Cuba: The Collapse Of Another Socialist Utopia? Let’s Hope So

 

Image by Marcus Aurelius

Issues & Insights    "Like an unwatched pot suddenly violently boiling over, Havana and other cities have erupted in defiant protests by Cubans fed up with living in their perpetually depressed tropical police state. True to form, the Castroite regime has already reflexively cracked down on the protests with brutality.

"Cubans weary of being treated like animals without rights took to the streets, shouting “Freedom!” “Down with the dictatorship,” and, most pointedly, “Down with communism!” In some cases, protesters carried American flags. This was not an isolated demonstration: According to the Spanish-language data site Inventario, some 63 cities and towns were roiled by demonstrations on Sunday through early Monday.

"Here in the U.S., some on the left initially tried to portray this as Cubans being upset over COVID-19 infections and a lack of vaccines. A State Department spokesperson styled it as Cubans “exercising their right to peaceful assembly … about rising COVID cases/deaths & medicine shortages.”

“We call for calm and condemn any violence,” Julie Chung, acting assistant secretary for the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, tweeted Sunday.

"Nice try. To begin with, Cubans don’t have a “right to peaceful assembly,” nor any other real enforceable rights. All their rights depend on the government’s willingness to grant them. As for the demonstrations, the reasons plainly went well beyond a mere “medicine shortage.” Watch videos: You’ll see it has nothing to do with COVID-19." . . .

That is in America's Constitution - not Cuba's. Ours is the one where using it gets you beaten to a bloody pulp before CNN cameras and as you lay prone some product of our school systems kicks you in the head. As he shouts slogans taught by others.

Joe Biden’s Shameful Voting-Rights Speech

National Review

The president’s fabricated panic had lots of hyperbole but few specifics.

"Republican “anti-voting laws,” President Joe Biden claimed during his demagogic speech at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia this afternoon, are the most “significant threat to our democracy since the Civil War.” These laws are “odious,” “pernicious,” “vicious,” and “unconscionable,” a “subversion and suppression,” the “21st-century Jim Crow,” and the sure sign of an emerging “autocracy.” Biden’s fabricated panic offers lots of space for hyperbole, but precious little room for specifics. I was prepared to fact-check Biden’s contentions about new election laws, but the president offered few details. Perhaps he comprehends that most Americans would probably find voter-integrity laws rather …

Pete Hegseth Nails Runaway Texas Dem to the Wall With One Simple Question . . . "So you would think if this bill is as horrible as the Texas Democrats say — if it’s Jim Crow, worst thing since the Civil War, a “domestic threat” that he must protect against, as Joe Biden claims — then they should be able to tell us who is actually being denied the right to vote, right? They’re saying that’s happening. So who is being denied?

"Fox’s Pete Hegseth asked that very question of one of the runaway Texas Democrats, James Talarico. He wasn’t able to name one person who would be denied." Video

Democrat Candidate Harley Rouda Calls Trump Voters ‘Morons’

A Steel spokesman told Fox, “Between not paying his taxes and insulting families in Orange County, it’s no wonder voters fired Harley Rouda last November.” Last week, reports came out that Rouda missed the deadline to disclose stock trades his wife made selling off shares of Amazon and Tesla.

Former Democrat Rep. Harley Rouda (CA), who is running to get his old seat he lost to Republican Rep. Michelle Steel (CA), who is running to get his old seat he lost to Republican Rep. Michelle Steel (CA), called Republicans who voted for former President Donald Trump “morons.”

"Rouda’s comments were made at a town hall hosted by the Laguna Beach Democratic Club, Fox News reported.

"During his remarks, Rouda said, “Trump being at the top of the ticket” in 2020 was one of the reasons he lost his House seat, according to an “audit” he did.

"He went on to say that “The fact that six million more ‘morons’ voted for this man, is mind-boggling to me,” but he noted, “Thank goodness about 11 more million Americans voted for [President] Joe Biden.”

"Rouda also blamed Democrat “low-propensity, uninformed voters who came out and voted for Trump and the down the ticket.” He said that “impacted” him." . . .

Critical Race Theory Is a Complex -- Oh, Who Are We Kidding?

How'd you like to be hired by the (then) premier university in the world, not based on the excellence of your scholarship, but because of students threatening to burn the campus down? 

Tony Branco

Ann Coulter "One of the unintended consequences of teachers using COVID to refuse to do their jobs in 2020 is that their students suddenly had to take classes remotely -- within earshot of Dad. A mother at a fancy New York City private school told me that the wokeness curriculum was nothing new, but mothers never made a fuss about it. Then the fathers overheard their kids' remote classes -- and all hell broke loose.

"Now that the teachers' anti-white agenda has been exposed (thank you, fathers of America!), the left is spinning a series of increasingly hilarious defenses of "critical race theory," which is just a more boring version of the left's usual hatred of Western civilization.

"Their current position is that they simply can't discuss CRT with you because it's too complex and can only be understood by high-level graduate students after years of study.

"Paul Begala on CNN: "It's a graduate-level construct."

"CNN's Anderson Cooper: "It started in the '70s, as I understand, in sort of academic circles, law schools."

"'Dr." Ibram Kendi -- who is a "doctor" in the same sense that Jill Biden is -- explaining his position on CRT:

"I'm not a legal scholar. So I wasn't trained on critical race theory. I'm a historian. ... Critical race theory is taught in law schools. I didn't attend law school, which is where critical race theory is taught." . . .

Never forget the US left’s disgusting love affair with the Castro regime

 NY Post  . . . "It’s not easy to run a hideous dictatorship and still have fans and defenders in fashionable quarters, but the Castro dictatorship has managed it all of these decades.

"The mass, spontaneous protests that broke out all over the country last weekend are yet another sign that the Cuban government lacks all legitimacy. In Cuba, it is the government versus the people, and lo, all these years, Castro’s apologists have been with the government.

"They have romanticized Fidel Castro, the founder father of Cuba’s junta. They have swallowed its propaganda. They have made excuses for it. They have looked away from its crimes. And they have blamed America for its manifest failures." . . .

Cubans protesting communism with American flag because it's a symbol of freedom: Rep. Gimenez   fiddlesticks465:

If you ever wondered why the left despises the Star Spangled Banner, that is your answer in a nutshell. It is a universally accepted symbol of freedom, and they can't subvert it.

 

Useful idiots burn flag, chant "Death to America!"

Dear Reporters: The Capitol Riot Was Not 9/11

 

Rich Terrell

National Review  "There is a faction of the news media that seems stuck on January 6. They need to get some perspective. And political hucksters who claim that the Capitol riot was worse than the September 11 attacks deserve all the derision they get." . . .

. . . "There are three overlapping reasons why national political reporters may be inclined to excessively magnify and dwell upon January 6. One, ever since Watergate, there has been a journalistic culture among the national political You have 3 free articles remaining. > press of making reporters the hero of the story. It was not always like this;

" Robert Capa was not the story when he landed with the first wave on D-Day, and Ernie Pyle was not the story on Okinawa. But for people who spent four years comparing themselves to firefighters running toward danger whenever Trump tweeted at them, the allure of making this a story about peril to the press is irresistible. Two, of course, a lot of the Capitol Hill press corps is young — young enough that September 11 is a childhood memory and that “embedded reporter” evokes campaign coverage, not David Bloom and Michael Kelly riding to their deaths in Iraq. "

‘If You Hate the Culture War, Blame Liberals,’ Says Ex-Mother Jones Writer

Kevin Drum’s credentials as a member of the progressive Left do not seem to me to be in doubt; he wrote for Mother Jones for 12 years before going independent again. The quotation in the title of this post is the title of his new piece.

National Review

. . . "friends on the Left ever rest. They won’t say, “Well, we got what we wanted. I guess we’ll stop demanding changes for a while.” Whenever they win, they simply start a new fight.

"Kevin Drum’s credentials as a member of the progressive Left do not seem to me to be in doubt; he wrote for Mother Jones for 12 years before going independent again. The quotation in the title of this post is the title of his new piece.

 I’ve made this point many times before, and I want to make it again more loudly and more plainly today. It is not conservatives who have turned American politics into a culture war battle. It is liberals. And this shouldn’t come as a surprise: Almost by definition, liberals are the ones pushing for change while conservatives are merely responding to whatever liberals do. More specifically, progressives have been bragging publicly about pushing the Democratic Party leftward since at least 2004—and they’ve succeeded. 

Now, I’m personally happy about most of this. But that doesn’t blind me to the fact that “personally happy” means nothing in politics. What matters is what the median voter feels, and Democrats have been moving further and further away from the median voter for years:" . . .

"The charts that accompany his piece are pretty striking. Republicans have moved a little bit to the right on some things, and way to the left on same-sex marriage. Progressives keep taking huge leaps to the left on everything:" . . .

ANALYSIS: Why Does Joe Biden Want The Government To Evangelize For Vaccines?

 

Right of Center by Broc Smith.

The Door-to-Door Vaccination Salesman  

. . . "Unsurprisingly, the reaction from Republicans was swift and defiant. “How about don’t knock on my door,” said Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw. “You’re not my parents. You’re the government. Make the vaccine available, and let people be free to choose. Why is that concept so hard for the left?”

"Why indeed. Because “progressives” think they know everything and therefore make better decisions than you do. They can make you buy health insurance, make you celebrate someone else’s gender dysphoria, teach you what history to appreciate and which historical figures to hate, decide what generates your electricity, and spend your money more charitably.

Why can’t they knock on your door and kindly ask if you have a personal relationship with the COVID vaccine?

ANALYSIS: Why Does Joe Biden Want The Government To Evangelize For Vaccines?

Fox News’ Brit Hume Questions If AOC’s ‘Squad’ Has ‘Any Real Historical Knowledge’

Tony Branco

Lifezette  "Brit Hume went on Fox News on Sunday to respond to a tweet in which Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) claimed that black people were not “free.”...

“ 'When they say that the 4th of July is about American freedom, remember this: the freedom they’re referring to is for white people. This land is stolen land and Black people still aren’t free,” tweeted Bush, who is a member of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) radically liberal “Squad.”

"Hume fired back by questioning if members of the “Squad” have any real knowledge of history.

"“That’s one more sign of how open this country has become and how much more opportunity is available now to minority populations than ever used to be the case,” he said." . . .

Kayleigh McEnany Torches Lori Lightfoot For Saying Her Critics Are Racist And Sexist  . . . "McEnany, however, was not having any of it. She pointed to the surging crime rate in Chicago as she responded to Lightfoot.

“ 'I want to put up a cover that has haunted me ever since I saw it. It’s from last July of The New York Post,” McEnany told Fox News. “I’ll never forget seeing this. This was Davell Gardner. He was a 1-year-old at a barbecue when he lost his life, and that is his casket there' " . . .

Previous PREVIOUS Governor takes swipe at fellow GOP leaders over Covid-19 rules Governor takes swipe at fellow GOP leaders over Covid-19 rul… South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem took the podium at CPAC and cr… NEXT Next Up NEXT UP Jennifer Lopez needed to be happy alone Jennifer Lopez needed to be happy alone Jennifer Lopez says it was only after she discovered that sh… Naming the Capitol Cop Who Killed Unarmed Jan. 6 Rioter Ashli Babbitt

 Black Hills Pioneer    "Most police departments — including Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police — are required to release an officer’s name within days of a fatal shooting. Not the U.S. Capitol Police, which is controlled by Congress and answers only to Congress. It can keep the public in the dark about the identity and investigation of an officer involved in a shooting indefinitely.

"Which is what happened with the Jan. 6 shooting of Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed protester in the U.S. Capitol riot who was fatally wounded by a plainclothes police lieutenant as she attempted to breach a set of doors inside the building.

"For the past six months, as Congress has proposed legislation to reform  police departments across the country, the Capitol Police has stiff-armed government watchdogs, journalists and even lawyers for Babbitt, who have sought the identity of the officer and additional details about the shooting. The USCP still refuses to release his name, in stark contrast to recent high-profile police shootings around the nation." https://www.bhpioneer.com/naming-the-capitol-cop-who-killed-unarmed-jan-6-rioter-ashli-babbitt/article_2af763f7-8d33-56f6-81bc-3cb8826363f1.html

. . . "February 2019, Lt. Byrd was investigated for leaving his department-issued Glock-22 firearm unattended in a restroom on the House side of the Capitol, even though the potent weapon, which fires .40-caliber rounds, has no manual safety to prevent unintended firing. Fortunately, the abandoned gun was discovered by another officer during a routine security sweep. A Glock-22 was used in the Babbitt shooting.". . . 

Most Black People Oppose Olympic Protests Like Gwen Berry’s: I&I/TIPP Poll

 Issues & Insights

"When hammer thrower Gwen Berry decided to protest the national anthem at an Olympic trials event last month, she raised the prospect that athletes will try to use the Tokyo Olympics to disparage their own nation.

"If they do so, they will get precious little support at home.

The latest I&I/TIPP poll finds that the public overwhelmingly rejects athletes showing disrespect for the American flag at international games.

"The poll found that 79% of the public say it’s important “for professional athletes to publicly respect the American flag on the international level,” with 60% saying it is “very important.”

Just 16% of the adults surveyed think it’s not important.". . .  

Why Is Kamala The Last Democrat Still Arguing Against Voter I.D.?

 Legal Insurrection

Harris: It’s “almost impossible” for rural Americans to photocopy their i.d.

"I'm talking!"

"Having to prove one’s identity to vote is something that has always had majority approval among Americans.  Democrats, however and not that many months ago, contended that it was “racist” to expect “black and brown” people to get a voter i.d.  It’s too hard, it’s unattainable (even when free), and they simply can’t manage it at all.

"This tune changed recently, however, with top Democrats and even the “real governor” of Georgia not only saying voter i.d. is fine, good even, but that they had never been against it in the first place.  A demonstrable lie.

"The most common analysis suggested that it was poll-based.  And while I do agree that the polls suggested this was a losing issue for Democrats, it always has been.  They just didn’t care.

"So what changed their tune?  Vaccine passports is my guess.  They can’t claim that “black and brown” voting blocs (how insulting and disgusting is that dehumanizing leftist construction?!) cannot manage a voter i.d. while simultaneously claiming these exact same people can somehow manage to figure out not only how and where to get vaccinated but how to obtain their vaccine passport.

"So suddenly, not only is voter i.d. a good idea, great even, but it was actually the Democrats’ idea in the first place!  They never said otherwise!  Really.

"Somehow, Kamala Harris, who is currently occupying the office of the Vice President, never got the memo.  As usual.  She’s always a day late and a dollar short . . . not to mention, out of touch, tone deaf, politically inept, and “completely wacky.” . . . (Emphases in the original.)

Embarrassing, completely out of touch, disingenuous, and condescending . . . . If memory serves, this is exactly why Democrat primary voters rejected her so totally in 2019-20 that she didn’t even stick around for the first Democrat primary vote.