Trump speaks at Mount Rushmore, will condemn 'merciless campaign to wipe out our history'

 

Article by Caitlin McFall and Samuel Chamberlain for "Fox News":

President Trump took the stage in the shadow of Mount Rushmore Friday night to condemn what he planned to describe as a "merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children" in an address to mark the beginning of Independence Day weekend.

According to excerpts from his prepared remarks, Trump would declare the United States to be "the most just and exceptional nation ever to exist on earth" and claim that "no nation has done more to advance the human condition than the United States of America and no people have done more to promote human progress than the CITIZENS [emphasis original] of our great nation."

The President also planned to castigate left-wing activists and practitioners of so-called "cancel culture" who have targeted statues and monuments of historical figures across America in recent weeks.




"This movement is openly attacking the legacies of every person on Mount Rushmore ..." Trump will say, according to the excerpts. "Those who seek to erase our heritage want Americans to forget our pride and our great dignity, so that we can no longer understand ourselves or America’s destiny. In toppling the heroes of 1776, they seek to dissolve the bonds of love and loyalty that we feel for our country, and for each other."

Still another excerpt reads: "They would tear down the beliefs, culture, and identity that have made America the most vibrant and tolerant society in the history of the earth."

“You can expect the president to express strong support for America’s military, the men and women of our police, and so many of our cherished principles and institutions that are under attack daily from the left," a senior administration official said in a statement Friday evening.

Trump's speech will be followed by a firework display above the iconic monument in the Black Hills. A reported 7,000 tickets have been distributed for the event, and South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has promised that social distancing guidelines will not be enforced.

Trump has been criticized on several fronts for holding such an event during nationwide protests over alleged systemic racism and white supremacy in America following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody May 25.

In some cities, demonstrators have torn down, vandalized or called for the removal of statues and monuments depicting Confederate figures, as well as such diverse non-Confederate figures as Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, George Washington, Christopher Columbus and Theodore Roosevelt.

In addition, some Native American groups are using Trump’s visit to protest the Mount Rushmore memorial itself, pointing out that the Black Hills were taken from the Lakota people against treaty agreements.

Hours before the event, protesters blocked a road leading to the monument. Authorities worked to move the demonstrators and about 15 protesters were arrested after missing a police-imposed deadline to leave.

The event has also come under scrutiny for the lack of social distancing during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. State officials have asked those who feel ill or are in high-risk groups to watch the festivities at home.

"Masks will be available, first off. They are not required but people will be able to have them if they don't have one with them when they come," South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg told "Fox & Friends" Friday. "And, I think that we have done a number of things to mitigate the spread of the COVID.”

Steve Allender, the mayor of nearby Rapid City, said that he doesn’t necessarily believe the measures are enough, as he is doubtful that attendees will “disqualify themself because they developed a cough the day of or the day before.”

The small town of Keystone, which lies a couple miles from the monument, was buzzing with people Friday hoping to catch a glimpse of the fireworks and the president. Many wore pro-Trump T-shirts and hats. Few wore masks.

“This is going to rank up in the top Fourth of Julys that I talk about,” said Mike Stewhr, who brought his family from Nebraska.
Mike Harris of Rapid City said he was a Republican but wore a mask and waved an anti-Trump flag. He also was sporting a handgun on each hip. He said he was worried the event would spark a COVID-19 outbreak.

“I think it’s a bad example being set by our president and our governor,” Harris said.

Robin Pladsen, director of the Keystone Chamber of Commerce, handed out face masks and hand sanitizer from a tent. She said the tourist influx would help businesses pay back loans they had taken out to survive the economic downtown but acknowledged the health risk for the town.

Several people who once oversaw fire danger at the national memorial have said setting off fireworks over the forest is a bad idea that could lead to a large wildfire. Fireworks were called off after 2009 because a mountain pine beetle infestation increased the fire risks.

Noem pushed to get the fireworks resumed soon after she was elected, and enlisted Trump’s help. The president brushed aside fire concerns earlier this year, saying, “What can burn? It’s stone.”

https://www.foxnews.com/us/president-trump-mount-rushmore-speech-excerpts

Terrorists Slash Tires, Block Roads At Mount Rushmore Ahead Of Trump’s Fourth Of July Event

Article by Jordan Lancaster for "The Daily Caller":

"Protesters" (Terrorists) blocked the roads leading up to Mount Rushmore ahead of President Donald Trump’s Fourth of July speech that is scheduled to take place there Friday evening.

Footage from the RSB Network shows protesters standing on top of several large white vans and blocking traffic in South Dakota, where Trump is scheduled to give a speech and a fireworks display Friday night. The protesters were holding signs and flags and had reportedly slashed the tires of the vans they were standing on

Daily Caller

@DailyCaller

BREAKING: Protesters have slashed the tires on vans and are blocking the road leading to Mt. Rushmore where President Trump is scheduled to speak tonight in honor of the 4th of July

 

 https://twitter.com/i/status/1279186186922332161

 

 

 Riot police were eventually called to the scene. A video from the RSB network showed a group of officers forming a line in front of the protesters.

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1279186186922332161

 

 

Daily Caller

@DailyCaller

Riot police have arrived on the scene

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1279191690377601025 

 

 President Trump’s plans to host a Fourth of July celebration at Mount Rushmore sparked backlash from Democrats who accused the president of “glorifying white supremacy.”

 

“Trump has disrespected Native communities time and again,” the Democratic party’s official Twitter account wrote in a now-deleted tweet. “He’s attempted to limit their voting rights and blocked critical pandemic relief. Now he’s holding a rally glorifying white supremacy at Mount Rushmore, a region once sacred to tribal communities.”
Native American groups have also protested the event and said Mount Rushmore is a “symbol of white supremacy.”

“Mount Rushmore is a symbol of white supremacy, of structural racism that’s still alive and well in society today,” Nick Tilsen, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, told the Associated Press.

“It’s an injustice to actively steal Indigenous people’s land, then carve the white faces of the colonizers who committed genocide,” he added.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/03/protesters-block-roads-slash-tires-south-dakota-trump-event-mount-rushmore/ 

 

In LOL News: MN Governor Asks Trump For Federal Funds To Help In Riot Recovery

Article by Kira Davis in "RedState":

When my son was very little and first learning about the responsibilities of homework, he had a difficult time sitting to finish his work. He didn’t like it. He didn’t think it was fair. He wanted to play games, not do work. I spoke to his teacher at the time (a wonderful woman who is still one of my favorite educators that my children have had) and she encouraged me not to force him to do his work. She told me that when the homework is connected to personal consequences in his mind, he’ll begin to develop a more organic relationship with the work.

The next day when he was stubbornly refusing to do his homework I simply told him that it was his choice. He didn’t have to do the work, but he did have to accept whatever happened at school the next day for coming in with incomplete work. He happily agreed and ran off to play somewhere that didn’t have homework. When he came home from school the next day, he was weeping. He’d gotten a “sad face” on his work and was embarrassed. I reminded him about the choice he’d made the night before. He went straight off to do his homework and we’ve never had another issue homework since. He’s 18 years old now.

My analogy – of course – is not about homework, but about consequences, a concept that seems to have been buried under a growing mountain of bulls*** these last couple of months. Case in point: Minnesota’s Governor Tim Walz has asked the Trump administration to send federal funding to help with the clean-up around Minnesota and specifically in Minneapolis after the disastrous George Floyd riots and ensuing Antifa insanity in which monuments and businesses were burned and destroyed.

From Fox News:

“We need to come together to ensure Minnesotans who were victims of this destruction have access to critical infrastructure they need so they can go to the grocery store, pick up their medication, and live their lives,” Walz said in a statement Thursday. “Together, we will rebuild.”

He also appealed to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for financial assistance to help cover the cost of debris removal, emergency measures and damage to public buildings and equipment.
“We’re asking our federal partners to step up and help our communities recover,” he said.
Walz’s office estimates the cost of the damage to more than 1,500 businesses in Minneapolis and St. Paul at over $500 million.

Walz and other state and city officials across the country have stood idly by while looters and rioters burned businesses and neighborhoods to the ground. They did nothing and continue to do nothing as public property is defaced and destroyed. As their own citizens beg for protection, they have turned a blind eye to miscreants while forcing taxpayers to shut down their places of business and churches because of “COVID concerns.” They hypocrisy is frightening. The entitlement even more so.

Trump should be doing everything he can to avoid sending one dime of federal funding to Walz or any of his compatriots across the country. His willful ignorance and abandonment of his own citizens should not be rewarded. Walz let his state burn, now he needs to let the state rebuild. If his voters dislike the enormity of that task they can let him know at the ballot box.

Actions (or lack thereof)  have consequences. Governor Walz didn’t do the work, so he needs to get the sad face.

https://www.redstate.com/kiradavis/2020/07/03/866680/

Trump critics enraged over his Mount Rushmore visit – But Obama and Hillary went earlier

 
Article by Rebecca Grant for "Fox News":

President Trump’s visit Friday to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota for Independence Day festivities has generated plenty of hypocritical and manufactured criticism from camps of the discontented – but of course, Trump gets criticized from the left for almost everything he does.

How can you not love four giant faces of American presidents carved out of a mountain using dynamite? Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt were not perfect (no one is), but unquestionably were patriots who served our country with enormous accomplishments.

Trump will speak at the ceremonies, which will also feature a military flyover, Lakota storytellers and hoop dancers, and the first fireworks show in 10 years.

Trump’s strategy should be to go big with a bold proposal for the national memorial, but first let’s look over the lineup of those aghast by the celebration.

First come the statue haters. Regrettably, the deeds and images of Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Lincoln have all been under unjustified attack in American cities of late.

The four presidents represent the birth, growth, expansion and preservation of America. The problem, according to Oglala Lakota Nation activist Nick Tilsen, is that “it’s an injustice to actively steal Indigenous people’s land then carve the white faces of the conquerors who committed genocide.”

The New York Times leaped on the bandwagon this week, helpfully pointing out that the memorial “was built on what had been Indigenous land.”

Well, here is some breaking news for the Times: every square inch of the United States, plus the rest of North America and Latin America, once “had been Indigenous land.”

Even the headquarters of oh-so politically correct New York Times sits on land in Manhattan that once belonged to indigenous people before it was purchased for almost nothing by the Dutch and later taken by the British. Horrors! Is the Times prepared to pull up stakes and relocate to Europe to atone for its sinful location?

And by the way, when the U.S. took control of the Black Hills in 1877, Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln were all deceased, and Teddy Roosevelt was 19 years old. So it’s quite a stretch to say any of these four presidents were responsible for acquiring the land or ordering the building of the memorial. Construction on the memorial began in 1927 – eight years after Roosevelt died.

The Black Hills of South Dakota are also the site of a gigantic mountain sculpture of Crazy Horse, the famed Oglala Lakota warrior, which has been under construction since 1948 – just 17 miles from Mount Rushmore. 

There’s a strong current of Marxist alienation in the idea of knocking down statues to “get right with history.”

When finished, the Crazy Horse Memorial will be the largest mountain sculpture in the world and make the sculptures on Mount Rushmore look tiny by comparison. The sculpture of Crazy Horse mounted on a horse will be 641 feet long and 563 feet high. In contrast, each head of the presidents on Mount Rushmore is 60 feet high. 

So one of the most famous Native Americans is being honored in South Dakota along with four American presidents. 

Of course, part of the assault on Mount Rushmore is political. Certainly, the New York Times didn’t freak out when presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton visited Mount Rushmore during their 2008 campaigns.

Candidate Obama and a bus of campaign reporters visited Mount Rushmore late on a Friday evening in May 2008. The New York Times covered it as an adorable moment with Obama’s “tie not a half-inch ajar” and Obama joking with park rangers that his ears were too big to carve on the mountain.

Candidate Hillary Clinton had already been there. On her photo op a few days earlier, a reporter asked her if she could envision herself carved on the mountain. According to CBS, this prompted a visibly annoyed Clinton to say: “Why don't you learn something about the monument?” Good point.

But a dozen years on, it may be too late for history.

Tilsen told NPR on Wednesday that America is at “a reckoning and a realization that this country has to get right with its history” by which he meant “illuminating the current injustices that exist today in society.”

And that is where indigenous activism meets Karl Marx, the father of Communism in the 19th century. There’s a strong current of Marxist alienation in the idea of knocking down statues to “get right with history.”

For Marx, history wasn’t just dates and battles, but a flexible tool to help overturn the nation-state and free workers. It’s a long story, but the ideology we see today in autonomous zones and protest writings is a watered-down Marxist viewpoint: establish alienation from daily work and life, dissolve the state and plant the seeds of a new order. Attacking statues is part of it.

So the criticism of sculptures like Mount Rushmore can’t stop, even when it gets silly, for it is driving forward extreme left ambitions.

That’s why I’m hoping President Trump will call time out on the nonsense and renew America’s commitment to Mount Rushmore, that most unsubtle emblem of American achievement.  I think he should offer something grand and bold, like completing Lincoln’s face.

Personally, I used to be lukewarm about Mount Rushmore. My family visited in 2017, but I’d take Mount Vernon or Independence Hall or the battlefield at Yorktown for pure patriotic chills.

However, in this summer of statue stupidity, Mount Rushmore has taken on a new mantle of importance. I’m thankful that it can’t be easily spray-painted, pulled down or relocated. It’s not perfect or complete but Mount Rushmore is big enough to rise above it all.  And so is America.

You know who really understood Mount Rushmore? Legendary director Alfred Hitchcock, who used mock-ups of the faces for Cary Grant to commit a movie murder in the 1959 thriller “North by Northwest.” Alfred Hitchcock was drawn by what grabs us still today: the sheer audacity of the place.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/mount-rushmore-trump-rebecca-grant

Why America Is Exceptional

Article by Jeff Lukens in "RedState":

The United States is the most dynamic and powerful nation in world history.  No major issue of global peace or stability can be resolved without involvement by the United States.  This state of affairs did not occur by accident.  It is testimony of the exceptional nature of this land and its people.

To be an American is to be different from other nationalities. From colonial times through the present day, Americans have believed they were taking part in a journey that only this nation can fulfill.  It is a call to exemplary leadership and service on the world stage.  The world is always looking for a way to escape tyranny, and the American example of self-governance has provided the answer.

As much as people like George Soros and Anti-American leftists may malign it, belief in American exceptionalism — thankfully — still exists today for a great many citizens.

So what are the traits of American exceptionalism? For starters, it involves industriousness and neighborliness, and a trust in one another as responsible individuals.  We believe that problems can be solved, and that both risk and failure are necessary steps for achieving success.  Our view that we are in control of our lives is also part of it.  So is our wish for success for all citizens, and our making available opportunities to anyone who has the gumption to achieve.

Our nation’s founding was a demonstration that people can be left free as individuals to live their lives as they see fit, voluntarily coming together to achieve mutual goals.  A society based on these ideas, lacking in class envy, has led to a culture that has been remarkable throughout the world.

From the beginning, the settlers believed they were guided by a divine providence.  They believed that their exodus from Europe was much like the biblical exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land.  They wanted this new Promised Land to be exceptional for the entire human race — a shining city on a hill.  Many of those coming to our shores seeking religious freedom, particularly in New England, believed they were participating in a wonderful destiny, a manifest destiny.

This is crazy, you say?  Certainly, our history has not been perfect.  Yes, we had slavery and atrocities regarding the native populations, but a greater vision endures and lives in the hearts of many Americans today.

The United States was founded not by copying other nations.  The Founding Fathers pursued a new and noble course, an example for all humanity.  They were familiar with the writings of John Locke and other Enlightenment thinkers, to the effect that Natural Law was God’s Law and that the Creator has endowed every person with certain unalienable rights that cannot be amended, abridged, or repealed.  No one can take these rights away, because they come from God.

The Declaration of Independence repeatedly refers to a Creator.  The Founders understood that power flowed from the Creator to the people, and from the people would come the formation of a government.  If any of these three elements — God, the people, and government — were out of order, trouble would be sure to follow.

We are not a theocracy, however.  Our faith-based heritage does not take a direct part in government, but the Church must be regarded as the first of political institutions.  Its influence on society was, and is, indispensable to the maintenance of the republic.

To have independence, the Founders knew the people needed a measure of maturity and character closely akin to what is prescribed by the Golden Rule.  John Adams, for one, said we must be a virtuous people for self-government to succeed.  While the colonists had a thirst for independence, there remained a haunting sense among them that they might not be good enough to make it work.  Needless to say, they rose to the challenge.  Perhaps we should evaluate ourselves today by this same standard.

By drafting the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the Framers had structured a government of checks and balances where individual rights would also be preserved.  They knew that virtue is not a permanent quality, and they understood human nature.  Virtue must be cultivated continually within the populace, and exercised day to day.  Without morality, they knew that the constitutional republic they had created could not be maintained.

While some of those founding traits may now be slipping away, many today will still acknowledge that our virtuous beginnings have allowed us to live in a nation unlike any other in history.  While many nations enjoy freedom today, many people throughout the world would be living hopelessly under tyranny if not for the example of liberty and self-governance set by the United States more than two centuries ago.

John Adams said he hoped they would build a foundation for freedom that would spread throughout the world, and that our destiny was to break down slavery all over the world.  This vision has endured and flourished.  We now are the successors who improve and perpetuate it.  It is this vision that is unique among the nations of the earth.  And it is why America remains exceptional.

https://www.redstate.com/diary/coolhand/2020/07/03/why-america-is-exceptional/ 

5 Ways You Can Fight Back In The Cultural Civil War

It can be hard for ordinary Americans who oppose the radical agenda of the woke left to know how to fight back. Here are a few practical ideas.

by John Daniel Davidson writing at The Federalist

Last week I wrote about how we’re in a cultural civil war and it’s time for conservatives—and really, anyone who’s not on board with the radical anti-American agenda of Black Lives Matter and the rest of the woke left—to fight back.

But how? I was light on specifics, and subsequently heard from a number of readers who wanted to know what they could do, personally, to push back against the leftward lurch of the culture. Many said they feel powerless and overwhelmed, and with good reason.

Silicon Valley, Hollywood, academia, the mainstream media, corporate America, and the entire Democratic Party (along with not a few Republicans and Independents) have all caved under pressure from the woke mob, more or less accepting the premise that America is fundamentally a racist country and an evil empire whose system of government and institutions need to be torn down.

In the face of all this, what are ordinary Americans who reject this radical view—and who represent a large majority of the country—supposed to do? Below I’ve listed a few ideas. This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list, not even close, but a starting point to begin thinking about how to re-order our lives, from our spending habits to our entertainment choices to our social activities, in a way that weakens support, even passive support, for institutions that embrace leftist radicalism.

1. Choose and Fund Alternatives to Public Schools

This is the big one. The problem of public schools of course deserves manycolumns and books—and has them—but you can’t leave it off any list of how to fight back. Public schools have become indoctrination centers for the woke left.

Just look at the hordes of college-educated protesters screaming Marxist nonsense at the police. What they learned in college has trickled down into our middle and high schools, even some of our elementary schools. Arguably the number one thing conservatives can do to preserve our constitutional system and save the republic is to educate their kids anywhere but in public school.

Obviously, not everyone can afford private school, and not everyone is able to home school. But now is the time to start thinking hard about educational alternatives.

Churches that don’t have a school need to explore what it would take to start one, or maybe a homeschool-private school hybrid. Parents should re-evaluate their finances and figure out whether other options might be possible, even if that means drastically cutting other spending or reducing income because one parent educates the kids.

All conservatives, whether you have kids or not, should donate to private schools that teach the virtues of the American Founding. All conservatives should make school choice a top policy item when election season comes around, and ask local and state political candidates about it. All conservatives should get involved in expanding educational alternatives of every kind. The future of the republic depends on it.

2. Shift Your Spending Away from Corporations that Hate You, Like Amazon

If you’re a conservative, understand that Amazon hates you (but loves communist China). Also understand that you don’t have to buy everything on Amazon.

That new can opener or garden hose you so desperately need? You can order pretty much whatever you need from Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, and so on. Many of these places will even deliver to your doorstep.

Will you pay a little more for it? Maybe. Will it come in three or four days instead of tomorrow? Yes. But if you can’t bear that miniscule inconvenience for the sake of your principles, then you don’t deserve America.

And if you don’t want to shop at big box stores like Walmart, there are plenty of other online retailer alternatives to Amazon like Ebay, Overstock, Rakuten, Newegg, and many others. The internet is a big place. Get out there.

Or you can go directly to a specific retailer’s website. Need a tent or a sleeping bag? Buy it directly from REI or Cabela’s. Need a book? Try Barnes & Noble—or better yet, find a local bookstore to support. If they don’t have what you want in stock, ask them to order it. You might have to wait a week like they did in the olden days, but you can use the extra time to re-read a favorite book, or take more walks, or literally do anything except buy stuff on Amazon.

3. In Fact, Just Stop Using Jeff Bezos’ Platforms Altogether

Speaking of Amazon, news broke Monday that streaming giant Twitch temporarily banned President Trump from its platform because of the president’s recent remarks at the Tulsa rally, which violated Twitch’s policy against “hateful conduct.”

Twitch is by far the world’s largest video game streaming platform. It’s practically a live-streaming monopoly. It’s also chock full of actually hateful content far worse than anything Trump said in Tulsa. Amazon acquired it in 2014 for a billion dollars.

If you’re tired of monopolistic tech firms arbitrarily banning major public figures from their platforms for speech they don’t like, and you use Twitch, then find another streaming platform like YouTube Gaming. (But maybe just stop streaming video games altogether?)

4. Google Also Hates You, So Stop Using It

If things like privacy and free speech are important to you, you might want to rethink how much you rely on Google products and companies. Gmail, for example, tracks your purchasing history from the receipts in your Gmail inbox. YouTube, which is wholly owned by Google, routinely censors conservative content under the guise that it’s “hate speech.”

Google of course has all kinds of double standards for conservatives. Earlier this month Google threatened to pull ads from The Federalist—not for anything we wrote, but for our comments section, which—you guessed it—violated their guidelines on hate speech. (The irony is that the comments section of YouTube is one of the most vile, hateful places on the internet.)

Also, you don’t have to Google everything. You can use Bing, Yahoo!, Searx, Qwant, DuckDuckGo, or any of the many other search engines out there. And you don’t have to use other Google products, like Gmail. There are a host of alternatives to Gmail, which honestly doesn’t even work that well. So get creative about not relying on Google for every little thing you do online.

5. Stop Using Facebook and Instagram

There are other ways to share photos of your cat with old high school classmates. Or maybe not, but so what? Facebook has a habit of banning people and groups who say things woke Facebook employees don’t like. Just this week the social media giant made headlines by banning hundreds of Facebook and Instagram accounts associated with the so-called boogaloo movement, which Facebook says promotes “violence against civilians, law enforcement, and government officials and institutions.”

You might think that means Facebook will also be banning accounts associated with Antifa, which also promotes and carries out violence against civilians and law enforcement, but you’d be wrong. That’s not how this works. Facebook did, however, ban a Trump campaign ad attacking Antifa on the absurd pretext that an Antifa symbol used in the ad was actually a Nazi symbol.

This kind of double standard is commonplace at Facebook. Another example: back in April, Facebook banned a bunch of users from organizing “events that defy government’s guidance on social distancing.” So no using Facebook to organize lockdown protests. You might therefore assume Facebook would also ban users from organizing Black Lives Matter protests that defy government’s guidance on social distancing, but again, you’d be wrong.

Seemingly Small Things Matter

These all might seem like small things, to stop using Amazon and Google and Facebook, or to start advocating for school choice, or to patronize local businesses over giant corporations. But we have to start somewhere. Calling your local elected officials and demanding they enforce the law and arrest rioters is all well and good, but often those local officials don’t care what you say because they’re more afraid of the mob than they are of law-abiding conservatives.

So we begin with small things, and we build. The left didn’t take over American mainstream culture overnight, and taking it back won’t happen overnight. But we have to begin, now, each of us in our own private lives, in all our small choices. No one is going to save the republic for us, so let’s get started.

Oh, and one more thing you can do—fly an American flag in your yard this Fourth of July.

Leftists Are Using Race.....

Kay C. James for Daily Signal

Leftists Are Using Race to Push an Anti-American Agenda

July 02, 2020 

Statues at New York City Hall stand defaced and painted in the Manhattan Borough of New York on June 30. This vandalism was part of the Occupy City Hall effort, which has seen protesters camping out for days until the New York City Council votes on the New York Police Department budget. (Photo: Ira L. Black/Corbis/Getty Images)

Our country is under attack from radical leftists. Mobs rampage through our streets, monuments are being destroyed, and the very law and order that ensures our communities’ peace and security is being undermined.

In far too many instances, those bent on destruction have hijacked protests, creating violence and division, and ultimately attacking the very foundation of our nation. For them, it’s not about resolving race issues; it’s about using racial discontent to forward their anarchist agenda.

One such group is Antifa. While it is widely recognized as a far-left fringe group, another organization—just as radical—has managed to drape itself in more mainstream clothes, gaining significant support with the public, politicians, and the business community. 

While Americans of every color agree with the sentiment that black lives matter, Black Lives Matter the organization actually advocates an agenda that is completely out of step with American values.

One look at the Black Lives Matter organization’s website shows that the idea of protecting black lives and seeking justice is merely a vehicle to advance a different, radical set of ideas. The organization is more dedicated to gaining political power and remaking America according to Marxist ideology. Two of the group’s three co-founders are even “trained Marxists,” according to one of them.

And it shows. The group’s platform includes planks unrelated to improving black lives, like trying to get the U.S. to divest from Israel, which it calls an “apartheid state” while accusing Jews of committing genocide against Palestinians.

The organization also has called for dismantling the family, saying, “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.” 

The breakdown of the black family and the rise of single-parent households is one of the root causes of poverty, crime, drug abuse, and poor educational achievement in many black communities. Why would anyone who’s supposedly working for black progress want to tear down the very thing that helps to achieve it?

Just as disturbing is the fact that some of America’s biggest corporations are giving hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars to this organization and others whose misleading names conceal a more expansive and dangerous agenda.

Groups such as Antifa and the Black Lives Matter organization want to impose an ideology on America that would only bring greater poverty, a loss of freedom, destruction to churches and civil society, and violent law enforcement tactics to enforce compliance—exactly what we’ve seen in places such as Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea.

In fact, we’ve already seen a vision of what their America would look like.

We’ve seen videos of leftist protesters physically and verbally attacking police officers.

We’ve seen an entire neighborhood turned into a violent “autonomous zone” with spineless politicians telling the police to stand down and let anarchists rule over innocent residents.

We’ve seen violent mobs defacing and toppling statues of historical figures such as soldiers and abolitionists. Some are even calling for the removal of images of Jesus in which he is perceived as “too white.”

We must stop the violence and destruction and bring those committing criminal acts to justice while protecting the rights of good people to protest peacefully.

We must support our police officers who risk their lives every day to protect us no matter our color, religion, sex, or nationality—while also making needed reforms to weed out bad cops and end unacceptable policing procedures.

Calls to defund the police are calls for chaos, and calls to disarm them are lunacy. We’ve seen what happens in Seattle, Minneapolis, and other cities when criminals are allowed free rein.

Finally, we must combat the Marxist agenda. This agenda has wrought destruction on nations for generations. It expands government control and takes every opportunity to limit freedom—and it must not take root in the United States.

The most desperate communities in America have been run by the left for a generation or more. We’ve seen what that leadership has brought: generational poverty, fatherless families, worse educational outcomes, more disparity, and higher crime rates. Lurching even further left would be even more disastrous.

Instead, we must implement policies to ensure America’s promise of liberty and opportunity is a promise for all Americans. Conservatives always have had the policies that can help solve many of the difficult issues that Americans face. 

We know how to create jobs, end poverty, provide better access to health care, improve education, and strengthen families better than anyone. And our fundamental belief in the inherent dignity of every human being can help bring about the healing our nation so desperately needs.

America is a land of promise, and conservative policies can make those promises ring true for all Americans. It is time for conservatives to take a message of hope to every American to end the racial strife and build an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish for all.

Record-Setting Job Gains of 4.8 Million in June During Partial Economic Reopening

Most “experts” had been forecasting around 2.5 million jobs recovered in June; however, payrolls rose by 4.8 million, far exceeding expectations.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics report [Available Here] shows job recovery across-the-board, with a major bounce back in the leisure and hospitality sector gaining 2.1 million jobs.

The June jobs growth of 4.8 million was a big leap from the 2.7 million in May.  Notably the May report was also revised upward by 190,000.  The June result is easily the largest single-month for job gains in U.S. history.

Topline Data:

• In June, employment in leisure and hospitality increased by 2.1 million, accounting for about two-fifths of the gain in total nonfarm employment.
• In June, employment in retail trade rose by 740,000, after a gain of 372,000 in May.
• Employment increased by 568,000 in education and health services in June.
• Employment increased in the other services industry in June (+357,000), with about three-fourths of the increase occurring in personal and laundry services (+264,000).
• In June, manufacturing employment rose by 356,000.
• Construction employment increased by 158,000 in June, following a gain of 453,000 in May.

Overall the jobs result shows the U.S. economy is coiled like a spring… compressed by the COVID-19 shutdown, yet waiting to release and bounce back quickly.   The underlying economic activity is waiting to explode as U.S. consumers have not spent trillions in income earnings due to the shutdown.

Once the economy is re-opened, there will be extremely rapid economic growth as a result of pent-up demand.  The key is just doing it…. just opening.

(Via CNBC) Nonfarm payrolls soared by 4.8 million in June and the unemployment rate fell to 11.1% as the U.S. continued its reopening from the coronavirus pandemic, the Labor Department said Thursday.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting a 2.9 million increase and a jobless rate of 12.4%. The report was released a day earlier than usual due to the July Fourth holiday.

[…] “Today’s announcement proves that our economy is roaring back. It’s coming back extremely strong,” President Donald Trump said in a news conference about an hour after the numbers were released. He pointed specifically to a sharp drop in the unemployment for Blacks that fell from 16.8% to 15.4%. “These are historic numbers.”  (read more)

Schiff Learned Of Russian ‘Bounty’ Intelligence In February, Withheld Information From Congress, And Took No Action

Schiff demands the Trump administration brief all of Congress about the unverified allegations, yet he himself did not ask for a briefing following the February briefing of his own staff.

Sean Davis & Mollie Hemingway reporting for The Federalist

Top committee staff for Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, were briefed in February on intelligence about Russia offering the Taliban bounties in Afghanistan, but he took no action in response to the briefing, multiple intelligence sources familiar with the briefing told The Federalist. The intelligence was briefed to Schiff’s staff during a congressional delegation, or CODEL, trip to Afghanistan in February.

Schiff, who has acknowledged President Donald Trump was never briefed on the so-called intelligence, has thus far refused to disclose that his staff was personally briefed. The revelation raises serious questions that Schiff is once again politicizing, and perhaps even deliberately misrepresenting, key data for partisan gain.

Asked by a reporter Tuesday if he had any knowledge of the Russia story prior to the New York Times report, Schiff said “I can’t comment on specifics.”

Schiff’s recent complaints that Trump took no action against Russia in response to rumors of Russian bounties are curious given that Schiff himself took no action after his top staff were briefed by intelligence officials. As chairman of the intelligence committee, Schiff had the authority to immediately brief the full committee and convene hearings on the matter. Schiff, however, did nothing. He did not brief his committee on the matter, nor did he brief the gang of 8, which consists of top congressional leadership in both chambers.

Schiff is demanding that the Trump administration brief all of Congress about the unverified allegations, yet he himself did not ask for a briefing of the Intelligence Committee following the February briefing of his own staff.

Patrick Boland, a spokesman for Schiff on the intelligence committee, did not respond to a request for comment on Schiff’s inaction and declined to say why Schiff withheld the information from Congress for months. Boland also did not explain why travel records regarding the Congressional staff delegation trip to Afghanistan had not yet been disclosed in the Congressional Record as required by law.

Schiff, who was the key driver behind failed Democrat attempts to impeach and remove President Donald Trump from office earlier this year about the president’s interactions with foreign leaders, also lied about his staff’s interaction with the so-called whistleblower, identified by Real Clear Investigations as Eric Ciaramella, prior to the so-called whistleblower filing his complaint against Trump.

The California Democrat was also a main proponent of the Russia collusion hoax, falsely stating for years that he held “ample evidence of collusion” between President Trump and Russia. A lengthy investigation of the theory by Special Counsel Robert Mueller ostensibly set up to find that evidence was unable to find any evidence of any collusion between any American and Russia.

Just as Schiff falsely claimed that he and his staff had no interaction with the anti-Trump leaker behind the impeachment push and falsely claimed he was privy to secret evidence of collusion with Russia, Schiff attacked Trump for not taking action in response to the Russian bounty rumors while refusing to disclose that his own office was briefed in February and did nothing in response.

The Myth of Righteous Vandalism

The Myth of Righteous Vandalism 

by VAHAKEN MOURADIAN  for 

The American Spectator

Statue of Jefferson Davis in Richmond, Virginia, June 10, 2020, the day it was toppled during a protest (Kim Kelley-Wagner/Shutterstock.com)

The fevered frenzy against public monuments has caused varied reactions. Among scholars, the main symptom is seemingly contagious dispassion. When a New York Times columnist spoke with art historian Erin Thompson, for example, their interview closed with Thompson recommending the use of chains for those interested in inverting large objects. She appears to have an affinity for neither art nor history. Thompson may have caught the bug from archaeologist Sarah Parcak, who recently — and apparently satirically — briefed mobs struggling to dislodge obelisks. “It is sometimes complained,” drawls historian William Cavert, “that such acts erase history.” According to him, that is a popular grievance against the destruction of statues that historians and scholars almost universally dismiss.

Destroying historical monuments erodes our knowledge of the reasons and sentiments of our predecessors who espoused them, and of how far we have come.

To inoculate the rest of us, let’s try to inhale and expose ourselves to the astonishing notion that these scholars seem to endorse: that statues are useless and that we derive historical knowledge only from archives, documents, and “objects preserved in libraries or museums.” Only if this is true — if statues can bear no intellectual or artistic value — would our indifference be justified. But if there is any value inherent in objects that a community once used publicly and symbolically, we should reconsider.

First, the physical evidence of Confederate monuments is what has generated much of the indignation towards them. This evidence directly contributes to historical knowledge.

Second, even if all Americans today deem artifacts from a certain era to be worthless, we shouldn’t decide on behalf of future generations.

Third, landmarks are inseparable from citizens’ intergenerational identities.

Finally, it is improbable that historians agree on the worthlessness of statues (academic consensus sounds like an oxymoron), despite what Cavert claims. Dissenters shouldn’t allow a few of their colleagues to speak on their behalf, because this indifference could be transmitted to the broader public and could become endemic.

Confederate monuments’ location, imagery, inscriptions, dates, and materials of construction, cost, and commission show what the communities who built them valued and what reasons they had for doing so. In the past decade, Timothy Sedore, Thomas J. Brown, and Douglas J. Butler have catalogued and produced works reliant on this evidence. Protesters (and observers) today glean Jim Crow–era historical insightwhile destroying its sources, and they are the last ones who will ever be able to do so directly. The primary evidence they offer — complementary to archival and secondary sources — of which there can never be enough, is gone. Art historians would never argue that Myron’s Discobolus is useless, even though plenty of documents illustrate it and the cultural tradition it represents. Why are Confederate statues uniquely worthless?

It would be myopic of a historian to decide that there is enough evidence to reimagine any bygone time, because that will not always be the case. We do not own historical artifacts; we owe them to our successors so that they, too, can subject them to etiological and aesthetic scrutiny as we can. We endlessly refine academic study by using new evidence or revisiting the old with new methods. To destroy these monuments is to rob future generations of that opportunity. The community does not, at any and every moment, share the moral or political sentiments of those who built its public monuments. But destroying them erodes our knowledge of those reasons and sentiments, of our predecessors who espoused them, and of how far we have come.

A political community is material as much as social. After 1974, when Turkish occupying forces in northern Cyprus renamed streets and towns, their motivation was replacing what came before. When most calculated, such acts attempt to expunge a community with which the actors aren’t planning to cohabit. When least calculated, they channel vicarious retribution against an inexcusable past. Now, the destruction of landmarks alienates community members who have natural, apolitical, personal, or familial associations with the material backdrop of their lives. Such acts make sense for culturally dissimilar invaders, but not for co-citizens who eventually intend to resume a shared life.

Historians, before all, should be well aware of all this. One hesitates to assume collective indifference among scholars. I have a suspicion: most historians have chosen to abstain from this controversy. They shouldn’t. Without learned opposition, the attitudes of the few — ascribed to the entire discipline — will proliferate. And in what position will the cognoscenti be when the protesters of tomorrow naturally aim at new targets? George Washington’s legacy is already embattled; one hears violent murmurs about Mount Rushmore. Perhaps the authors of the Declaration of Independence or the United States Bill of Rights will follow. Even the statue of an immigrant abolitionist and Union colonel has been irreparably damaged. And why would less conspicuous but no less symbolic art — portraits, literature, and intellectual and academic works in public libraries — be exempt from retrospective opprobrium?

Woe to us when we inevitably realize — having leveled our cultural landscape — that our particular moral sensibilities were self-evident to no generation but ours.

Vahaken Mouradian is a Cypriot-Armenian immigrant to the United States, working at a social-impact nonprofit in Washington, D.C. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, and a Master’s degree in International Security.

France’s Macron picks new prime minister to reinvent presidency

PARIS (Reuters) – President Emmanuel Macron named Jean Castex, a top civil servant and local mayor who orchestrated France’s coronavirus lockdown exit strategy, as his new prime minister on Friday as he acted to reinvent his administration and win back voters.
Castex, 55, hails from the centre-right of French politics and served for two years as the second-highest ranking official in the Elysee Palace during Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency.


An Elysee official described Castex as a senior civil servant whose experience in local politics would help Macron connect with provincial France. Castex was a “social Gaullist”, the official said in reference to the more interventionist, socially minded wing of France’s centre-right.
The announcement followed the resignation of Edouard Philippe ahead of a widely anticipated overhaul of the government by Macron.


Macron is reshaping his government as France grapples with the deepest economic depression since World War Two, a sharp downturn that will shrink the economy by about 11% in 2020 and reverse hard-fought gains on unemployment.
Investors will be watching to see if Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, who has overseen reforms to liberalise the economy and spent big to keep companies like Air France  and Renault afloat during the crisis, keeps his job.
“The return from summer holidays will be difficult, we must get ready,” Macron told regional newspapers in an interview published late on Thursday.
Macron and Philippe dined together on Wednesday and met on Thursday. The Elysee source described Thursday’s discussions as warm and friendly. Both men agreed on “the need for a new government to embody the next phase, a new path,” the aide said.


FRESH START
Macron said last month he wanted to start afresh as France embarks on a delicate and costly recovery from its coronavirus slump. Then came his party’s dire showing in nationwide municipal elections on June 28.
The local elections revealed surging support for the Green party and underlined Macron’s troubles connecting with ordinary people. His La Republique en Marche party failed to win a single major city, depriving the president of a local power base ahead of 2022.
The most notable win was Philippe’s success in his old redoubt of Le Havre and his resignation clears the way for him to become mayor of the northern port, from where he could emerge as a rival to Macron in two years time.
Cardboard boxes were delivered to the prime minister’s offices minutes after the government stepped down.
Macron is taking a gamble by replacing Philippe, who is more popular then the president, political analysts say.
But keeping Philippe would have suggested that Macron was too weak to let go of his prime minister and that his party lacked the depth for a full cabinet overhaul.


https://www.oann.com/french-pm-philippe-resigns-as-macron-readies-reshuffle/