Article by Mary Margaret Olohan in "The Daily Caller":
Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley condemned Monday’s Supreme Court
decision on LGBT anti-discrimination Tuesday, saying the ruling spelled
the “end of the conservative legal movement.”
“If this case
makes anything clear, it’s that the bargain that’s been offered to
religious conservatives for years now is a bad one,” Hawley said in a
Senate floor speech Tuesday. “It’s time to reject it.”
WATCH:
The Missouri senator’s comments came after the Supreme Court ruled in
a 6 – 3 decision Monday that federal law protects LGBT and transgender
employees from discrimination under the same statute that bans unequal
treatment in the workplace based on sex.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch
joined the court’s four liberal judges in focusing on the text of Title
VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, language prohibiting discrimination
“because of” sex. Title VII may be enforced as long as sex is part of
the discrimination, the justices ruled.
Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas all
dissented. Alito accused the court of “usurping the constitutional
authority of the other branches,” while Kavanaugh emphasized that “we
are judges, not members of Congress,” and said that the ruling was brought about by “judicial dictate” rather than a “hard-earned victory won through the democratic process.”
Hawley
said Tuesday that the ruling, which he called a “piece of legislation,”
changes the scope, meaning, an text of the Civil Rights Act, and will
have implications that range from employment law, to sports and to
churches.
“You might well argue it is one of the most significant
and far reaching updates to that historic piece of legislation since it
was adopted all of those years ago,” Hawley said.
“There’s
only one problem,” he added. “It was issued by a court, not by a
legislature. It was written by judges, not by the elected
representatives of the people.”
The Missouri Republican said that the SCOTUS decision “represents the
end of the conservative legal movement or the conservative legal
project as we know it.”
“After Bostock, that effort as we know
it, as it has existed up until now, it’s over,” Hawley said. “And I say
this because if textualism and originalism give you this decision, if
you can invoke textualism and originalism in order to reach a decision,
an outcome that fundamentally changes the scope and meaning and
application of statutory law, then textualism and originalism and all
those phrases don’t mean much at all.”
Just one day after a Jewish NYC lawmaker promised to “cut off
the chains” to reopen the city’s playgrounds, three members of an
informal #RESIST group did just that.
On Sunday, State Sen. Simcha Felder “slammed” NYC Mayor Bill de
Blasio — both Democrats — for refusing to re-open playgrounds in Jewish
neighborhoods.
Then on Monday, the Daily Newsreported that “members of the Orthodox Jewish community used bolt cutters to ‘liberate’ a Brooklyn playground the city welded shut.”
The gate had been welded shut by city workers after 25 previous
#RESISTANCE acts of cutting chains that had closed the playground to NYC
kids, predominantly Jewish.
ASIDE: I’ve liberated the #RESIST tag from the Left
because this is what real resistance to genuinely arbitrary authority
looks like.
De Blasio had resisted reopening playgrounds on so-called “public
safety” concerns about COVID-19, while at the same time allowing — and even encouraging — demonstrations like this one: A City Parks spokesweasel warned on Monday night, “Playgrounds across
the City are closed for the safety of our children,” but that isn’t
exactly true.
The Daily Wire reported
that Felder accused de Blasio of “‘catering’ to donors and supporters
by allowing playgrounds to remain open in some city districts, while
chaining and welding gates shut in others.”
Felder argued that opening NYC playgrounds is a matter of
public safety: “The kids are playing with each other, they are playing
in the street, they are playing in unsafe conditions instead of having
the playgrounds open.”
This isn’t exactly de Blasio’s first controversy involving NYC’s Orthodox Jewish community.
Back in May, de Blasio issued a Cease and Desist order closing down
the city’s Jewish day schools, an official act more difficult to #RESIST
with a simple set of bolt cutters. Again, de Blasio cited public health
concerns, even though the CDC’s own report doesn’t support shutting down schools.
Earlier today the NYPD shut down a Yeshiva conducting classes with as many as 70 children. I can’t stress how dangerous this is for our young people. We’re issuing a Cease and Desist Order and will make sure we keep our communities and our kids safe.
De Blasio talks about keeping “kids safe,” despite
acknowledging himself on a recent news appearance that the Wuhan virus
is a threat mostly to people in their 70s and 80s. Here’s the clip,
along with some Twitter reaction.
And that came just three weeks after de Blasio had ordered police to arrest Jewish mourners at the funeral of a beloved NYC Rabbi, Chaim Mertz.
De Blasio said then, “I went there myself to ensure the crowd was
dispersed. And what I saw WILL NOT be tolerated so long as we are
fighting the Coronavirus.”
Unlike, say, an anti-police protest, the Orthodox mourners were seen
wearing masks and whenever possible following social-distancing
guidelines.
The unofficial Jewish #RESIST movement against de Blasio’s seeming bigotry escalated even further on Monday with a new civil rights lawsuit, just filed against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York Attorney General Letitia James, along with de Blasio in federal court.
The NYC-based Algemeiner reports that the “lawsuit accuses
the three top officials of an apparent double standard as it pertains to
allowing protesters to exercise their First Amendment [rights] over the
death of George Floyd.”
With plenty of evidence to back it up, the suit also claims that
“Favored businesses, entities and activities, as well as favored mass
demonstrations such as those over the death of George Floyd, are totally
exempt from the challenged gathering limits.”
This, the suit says, “unduly burdens plaintiffs’ sincerely held religious beliefs.”
Howard Slugh, who founded and serves as general counsel for the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty, said:
The Free Exercise Clause, at a minimum, means that
religious adherents cannot be treated worse than their neighbors unless
the government has a compelling need to do so… New York may face a
difficult burden in proving that it can meet that standard.
What my son heard was that he is racist and doesn’t even know it, and that his parents and grandparents provided this legacy to him.
At the direction of the Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, New York City Public Schools have taken the opportunity of the protests surrounding George Floyd’s murder to teach fourth graders about systemic racism and white privilege. But for the children who are either immigrants themselves or the children of immigrants—which is much of the class—and for my son who is the only white kid in the class, this was not a lesson that decreases racism, but one that verges on instilling it.
For the kids who are Chinese, Arab, or whose families come from Mexico, Central and South America, the lesson on racism between whites and blacks was just another study section that came with right and wrong answers. They learned that the country to which their parents had decided to journey from their homes abroad was founded on racist ideology and that, because it is permanently ingrained, there’s nothing that can be done about it. My son learned that he is perpetuating the problem of racism, and that he doesn’t even know how he’s doing it, and that his whole family is racist, even if they don’t think they are. The kids also learned that there’s no way to fix it.
Other than a few packets during Black History Month, fourth graders have not yet learned about the Civil Rights movement or the enslavement of Africans and their descendants in bondage. But they are now learning that the United States is founded on racism, that racism is the pervasive undercurrent in American governance, law enforcement, social interaction, employment, literature, arts, entertainment, real estate, and education.
What this means is that the school is teaching kids how to interpret history before they learn the history they are meant to interpret. They’re telling kids what opinions to have before they’re giving the facts about which that opinion should be formed. Educators are making sure that these fourth graders look at history through the lens of critical race theory before they even know what that history is.
The lessons on George Floyd, the protests, the ensuing riots, police brutality, anti-black racism by whites, and systemic racism focussed solely on the issues between white and black Americans. There are no black kids in the class, so for everyone except my son, who was asked to consider problematic whiteness on a personal and familial level, this was an intellectual exercise.
This was a two part lesson, and as it happened over video conference, I listened in. The fourth grade teachers first wanted to assess how much the kids knew about what was going on, asking questions as to if they knew what protests are, and what happened to George Floyd a few weeks ago. One kid got big laughs when he made the mistake of thinking that a protest was a professional level test.
His teacher asked if they knew why this was happening, and another boy piped up to say that it was because “a cop accidentally killed George Floyd, and now they’re protesting and stuff.”
My son said, “No, that wasn’t an accident. He did that with his free will.”
Another teacher asked him a direct question, “The looting, the thing where they’re stealing things from stores and protesting, do you think that is the same thing or two separate things?”
“Two separate things,” he said.
“I was just curious,” she replied. “The protesting is marching, and the looting is something different.”
The instructors spoke at length about the difference between protests and rioting. One teacher piped up, and said “It’s very important to remember too that a lot of the people who are doing the looting and rioting are different than the people who are doing the peaceful protesting.”
“Rioting,” his teacher explained, “is when people are vandalizing property, they’re burning buildings, they’re breaking stores, like the front display windows… looting is when people go into a store and they steal from the store.”
A little girl said that George Floyd was chased by police. The teacher corrected her. “So they didn’t chase him, what happened is they had him on the ground, and one of the police officers had his knee on George Floyd’s neck, so it was actually like they were crushing his throat, so it was very difficult for him to breathe.”
I don’t know how many kids watched the video of a man being murdered. I did not show the video to my son. It is a gruesome, and horrible video to watch, and I find it unlikely that the parents of these fourth graders showed them the video of a man’s death.
The teacher described the killing in graphic terms before saying “but today what we’re going to talk about is systemic racism. Does anybody have anything that they might know about systemic racism? I know you’ve heard of racism, but this is a little different, it’s called systemic racism. And we’re going to watch a video on it, because this video does a good job of explaining it all to you.”
With that, they put on the video. It was one of a selection of video resources that were provided by the New York City Department of Education. This is that video:
It shows the social differences between a white boy and a black boy in terms of education and wealth due to prejudicial practices on the parts of banks, realtors, school funding, and employers. The video points out the barbaric practices of redlining, whereby black families were kept out of certain neighborhoods, and how property taxes have a direct impact on school funding. Those are facts. The analysis was not.
“A big part of systemic racism,” the video says, “is implicit bias. These are prejudices in society that people are not aware that they have.” It states that “Unfortunately, the biggest problem of systemic racism is that there’s no single person or entity responsible for it. Which makes it very hard to solve.”
“Systemic problems,” the video says, “require systemic solutions. Luckily, we’re all part of the system, which means that we all have a role to play in making it better.”
The kids were asked what systemic racism meant, one boy said “I think it means like a system if your grandparents are rich or poor, then they pass that whatever they’re experiencing onto you so it makes the cycle harder to break, I think?”
“Yes,” one of them said, “it’s actually like racism in our system that has been passed on for centuries. So stemming all the way back to when black people were slaves, to when there was segregation in the world, I don't know if you guys learned about that yet. In fifth grade you’re going to learn about how African-Americans during the time of segregation everything was separate… So even though that has changed, there’s still things in our system in our world that are reflecting on racism. So what were some things that you learned from the video?”
My son answered “that it’s bad.”
“Okay, how so?”
“Black kids don’t get as much stuff as white kids, therefore making it harder for them to have an education, a job, or any money, even a house.”
Another girl said “systemic racism affects black people’s wealth, income, criminal justice, and basically everything.”
These kids in class felt bad for the kid in the video. The teachers and students ran down the ways that black people in the US have a hard time. They were discussed as a people in peril, as victims, as other. The lesson was that generations of racism have made people themselves unequal. The kids in class expressed pity for the boy in the video. One boy asked why there is still racism, since everyone knows about it.
“Unfortunately,” a teacher said, “a lot of racism stems from the home. And just like the video, a lot of people’s grandparents were raised a certain way, and things were different back then, and then their parents learn it and their children learn it, and we need to stop it.
And it’s hard, too, because you learn first from your parents and from your family, and we need to learn how to love everyone, and skin color should not matter at all, so this is what we’re trying to do, we need to be the change, and we need to make a difference. And you need to form your own opinions.”
What my son heard was that he is racist and doesn’t even know it, and that his parents and grandparents provided this legacy to him. I told him that we need to treat all people with respect, kindness, and with a generosity of heart, and that skin colour is not indicative of a person’s heart.
The second part of the lesson took place the following school day. The teachers recapped Friday’s lesson, saying that white people are more likely to get a job, a house, and a decent education than a black person, because this has been "built into our system for generations and generations."
This time they showed videos from The New York Times. The final video shows a series of self-flagellating white people who twist themselves into pretzel shapes to try to imagine that they are both not racist and very, very racist at the same time.
It was when the teachers raised the issue of white privilege that my son said he felt weird being the only white kid in the conference. He couldn’t tell if he was supposed to feel bad for the kids who are mistreated or feel bad about himself for being racist or if there was anything he could do about it anyway since these problems are ingrained and that he would be racist even if he didn’t think he was.
No answer was given as to what action these kids should take to either be not racist or to see that racism does not throttle our country for generations onward.
If racism is a systemic problem, and we’re teaching kids to create systemic solutions, what does that look like to a ten year old? Instead of teaching kids about all of the disadvantages their peers have, which basically leads to pity, why not teach kids about how all people are created equally, and we should meet each other where we stand? What are 10 year olds supposed to do about systemic racism, or racism at all? Aren’t they better positioned to simply not be racist?
This kind of indoctrination will not make white kids think differently about their own biases, but will instead create biases where there perhaps were none before, and that goes doubly for the children who are in immigrant families. Dividing kids by race leads kids to think they should divide themselves by race, emotionally, socially, and institutionally. It’s easy to prove this, just look at the segregated graduation ceremonies and proms in schools today.
There’s no evidence to suggest that making students pity other students for their economic disadvantages will lead to a mindset of equality. Yet New York City Schools are not alone in thinking that this is the way to go. Brown University, as well as so many other academic institutions, jumped on board as well.
I reached out to my son’s teachers for comment, and they responded saying, “I am not comfortable and cannot comment on the record but I would be happy to discuss any concerns you have as a parent and not as a journalist. For the conversations we had we followed the Chancellor’s regulations and guidelines on addressing the issue… I feel that it's not really appropriate to be using our classroom as research.”
I can totally relate, since the indoctrination of my 10-year-old into the world of critical race theory seems “not really appropriate” to me.
Comrade Lightfoot explains why the Chicago Ministry of COVID Compliance needed to cancel the days-off for all police officers, and extend all shifts to 12 hrs per day.
According to the Chicago Mayor, the city will be deploying “Social Distancing Ambassadors” to help citizens accept their social responsibility. The monitors will assist the public remaining disengaged from human contact as the Ministry begins permitting citizens to exit the confines of their homes. Drone enforcement could likely assist.
No word on the specifics, but Chicago scientists have apparently identified a hybrid form of the virus that will attack outdoor residents who enter a six foot danger-zone in proximity to another person. The ministry has determined Blue state residents are safe at distances exceeding 6 feet. However, inside that zone, at 4 or 5 feet or less, the virus creates a rapid death spiral and attacks with increased ferocity. It is currently unknown why the proximity strain of the virus responds differently in Red states.
Blue State proximity infection is dangerous. Unless, of course, the proximity variable is influenced by the third factor of vegetables or groceries; which have been identified as generating a safe zone as outlined in local supermarkets. As a consequence, jogging without groceries requires the proximity police, aka “Social Distancing Ambassadors.”
According to city officials, these new exterior compliance officers should help reduce the influx of residents currently jogging in grocery stores. Remember, we are all in this together; and to prove how critical this is to the fabric of our society, we must all stay apart.
The COVID-19 virus seems incapable of keeping up with the speed of passenger vehicles, buses, airplanes and trains. However, once you exit your COVID compliant transportation, the Blue State virus can swoop down and attack you if you are in the proximity of a open-space park or beach.
The Ministry appreciates our compliance in avoiding the dangerous virus freedom zones; and is thankful for compliant citizens who do not question the complex data analysis that goes into regional scientific tracking systems.
The Red State rebel alliance has noted the specifically random viral targeting appears much more prevalent in the regions where people formerly wore genitalia on their heads. However, despite the obvious correlation, there is not enough conclusive scientific data assembled to quantify the merit of this claim. Confirmation efforts remain ongoing.
The Unified Blue State Ministry would like to remind you the greatest danger is the type of purchasing you make. Large box retailers with dense populations are safe-spaces. Smaller business with less density are hazards; and houses of religious worship are death traps due to their propensity to promote the most critically dangerous activity of all, fellowship.
By opening his courtroom to John Gleeson and other anti-Flynn amici, Judge Sullivan has converted the judicial branch into an emissary of the Democratic Party.
Media reports following Friday’s oral argument in the Michael Flynn criminal case focused on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ apparent hesitancy to order Judge Emmet Sullivan to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn. But a second and more troubling theme went unnoticed: the further politicalizing of the judicial system.
The right has long condemned the unfortunate conversion of the third branch from a neutral arbiter of the law to a politically motivated policymaker. No longer do judges say what the law is; they pretend the law says what they want it to say. Last week’s oral argument exposed a further degeneration of our supposedly impartial judiciary—that judges are moving beyond policymaking to outright electioneering.
Sullivan, the trial judge presiding over the Flynn criminal case, crossed that line when he appointed retired judge John Gleeson to serve as an amicus curiae, or friend of the court, and direct Gleeson to oppose the government’s motion to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn. Flynn, who had entered into a plea agreement with the special prosecutor’s office for making false statements to FBI agents, sought to withdraw his plea and have the charge dismissed based on ineffective assistance of counsel and evidence of prosecutorial misconduct.
While that motion remained pending, an independent review of the case by Missouri-based U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen revealed prosecutors had withheld material exculpatory evidence from Flynn. Based on his review and that evidence, Jensen recommended dismissal of the charge against Flynn.
Following this recommendation, the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia filed a motion to dismiss the charge against Flynn, supporting that motion with a detailed explanation of the Department of Justice’s reasoning, along with copies of the evidence improperly withheld from Flynn. Yet rather than dismiss the case, Judge Sullivan announced he would accept amicus curiae briefs from the public, then appointed Gleeson as a friend to the court to argue against dismissal.
Appointing a Deeply Biased ‘Friend of the Court’
Sullivan’s selection of Gleeson gave the game away because, just two days earlier, Gleeson’s co-authored anti-Flynn, anti-Trump op-ed ran in the Washington Post. In that opinion article, Gleeson argued the charge against Flynn should not be dismissed and proclaimed “the record reeks of improper political influence.”
When Gleeson filed his amicus brief last week with the trial court, just days before the D.C. Circuit’s oral argument, he provided Sullivan everything he wanted and then some. In a 70-page screed, far exceeding the 25-page maximum allowed by court rules—a standard Sullivan waived for the purpose—Gleeson took America on a reunion tour of the Russia collusion hoax, before impugning the integrity of Attorney General William Barr and President Donald Trump. Flynn was once again merely collateral damage.
So obvious was Gleeson’s political hit that even the soft-spoken Judge Karen Henderson branded the amicus “intemperate” and his brief “over the top” during last week’s oral argument before the D.C. Circuit. But by then the press had already presented Gleeson’s brief as conclusive evidence of malfeasance—by Flynn, Barr, and Trump—establishing Gleeson’s brief served as the judicial equivalent of the Christopher Steele dossier.
Political Cronyism Endemic to This Case
Using the law firm of Perkins and Coie as a conduit, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) funded the conspiracy claims Steele peddled to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and DOJ. The FBI and DOJ then provided the Clinton team a government assist in the 2016 election year targeting of the Trump campaign.
Now we see Gleeson enlisted a cadre of lawyers to help craft the “over the top” brief he provided Sullivan as the court-appointed amicus. The handful of lawyers named on Gleeson’s brief included donors to Biden for President, as well as a former Obama administration attorney who later represented Trump-fired former DOJ official Sally Yates during her congressional testimony concerning Crossfire Hurricane.
Maybe Biden and the DNC didn’t compensate these lawyers for their work, but heading into the 2020 election, the Democrat presidential candidate surely benefitted from this pro bono work. And by opening his courtroom to Gleeson and other anti-Flynn amici, Judge Sullivan has converted the judicial branch into an emissary of the Democratic Party, much as James Comey and Andrew McCabe converted the FBI into an opposition-research arm of the DNC.
Government Backing of Politically Biased Attacks
Further, just as the FBI’s briefing to Trump on the “salacious and unverified dossier” created an appearance of legitimacy to the Democrat propaganda, Judge Sullivan provided a government imprimatur to the anti-Trump ramblings in Gleeson’s brief. While in the case of Steele’s dossier, someone needed to leak details of Comey’s briefing of the dossier to Trump to the media, Judge Sullivan’s public docket provides the press access to the friends of Biden brief.
And the media responded predictably: “Outsider Tapped in Flynn Case Calls Justice Dept. Reversal a ‘Gross Abuse’ of Power,” The New York Times proclaimed. “A former federal judge said that the attorney general gave special treatment to a presidential ally, undermining public confidence in the rule of law,” the Times continued.
The Washington Post parroted this narrative in its coverage of Gleeson’s filing, writing that “a former federal judge appointed to review the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss criminal charges against President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn said there was evidence of a ‘gross abuse’ of prosecutorial power and that the request should be denied.”
Ruining a Man’s Life for Political Revenge
During Friday’s oral argument, Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell and the DOJ, represented by Principal Deputy Solicitor General Jeff Wall, entreated the D.C. Circuit to end the spectacle Judge Sullivan started. Powell, who had petitioned the appellate court for mandamus—legal jargon for an order directing a lower court to act as required by law—stressed the toll to her client from the unnecessary prolonging of the proceedings, calling it “irreparable harm.”
“The harms are obvious to General Flynn,” Wall concurred, but further argued that the politicization of the process necessitated the appellate court to act now, rather than wait for Judge Sullivan to hold a hearing on the government’s motion to dismiss in mid-July.
“We can’t ignore that it is playing out in a politicized environment that has been made worse by” the 70-page amicus curiae brief, “which alleges the president and attorney general have engaged in great misconduct,” Wall stressed. Judge Sullivan’s behavior threatens not merely “the executive and its prosecutorial discretion and its deliberative process, but frankly, threatens to do harm to the judiciary as well,” Wall added.
“The court has to take account of the fact that [Judge Sullivan’s] brief and amicus impugn the motives of the attorney general of the United States,” the DOJ attorney argued, and that is going to pull the judiciary into a political fight.
Obama Appointee Plays the Race Card
That clearly was what Judge Sullivan wanted when he named Gleeson as amicus mere days after Gleeson co-authored the anti-Flynn op-ed. But even more disconcerting than Sullivan’s politicization of the process was the suggestion by a second member of the appellate panel, Obama appointee Judge Robert Wilkins, that the judicial branch should engage in such a ploy. Wilkins made that suggestion with an emotive hypothetical that, had the press played along, could have triggered more of the violent protests we have seen over the last two weeks.
In questioning Wall on the government’s position, Judge Wilkins asked whether a district court judge must grant the government’s motion to dismiss an excessive force case against a white police officer where “the prosecutor was dismissing the case because it did not believe that a white police officer should have to answer for using excessive force on a black defendant.”
Dismissal would be required in that case, Wall explained, because the court cannot force “the executive to keep the case alive.” But in that circumstance, “for that kind of equal protection violation,” Wall continued, the remedy would be in other cases where a black defendant faced prosecution that a white accused avoided.
Judge Wilkins raised the hypothetical again later, positing that where such racist motives were in play a federal judge should refuse to dismiss the case to put political pressure on the prosecutor: “So why isn’t it the case if the government makes a considered but racist decision, that it just doesn’t want to have a white officer stand trial for excessive force on a black victim, that the district court can deny the motion and then the political chips can fall where they may, and perhaps under pressure on the public or Congress or whatever, the district court may not be able itself to force the government to prosecute the case, [but] maybe from the pressures from the media, a new prosecutor is appointed and the case proceeds?”
Wall reiterated the government’s position that a court cannot force the executive to keep the case alive, but also stressed that “we don’t have anything like that here.” That fact, coupled with the tinder-box atmosphere that has enveloped the country for the last two weeks, is what made Judge Wilkins’ question so shocking.
Why Politicizing the Courts Is Bad for America
Yes, judges pose difficult hypotheticals during oral argument to push the limits of a party’s position, but this case had nothing to do with race or excessive force, or even an allegedly unconstitutional motive underlying the government’s motion to dismiss the charge against Flynn. One must wonder if Judge Wilkins formulated this line of questioning for the press, envisioning politically damaging headlines of “Trump’s DOJ Say It Has Right Not to Prosecute White Police Officers.”
At a minimum, Judge Wilkins acted imprudently in presenting this hypothetical, given the publicity surrounding Friday’s hearing and the ability for false narratives to speed quickly on social media. With as many as 17 people killed in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, it was irresponsible for the appellate judge to suggest—even in a hypothetical—that racism might prompt the federal government to refuse to prosecute a white police officer in an excessive force case involving a black victim.
Judge Wilkins’s further suggestion that a court should refuse to dismiss criminal charges to allow the media, the public, and politicians to exert enough pressure that “a new prosecutor is appointed and the case proceeds” is troubling for a different reason: It exposes that Wilkins views the judiciary as a political creature, and not the impartial branch—blind to emotions and unmoved by the passions or pleas of the public—our Founders entrusted to interpret the law.
Given Judge Wilkins’ query, he clearly intends to allow Judge Sullivan to continue the political spectacle he started with the appointment of Gleeson, and may even join in with a politically charged concurrence or dissent when the D.C. Circuit rules on Flynn’s mandamus petition, which is likely to come later this week or next. What that ruling will be, though, is anyone’s guess, because, while Judge Naomi Rao seemed inclined to grant mandamus, Judge Henderson seemed reticent to intercede until Judge Sullivan issues a decision on the motion to dismiss in the first instant.
But Judge Henderson also made clear her view that the motion to dismiss should be granted. The question Judge Henderson is likely still grappling with is whether the harms Powell and Wall laid out—to Flynn, to the executive branch, and judiciary—justify ending the spectacle now. For Flynn’s sake, and for our country’s sake, hopefully she answers yes.
Meanwhile, New York Manufacturing Index “Unexpectedly” Surges
The U.S. media are in ideological alignment with blue state governors and congressional democrats to hype COVID-19 panic as a method to keep the economy from reopening. To advance this narrative the crowds during mass protects they approve of are ignored; but any crowd at an event they do not align with is used to push panic. Everyone can see this.
The New York manufacturing index shocked everyone earlier today showing a strong rebound. The index “unexpectedly” surged 48 points in June surprising all economic forecasters. Meanwhile, National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow appears on Fox News to discuss the dynamics.
As Kudlow notes, President Trump is looking to use any potential phase-4 legislative package to inject a massive ‘America First’ boost, via tax incentives for manufacturing business interests to return to the U.S. The administration does not see a need for additional direct spending, bailouts, or continued payments; however, this is an opportunity to provide tax incentives to boost U.S-centric economic activity.
It’s important to remember the dynamic of U.S. multinationals (Wall St), and how many of them align with Democrat and media efforts to hold down the U.S. economy. There are trillions at stake.
Wall Street multinationals are attempting to retain their prior investments in China and southeast Asia; the last thing they want is an incentive program (expensing, tax relief etc) putting pressure on them to return jobs and manufacturing to the United States. The multinationals prefer their decades-long built globalist supply chains that they paid congress to create.
Because of the specific interests, and the ideology, the multinationals, U.S. media, the resistance movement and democrat politicians are in alignment to support Wall Street against President Trump’s America-First agenda.
The singular force fighting for the benefit of Main Street USA is President Trump and his economic war council. In essence the Trump administration is in a battle against all the global interests, foreign and domestic, who are determined to keep the U.S. economy from expanding and getting stronger.
These are all simply different battles, with varying levels of escalation, in an economic policy war that has been waged for over three years. President Trump is fighting to deconstruct a globalist system created over decades. We are now at the apex of the battle where no political weapons are out-of-bounds… including the weaponization of viruses; and the political deployment of highly controlled racial reserve units.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Manufacturing activity in New York State stabilized unexpectedly in June after three months of broad weakness brought on by coronavirus-related business shutdowns, and companies’ six-month outlook shot to a decade high, the New York Federal Reserve said on Monday.
The regional Fed bank’s Empire State Manufacturing Index surged 48 points to a reading of negative 0.2 from negative 48.5 in May. Economists polled by Reuters were looking for a reading of negative 29.8, according to the survey median. (link)
Article by Brandon Morse in "RedState": As the trend of tearing down statues gains steam, one leader is
taking a stand and making it clear that no statues are coming down no
matter what the subject of the statue did during their lifetime.
French
President Emmanuel Macron released a video statement that made it clear
that racism is deplorable but that France’s history is what it is. As
such, no statue will be torn down regardless of the reasoning for it.
“We
will be inflexible when it comes to tackling racism, anti-Semitism and
discrimination, and new strong decisions will be made to reinforce the
egality of chances,” Macron said in the video. “But this noble fight is
perverted when it turns into communitarianism, into a false rewriting of
history.”
“This is unacceptable when it is picked up by
separatists. I tell you very clearly tonight my dear fellow citizens,
the Republic will not erase any trace or name from its history,” he
continued. “It will not forget any of its deeds or take down any statue.
What we need to do is to look all together with lucidity on all of our
history and all our memory. Our relation to Africa in particular so we
can build a present and a possible future from one to the other side of
the Mediterranean.”
As of late, tearing down statues has become a direct response to the
regaining of societal prominence of Black Lives Matter, which
piggybacked itself into the spotlight by riding on the back of George
Floyd’s murder.
Since then, hard-left groups across the western
world have utilized the Black Lives Matter movement as a way to begin
acting out, push for sweeping reforms, and generate groundswell for
socialist systems.
The tearing down of statues issue has been one
of the actions most reported on. Groups such as Antifa or Black Lives
Matter will select a statue to be torn down and give reasons why based
on racist actions that were taken or words that were said that, in their
day, seemed perfectly reasonable.
Sadly, it doesn’t have to
include much racism at all. The statue of Winston Churchill in London is
in the crosshairs by many leftist groups simply because Churchill reportedly said some racist things during his lifetime,
with some claims going so far that he’s hardly differentiated from a
Nazi, the very group that Churchill went to war with and helped defeat.
Many of these claims of racism have been taken out of context, but it appears that no context is needed anyway.
One London leader doesn’t even know who Churchill is, yet is still in support of taking his statue down. Even
if you were against slavery and worked to bring equality to the black
people in America, your statue will still be vandalized as abolitionist Matthias Baldwin’s statue was.
You
can find a good many sins in any given person’s closet, and attitudes
and verbiage that seemed completely in-line with the thinking of the
time may be completely horrid today, and fair enough. Humanity learns
from its mistakes and we evolve socially because of it. There can be no
evolution if our past is completely wiped, however. While some statues
may be justified in their removal, blindly tearing them down does
nothing to help our society at all.
Emmanuel Macron has the right
idea, but this shouldn’t be considered a bold stance. It should be more
along the lines of common sense.
Hindsight is still sight and it does no good to blind ourselves.
New coronavirus reports from Beijing are very sketchy. According to Chinese authorities they have identified a new strain of coronavirus at a massive wholesale food market in Beijing called the Xinfadi Market. They are blaming “European Salmon”…
Beijing officials have reported 79 cases over the past four days, the biggest concentration of infections since February. The spate of new cases prompted officials in many parts of the city to swiftly bring back tough counter-epidemic measures, with at least three districts entering “war-time mode.”
Measures imposed included erecting round-the-clock security checkpoints, closing schools and sports venues, and reinstating temperature checks at malls, supermarkets and office buildings. CNBC REPORT:
There have been several economic reports that China’s manufacturing economy is contracting. Considering a desperate dragon…. It would not be out of place to consider that Beijing would react to losing an economic war, or even economic position, by trying to unleash a globally mitigating virus intended to target their geopolitical adversaries [Hong Kong, Taiwan and the U.S.]
This zero-sum outlook is EXACTLY how the Chinese red dragon thinks!
We have been engaged in an undeclared economic war. Perhaps it’s time we made an official and public declaration; and strategically, openly, aligned all U.S. interests toward economic combat.
Racism is bad. It’s not just bad, it’s the worst. It’s ridiculous that I even have to say that in 2020, yet here we are. Since nobody seems to want to say it, I will. We must end racism- like, right now.
We can end it, and it’s not even that hard. The only thing we have to do is separate everyone by their race and ethnicity and appoint strong leaders to ensure all the races receive equal treatment. Like, even though they are separate, they’re still equal. It’s a brilliant and much-needed strategy I just now thought of.
The other thing we have to do is eliminate all color-blindness from our society. We must ensure that people look at everyone else primarily through the lens of skin color. It’s the only way to defeat racism. If everyone thinks of their fellow humans as a skin color above all else, it will ensure we recognize and honor those skin colors according to how much oppression they have experienced.
Some say my proposals are racist, but that’s stupid because they are the racist ones. They don’t even realize that “not being racist” is actually the most racist thing you can do because it allows racism to continue.
The only thing big enough to defeat racism is a bigger, more powerful form of racism, like regular racism only a lot more of it and also reversed.
If America follows this simple plan, we will stop being racist, which will actually be racist, and will then require a new and innovative form of reverse-reverse racism to combat it.
But we will cross that bridge when we come to it. Death to America.
He has said the US plans to withdraw 9,500 American troops from
Germany, accusing the country of being "delinquent" in its payments to
Nato.
So what does the US contribute towards maintaining Nato compared with the other members?
What do Nato members spend?
Nearly 70% of the total spending on defence by Nato member governments is accounted for by the US.
But the US is a global superpower, with military commitments around the world, and not just in Europe.
In
terms of its gross domestic product (GDP) (the total value of goods
produced and services) the US spent roughly 3.4% on defence in 2019,
according to Nato estimates, while the average in European Nato
countries and Canada was 1.55%.
Nato's running costs are met by a common funding arrangement based on each country's national income. This is to cover:
civilian staff and administrative costs of Nato headquarters
joint operations, strategic commands, radar and early warning systems, training and liaison
defence communications systems, airfields, harbours and fuel supplies
The civilian and military budget for 2019 was set at about €1.67bn (£1.43; $1.84bn), according to Nato figures.
The
US was paying for just over 22% of this, while Germany's contribution
was 14.76%, and France and the UK just under 10.5% each.
The rest was shared by the other members of the alliance.
But this will change after a new payment formula was agreed in 2019.
"For
the period 2021-2024, cost shares attributed to most European allies
and Canada will increase, while the United States' share will decrease,"according to the 2019 Nato annual report.
Under the new arrangements, the US contribution will gradually drop to 16%.
According to people on the Twitter this young black woman is Beverly Beatty, and the conversation is in/around the occupied territory known as CHAZ. That said, Ms. Beatty delivers a remarkably effective two minute elevator speech; to an urban white liberal.
What the video shows is an empowered delivery of Red Pill truth. WATCH:
There are many more people like Ms. Beverly Beatty than Democrats would ever admit. These empowered, articulate voices for conservative freedom -regardless of race- are antithetical to the political interests of the DNC. Strong in the truth is this young lady. Well done.
The Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS) reinterpretation
of a federal prohibition against employment discrimination based on sex
— which now includes sexual orientation and “gender identity” — will
“create a tsunami of new litigation” against religious organizations,
explained Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, offering her remarks on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with host Rebecca Mansour.
The Supreme Court’s legal redefinition of “sex” to include sexual
orientation and “gender identity” opens the door for further left-wing
lawfare against religious organizations, Severino noted.
Severino said, “The Supreme Court
left a lot of really important issues open, like, how do you balance
this with religious freedom? How do you balance it with freedom of
speech? If you’ve got a law, for example, saying that using someone’s
preferred pronoun is mandatory — or you can be fined [for
non-compliance], how do we balance that with some of these other
important and even constitutional questions? Those are things that, for
the most part, are unfortunately
going to be just decided by a whole range of lower courts. and it will
be a long time before the Supreme Court even takes up the opportunity to
weigh in on that.”
Severino predicted, “These questions
are going to create a tsunami of new litigation and create a huge
amount of uncertainty going forward.” The Supreme Court’s decision to extend prohibitions against
employment discrimination to include sexual orientation and “gender
identity” will place religious and traditional organizations at a legal
disadvantage when they are inevitably sued by left-wing outfits.
“You’re going to see these decisions
going overwhelmingly in favor of the litigants [and] the plaintiffs who
are challenging any religious
organization, or any school, or anyone who wants to maintain a
traditional, biologically based, scientific-based understanding of sex,”
Severino forecasted.
“The logic that the court embraced” sets in motion a legal momentum
for lower courts to render future decisions in favor of plaintiffs suing
religious and traditional organizations for their personnel decisions,
Severino anticipated.
Mansour asked if religious organizations would surrender to left-wing
activist groups filing lawsuits based on the Supreme Court’s decision
given their insufficient resources to legally defend themselves.
Severino replied, “That’s part of the strategy of the activists
because they know that many of these organizations can’t afford to pay
for defense. They can’t afford to risk a negative judgment where they
could face crippling fines. If you’re talking about individuals, you’ve
seen what’s happened with cases like the Masterpiece Cake Shop case,
where someone’s entire business and livelihood could be destroyed and
where they can face even personal threats and real concern over their
own safety if they are willing to carry on litigation.”
Severino added, “I think the intimidation factor of a lawsuit is
huge, and when you’ve got the court almost inviting that, it’s going to
present a real challenge for a lot of people. Practically speaking, for
the most part, this isn’t even going to be an issue because I think
there’s the vast majority of businesses don’t have any reason or desire
to discriminate on either of these bases, but there are circumstances
where it is either relevant to the job qualifications or where it’s
going to be an issue of conscience, and those are the ones where you’re
going to have people who are going to be forced to make those tough
choices between violating their own conscience and possibly losing their
livelihood.” The Supreme Court’s decision amounted to a rewriting of civil rights legislation, Severino stated.
“This had to do with the court interpreting the Civil Rights Act of
1964,” Severino explained. “We’re kind of familiar with this language.
It says that no employers can discriminate on the basis of sex, of
religion, of natural origin, and other kinds of classic caveats that you
have, but what their question was, ‘It says you can’t discriminate ion
the basis of sex. Does that also mean you can’t discriminate on the
basis of sexual orientation or gender identity?'”
Severino continued, “It’s kind of a strange question to be asking
because in so many states, now, and in many situations in federal law,
we already do have laws preventing discrimination based on sexual
orientation, but they never phrase it as ‘discrimination based on sex.’
It’s always explicitly written, ‘discrimination based on sexual
orientation.'”
“What the Supreme Court did is, in an opinion, they basically just
rewrote what that text said because there is a long-standing history
where for decades, no politicians [and] no judge said that language
meant sexual orientation, as well,” Severino added.
The Supreme Court’s decision usurps the role of legislators, Severino determined.
“That’s really a revisionist reading of the statute dressed up as
textualism, and that’s one of the things that is so dangerous because we
have laws that courts can effectively rewrite,” Severino concluded. “No
legislator who passed [Title VII of the Civil Rights Act] would have
thought it meant that.”
