Reparations Derangement Syndrome –

  Issues & Insights

Let’s not pretend this is about justice, fairness and decency. It’s a shakedown – aided and abetted by rich, white, guilt-ridden, virtue-signaling progressives – that not even Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton could have envisioned a decade ago.  

"A panel in California, where rotten public policy ideas metastasize like a fungus growing in dark, slimy conditions, has approved paying reparations to descendants of slaves. It is impossible to overstate just how insane this is.

The reparations task force, appointed by Boy Gov. Gavin Newsom, voted Saturday to recommend the state pay out as much as $800 billion to the descendants of enslaved or free black people who were in the U.S. by the end of the 19th century. That’s 2.5 times the size of California’s annual budget. Recipients could rake in as much as $1.2 million each." . . .

. . .The case against reparations is irrefutable. Or would be in a sane world, which we no longer live in.

Despite the lunacy that has a grip on our politics, we will lay out the arguments.

First, no taxpayer in California or the U.S. was alive when slavery was allowed in this country, and none of those who were enslaved are alive either. Anyone who doesn’t think this is irrelevant is neither a clear nor honest thinker.

Second, we go to Andreas Koureas of The Spectator, who brings up an unpopular but salient point: “Ultimately, the great evil of slavery was practiced by all inhabited continents and all races.” Consequently, nearly every human on the planet has “an ancestral link to the slave trade.” 

History, perpetually in conflict with “The Narrative,” tells us that “indigenous Africans, would capture slaves in village raids or as prisoners of war, and they would be sold at the African coast to outside traders or fellow Africans within the subcontinent.”

“​​Long before the transatlantic slave trade began, slavery was commonplace in many parts of the globe,” Koureas adds. “The further you go back in history the longer the list of slavers grows, including everyone from the Ancient Egyptians to the Shang dynasty in China.”

D.C. Democrats Have Gone Full ‘Weekend At Bernie’s’

 The Federalist

It’s hard to watch. But it’s par for the course for today’s Democrats — and the Washington establishment in general — which are motivated far more by ideological fidelity than by competent and decisive governance.

" 'Dianne Feinstein is back at her Senate perch and “ready to roll up her sleeves and get to work.” At least that’s what her colleague Chuck Schumer says. “[I]t’s clear she’s back where she wants to be and ready to deliver.”

"Feinstein doesn’t appear to have gotten that memo. After her months-long absence from Congress with shingles, she’s back… ish. “I’m still experiencing some side effects,” Feinstein said in a statement accompanying her return to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, adding that she’ll have “to work a lighter schedule.”

"That seems like an understatement. Photos of the senator, who will be 90 years old next month, are quite grotesque, as if Getty Images asked AI to generate “a photo of Sen. Dianne Feinstein starring in ‘The Toxic Avenger.’” . . .

. . ."I mean no disrespect to the senator, who can’t do anything about contracting a nasty virus and aging just like everybody else. Her countenance is certainly as sad as it is startling. But since she refuses to appease her fellow Judiciary Committee members with a letter of resignation, and leftist lawmakers are champing at the bit to ram as many norm-shattering judges as possible through Senate confirmation, they’ve got her propped up in a wheelchair “Weekend at Bernie’s”-style. All Democrats need is a body and an “aye,” and the party can go on as usual.". . .

Book Review: Lifting the Mask of the Antiracist Cult; Stanley Ridgley exposes “antiracism” in its hateful, undiluted form.

Lifting the Mask of the Antiracist Cult › American Greatness    "People far removed from the insular world of academia sense there is something hostile brewing in the ivory tower, but today’s “woke” ideologues dismiss these suspicions with a

wave of the hand. The disconcerted layman, they say, is too dumb to understand critical race theory much less criticize it. The unflattering truth is that critical race theory is not complex. It may be too generous even to call it an ideology. Regular people understand it is a form of race prejudice, in the words of author Stanley Ridgley, a “psychopathic” and paranoid “conspiracy theory” that makes white people into a demonic, omnipresent enemy.

"It’s uncommon to see the issue framed in terms so direct and disparaging to the enlightened ones who control our national “conversation” on race, which is more of a one-sided interrogation. Ridgley, a professor at Drexel University, has done a great service lifting the mask of sophistication in his book, Brutal Minds: The Dark World of Left-Wing Brainwashing in Our Universities. Ridgley doesn’t waste time conceding respectability to pseudointellectuals peddling the equivalent of Radio Rwanda propaganda. Rather, he heaps scorn on the cultists and discredits them in their own words. 

"The evidence in Brutal Minds is drawn from the horse’s mouth: the journals, training manuals, and conference speeches of “antiracist educators,” and the forced confessions of their victims, demonstrating the methodical process by which they are broken down and reconstructed. The valuable material Ridgley has gathered together puts meat on the bones of abstractions like “indoctrination,” which have been vitiated in a culture war driven largely by cable news soundbites.

"At its core, “antiracist education” is shown to be a dehumanizing, and strangely casual, form of psychological torture. Ridgely draws a straight line from Mao’s Cultural Revolution to the contemporary American university, where deranged, underqualified careerists in “student affairs” harangue white students in creepy games and “discussion groups.” 

"We are treated to a detailed investigation of the deceitful, unscrupulous techniques that are deployed to target, disarm, and re-educate students. Recruits are groomed with false “empathy” and encouraged to surrender sensitive information about their personal lives. We are reminded that “brainwashing” is more about subtraction than addition: not so much filling minds with ideas, but removing personality and deforming the soul.

"While the details of anti-white “thought reform” are worth reviewing, the author’s chief concern is in exposing the anonymous bureaucracy that is turning academia into a gravy train for “diversity, equity, and inclusion” consultants. . . ."

Street Thugs and the Intellectual Thugs Who Enable Them ›

  American Greatness

Criminals who endanger our safety should know they are taking their own lives in their hands.

. . . "On May 1, riding a different F train near the Broadway-Lafayette stop in Manhattan, was 30-year-old Jordan Neely, a homeless black man with a history of mental illness who had been arrested 42 times, including for punching a 65-year-old woman in June 2021 and a 67-year-old woman in November of the same year. I should note here that someone who has been arrested 42 times has proven beyond any doubt that he cannot be trusted in society and should be confined either to a prison or a mental hospital for his own safety and ours. But he was out and about and, on May 1, he was aboard that F train threatening riders, up to no good yet again. Witnesses report that he was yelling, tossed down his jacket, was throwing around garbage and shouted that he was “fed up,” that he “didn’t care” if he went to “prison for life” and that he was “ready to die.”

"That kind of behavior would make almost anyone on that subway car apprehensive. Fortunately, unlike the incident I had witnessed a few weeks earlier, in which we had to sit silently and hope that the threatened violence would not materialize, in the case of Jordan Neely, a 24-year-old Marine named Daniel Penny happened to be on the train and, with the assistance of other riders, managed to subdue Neely and put him in a chokehold. Unfortunately, the Marine squeezed too hard or held on too long, and Neely passed out and later died.

"Neely did not deserve to die, of course. But neither did his death represent some wholly unexpected and shocking turn of events. When you get on the subway and start threatening riders and act like a dangerous lunatic—and, given Neely’s criminal record, engage in such risky behavior repeatedly—the possibility that sooner or later, something bad could happen to you or others around you is necessarily higher than it would be during afternoon tea.". . .

9-Year-Old Boy's Life Hangs in the Balance: Denied Transplant Over Vaccination Status –

 RedState

"Despite the fact that COVID-19 is no longer a major threat to anyone, the COVID cult is still in effect, and it could cost a nine-year-old boy his life. The COVID regime has already caused immense damage and ruined far too many lives. But, unfortunately, it appears the cult is not through with us just yet.

"Tanner Donaldson, a 9-year-old boy with stage 4 chronic kidney disease, was born with a rare birth defect causing irreversible kidney damage. Tanner’s father, Dane Donaldson, is a suitable live kidney donor, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital has refused to conduct the transplant surgery because Dane is not vaccinated against the coronavirus.

"The hospital has a policy that requires all organ donors to be fully vaccinated to minimize complications during and after surgery. Dane questioned the hospital’s hypocrisy, pointing out that deceased organ donors are not required to be vaccinated. He even offered to sign a waiver freeing the hospital from liability.

"But the hospital still rejected him.

"In April, the Epoch Times reached out to the hospital for an explanation. “Individuals who are actively infected with COVID-19 have a much higher rate of complications during and after surgery, even if the infection is asymptomatic,” the hospital responded" . . .

Update on Tanner Donaldson, the 9-Year-Old in Need of a Kidney Transplant - ICAN - Informed Consent Action Network (icandecide.org)

The callousness of this institution is truly astounding.  But as cruel as its actions are, they are all the more shocking in light of the grave professional and legal consequences they are risking in enforcing this policy.  As ICAN’s attorneys pointed out in the letter, those physicians who are complicit in enforcing the hospital’s vaccination policy are risking disciplinary action against their medical licenses since physicians are legally required to uphold the minimum standard of care.  

 Cleveland Clinic denies boy, 9, a kidney from naturally immune, healthy donor over vaccine status – World Tribune:  

An ideal match for a kidney for Tanner, Donaldson, once a mechanic for the Green Berets, was approved in 2017. Donaldson has spent the last nine years in rigorous athletic conditioning and healthy eating in order to donate one of his kidneys to his son when the time comes. 

Biden EPA Unveils Radical New Rule That Will Decimate American Energy

 Biden EPA Unveils Radical New Rule That Will Decimate American Energy (townhall.com)

The Biden EPA's new rule, Capito added, "is the Biden administration's most blatant attempt yet to close down power plants and kill American energy jobs." 

"The Biden administration announced its latest move in the president's now long-running campaign to "end fossil fuels" and force Americans through an "energy transition" that has destroyed the country's energy independence, driven energy prices higher, and left Americans more vulnerable to blackouts. 

"Something of a retread of the Obama-era "Clean Power Plan," the Biden EPA unveiled its new rule that would mandate most coal- and natural gas-fired power plants in the U.S. to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 90 percent over a five-year period beginning in 2035 or be shuttered by federal regulators. 

"This new rule — one that is being inflicted without assent from Congress — will require drastic and expensive retrofits of existing power plants and a redesign of planned future plants in the United States if they intend to remain in or start operations. Currently, only one of the hundreds of coal-fired power plants in the country has carbon-capture technology in place, according to The New York Times. 

"According to the Energy Information Administration, as of 2021, there were 269 plants using primarily coal to generate power and 2,020 using natural gas. Of all U.S. power generation, nearly 20 percent comes from coal-fired plants while almost 40 percent is from natural gas — meaning Biden's rule goes after plants responsible for around 60 percent of America's current electricity production system.". . . 

Kevin McCarthy Cancels Rashida Tlaib’s Antisemitic Event at U.S. Capitol

 Breitbart  "House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on Tuesday canceled Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s antisemitic event at the U.S. Capitol scheduled for Wednesday and will host a “bipartisan discussion to honor the 75th anniversary of the US-Israel relationship” in its place.

"Tlaib planned a Wednesday event at the Capitol Visitor Center to mourn Israel’s founding. The event was to celebrate the “Nakba,” which is a Palestinian term for the creation of Israel that loosely translates as “catastrophe,” according to the Washington Free Beacon.

"
As the Washington Free Beacon detailed:

Tlaib was scheduled to headline the anti-Israel event with several organizations that support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, an anti-Semitic effort to wage economic war on Israel. They include Jewish Voice for Peace, a “radical anti-Israel activist group” that pushes the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and has come under fire for glorifying Palestinian terrorism. Other organizers include Emgage Action, another BDS supporter that claims Israel is an “apartheid state,” and Americans for Justice in Palestine Action, an advocacy group that claims Jewish money is infecting politics.

"The invitation for Wednesday’s event accuses “Zionist militias” of violently expelling The invitation for Wednesday’s event accuses “Zionist militias” of violently expelling Palestinians from the region when Israel was created in 1948, and maintains that Israel continues to brutalize Palestinians.

“May 15th marks 75 years since the beginning of the Nakba, which means ‘catastrophe,’” the invitation reads. “Seventy-five years ago, Zionist militias and the new Israeli military violently expelled approximately three-quarters of all Palestinians from their homes and homeland in what became the state of Israel.”

"However, McCarthy intervened on Tuesday and blocked Tlaib from hosting the event, replacing it with his own pro-Israel discussion.". . .

Why C.S. Lewis Remains Compelling

 The Stream; Equipping Christians to Think Clearly About the Political, Economic and Moral Issues of Our Day.  ( Published on November 23, 2022)

This week marks the anniversary of both the birth (Nov. 29) and the death (Nov. 22) of C.S. Lewis, one of the most remarkable Christians of the last century. Even today, nearly 60 years after his passing, Christians of all denominations, depth, and discernment continue to learn from Lewis about the nature and substance of faith. The value of the wit and wisdom of this unexpected champion of the faith only becomes more obvious as the central message of Christianity, that “Jesus is Lord!”, sounds more and more strange to late-modern ears." . . .

. . ."Lewis was uniquely effective at slipping behind even the most compelling defenses of materialism. His writing, which could range from popular to academic, demonstrated his warmth and genuineness, his incisive mind, and his passionate loyalty to truths considered radical today.

Lewis Embraced the Faith, In Spite of Himself

"As portrayed in the brilliantly done film, The Most Reluctant Convert, Lewis spent his youth meandering through worldviews and fashionable ideas, a process that could fit snugly within our early 21st-century perception of truth as a journey. Yet, he refused to follow that script. After a road filled with twists and turns — a little atheism and agnosticism over here, a period of pantheism and spiritualism over there — Lewis stumbled back to, first, theism, and then, to his great horror, classical Christianity.

"In a sense, Lewis embraced the faith of his fathers in spite of himself. As he wrote in God in the Dock, “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”

The Brilliance and Skill of Lewis  

"Lewis also had a knack for making people feel smart, for taking some of the most complicated concepts imaginable and explaining them in such a way that the reader responds with, “Oh, I already knew that.” Lewis’ brilliance as a writer and his skill as an apologist enabled him to hone the craft of describing deep truths in simple forms. He seemed to instinctively understand that though the eternal truths of God remain as true as ever, we must offer them to our neighbors using today’s terms. And yet, at the same time, we must not alter those truths in order to make them more palatable or believable. Faith, after all, must lift our hearts, minds, and imaginations beyond this world.

"His skill in doing that gives his works an almost insidious quality. Just as tens of millions of people in the past decades have unknowingly absorbed huge amounts of a Christian worldview through The Lord of the Rings films, skeptics who pick up Lewis’ books are in immortal danger of Christian infection. His light style and engaging manner keep readers off their guard just long enough for truth to get under their skin. While they think they are reading the words of an unusual Christian who “gets it,” little by little many find that his Christianity is getting them." . . .Please continue...

John Stonestreet serves as president of The Colson Center for Christian Worldview. He’s a sought-after author and speaker on areas of faith and culture, theology, worldview, education and apologetics. Timothy D. Padgett (PhD) is a Resident Theologian at The Colson Center for Christian Worldview. 

Chicago gay bars dropping Bud Light, Goose Island amid backlash for transgender ad campaign

 Chicago gay bars dropping Bud Light, Goose Island amid backlash for transgender ad campaign (msn.com)   "Robertson and Mike Sullivan, who own four LGBTQ bars on Chicago’s North Side, decided to pull the company’s products — Bud Light, as well as the Chicago-based Goose Island — from its shelves, as have other Chicago bar owners who feel Anheuser-Busch’s decision was a reversal from its rainbow-branded support of the LGBTQ community.". . .

Paul Cascioli, director of operations, sorts through the bar's beer cooler that no longer contains
 Anheuser-Busch products Tuesday, May 9, 2023, at 2Bears Tavern in Uptown.

. . ."The company’s response came as in-store sales of Bud Light dropped throughout April, according to data from Bump Williams Consulting, a Connecticut-based firm that specializes in the alcoholic beverage industry."

Wither Mr. Carlson?

 

The threat of Tucker + Twitter to the progressive media oligopoly has got them scared - American Thinker    "It’s becoming a lot of fun to watch the propaganda organs react to the recently announced plan of Tucker Carlson to use the recently liberated Twitter as his future platform, post-Fox. The combination of Elon Musk, who has become a free speech disciple, and is not-so-incidentally one of the world’s richest people and widely admired by the public for his pioneering entrepreneurship, with Tucker Carlson, who already was the most important political commentator in America, has got them scared." . . .

Pre-2016 Fox: What Happens to the 3 Million ‘Tucker’ Viewers? (americanpigeon.org)

What we do know is that the firing follows a $787.5 million settlement between Fox and Dominion Voting Systems after the latter alleged that the outlet promulgated disinformation about the company rigging the 2020 election in favor of Joe Biden. 

Tucker Carlson announces his move - American Thinker   . . ."In a brief video posted to Twitter titled "We're Back," his second since his top-rated show Tucker Carlson Tonight on FOX News was abruptly canceled on April 24, Carlson announced that Twitter will soon be his new media home." . . . "That wasn't the only news yesterday about Tucker Carlson.  In an equally compelling development, AXIOS reported in an exclusive "scoop": "Tucker Carlson accuses Fox of fraud, contract breach.' "

Close Friend Reveals Tucker Carlson Preparing For “War” Against Fox News – enVolve (en-volve.com)   . . ."Fox News made the decision to cut ways with Carlson public last month, though it is still unclear why.

"Since Carlson has not yet been released from his $20 million per year contract, which bans him from working elsewhere in the business for an additional 20 months, Carlson has not technically been dismissed.

"That implies that the well-liked anchor would be totally barred from actively covering the 2024 presidential race.

“ 'His team is preparing for war. He wants his freedom,” a close friend told Axios, adding that Carlson had previously said he wanted to “get this done quiet and clean” but his team was now “going from peacetime to Defcon 1.”

"Several behind-the-scenes Carlson footage have already made their way to left-leaning media groups, despite Fox News’ denials that they are to blame.". . .

Full Replay, CNN Broadcasts Trump Townhall, The Culmination of Their Seven-Year Effort to Destroy President Trump, CNN Leaves in Tears -

 The Last Refuge   "A background is really worth considering.  For a full year in 2016 CNN attacked candidate Donald Trump relentlessly, calling him every name in the book and comparing him to the rise of Hitler.  Trump won. CNN then spent the next four years of the Trump presidency shouting at him, yelling at him, calling him names and decrying him as evil incarnate attempting to destroy him; including the promotion of the totally fraudulent Trump-Russia conspiracy theory, which they have never apologized for pushing.  CNN then spends the next two years hiding every Biden scandal they can cover and defending the Biden team as the nation burns down around them.

"Enter 2023…  Hilariously, CNN never learned anything from the previous seven years, asks Donald Trump to come back and sends Kaitlin Collins onto the stage with instructions to be rude, combative, argumentative, snide and nasty.  What happens… Trump fearlessly destroys the effort, and the audience is well entertained.

"Here’s the full CNN Townhall event replay.  {Direct Rumble Link}  CNN cried mercy and cut the Townhall short by 20 minutes, it was scheduled for 90 – they conceded defeat at 70 minutes and ended the broadcast.  The leftists then went into full meltdown pearl clutching in panel reviews everywhere, while the Ron DeSantis team had apoplectic fits of sad."  WATCH Full replay at this site.

Parody: CNN Host Sues Trump For Assault And Defamation After Town Hall | Babylon Bee

"GOFFSTOWN, NH — A visibly shaken Kaitlan Collins announced she will be suing Trump for assault and defamation after being destroyed by the former President on national television last night.

" 'He said things I didn't agree with. Even worse, he said things I didn't like," said Collins in a statement. "It was the most traumatizing experience of my life. It was assault, plain and simple. And defamation. I'm suing Trump for $5 million like that other lady." . . .

Liberals sure like dead black men

 Don Surber

A return to the revolving doors of justice and the demonization of cops served him poorly. But liberals don’t care about black people — or white or yellow or any color. Liberals care not about people. Liberals care only about power. Dead black men serve that purpose, hence the feigned anger of those in the skin game.

. . ."No, this column is about black men killed by non-liberal white people or in the case of George Zimmerman, a Hispanic.

"AOC used the death in a subway train of Jordan Neely to create a new saint for the church of black victimhood. A violent man, he went crazy in a subway train last Thursday afternoon. The transit police were unavailable. Passengers subdued him. He died after being held in what we are told was a chokehold. AOC went on a tweet rant based on few facts and many emotions.

"Judge, jury and executioner, she tweeted, “Jordan Neely was murdered.

“But because Jordan was houseless and crying for food in a time when the city is raising rents and stripping services to militarize itself while many in power demonize the poor, the murderer gets protected with passive headlines and no charges.

“ 'It’s disgusting.”

"Houseless has replaced homeless which replaced bum.

Mainstream Media Utterly Silent On Some Hate Crimes, Murders (tampafp.com)

. . ."It’s astonishingly surreal when it happens, even though it’s expected. Last week, rabid protesters shut down part of New York City’s subway system and hinted at future violence to come if they didn’t get “justice” for Jordan Neely, a seemingly mentally ill man who had a long arrest record and a history of physically attacking innocents on the train platforms and elsewhere.

"Neely, who was black and had been arrested more than 40 times, died after being temporarily put in a chokehold by a U.S. Marine named Daniel Penny, who is white, while the two were riding the subway. Passengers claimed Neely was menacing and threatening them.   

"Since his death on May 1, Neely has continued to be a lead item for the major media eager to ramp up racial conflict — even as there is no evidence that Penny intended to kill Neely or acted out of racism.

"Yet in the middle of the country, we have clear evidence of two racially motivated and premeditated murders, and the national media is utterly silent.

"Why? Because the victims are white and the alleged killer is black." . . .

A Complacent Generation That Loves Making Martyrs (americanpigeon.org)

But the other reaction requires one to protest the city officials that they elected and will continue to elect who are responsible for negligence, that same negligence of those now in the streets demanding justice (from themselves).

All things considered, New York City appears torn that such a good soul will be missed. New Yorkers love to be terrorized, and when there is no one left to do so, they will hold a vigil.