclusively on slavery and racism." . . .

Providence Teachers Union Confirms Affinity Group Segregation, Historical Books Destroyed, Holocaust Education Ended (Ramona Bessinger Update)

Missing from our curriculum during the 2020/ 21 school year was the diversity, perspective, truth, and rigor that previously were taught. Previously vetted books were removed from our classroom and sent to recycling.  Gone was the diverse collection of American and World Literature: House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, James Baldwin Go Tell It On The Mountain, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, essays by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., poetry by Maya Angelou, Robert Frost, Anne Frank, NightThe Boy In The Striped PajamasMacbeth, Walt Whitman, The Salem Witch Trials, The Crucible , Holocaust studies, world genocide, world art, universal themes, universal characters and any book or short story from the literary cannon.

"What saddened me most was that I would not be teaching the Holocaust any longer. The Holocaust unit included one of the following: either Anne FrankThe Boy In The Striped Pajamas, and depending on reading level, Elie Weisel’s Night When I asked the school reading coach where all the Holocaust books were, she said “we do not teach the Holocaust because kids can’t relate to the story.” . . .

Tony Branco



Dementia Joe Goes All in With His Most Insane Comment Yet

RedState   "What is misinformation and who gets to define what it is?

"The Biden team thinks that they get to. They think they get to censor what is misinformation because they say so and they put pressure on/or work in tandem with social media platforms. That’s what White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has made clear. She admitted it yesterday and then made it worse today, saying that if someone is banned for misinformation from one platform, that person should be banned from every social media platform." . . .

. . . "What is this? More government scare tactics to frighten people into more ceding more control to them? Haven’t we seen enough of this already? As the pandemic lessens, they’re actually squeezing more as they start to lose control. They show once again, it isn’t about the pandemic. It’s about the control.

"This is the guy they claimed was a unifier? He wants to suppress information, he thinks people who want election security are a “domestic threat” (think where that leads next), he thinks election security laws are the worst thing since the Civil War. Now Facebook is “killing people.” Everything is the height of hyperbole, having no relation to reality, to justify government actions. Biden is equating not agreeing with the government with murder. Think how dangerous that is.

"Speaking of misinformation, if they actually wanted to stop the purveyors of misinformation, they should look in the mirror." . . . 

NFL launches new ad proclaiming 'football is gay, football is lesbian...'

Normally, I'd "Be ready for some football!"  Now, however, I can never take the NFL seriously again.  And after this, members of the LGBT community shouldn't, either.

Eric Utter  "The National Football League (NFL) recently joined virtually every other American institution in lauding —  and marketing to — the LGBT community during Pride Month in June.  It did so by releasing a new 30-second commercial proudly proclaiming that "football is gay, lesbian, queer, transgender, bisexual and exciting."

"The ad begins by stating "football is gay" to the sound of drums rolling and people cheering.  (I'm not sure what Dick Butkus would have to say about this advertisement, but I digress.)". . . 

Four seconds into the ad. Twitter video screen grab.