Do We Still Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident?

 

 Article by Brian Preston in "PJMedia":

Most of America celebrated the Fourth of July this past weekend. Most, but not all. Some chose to denounce it in one way or another.

That date gets capitalization because of what it represents. A small group of intellectual men gathered and wrote down a set of principles that has no equal among political writings in human history. They said:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

A government based on the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Who had ever heard of such a thing? In 1776, practically no one. Kings still ruled by their bloodline or “divine right” and czars — descendants of the Roman caesars who had destroyed that great republic — still walked the earth. In the context of the age, there was no more radical nor more important document published on the rights of humanity than the Declaration of Independence. It was born of its time but transcended it.

They adopted and published these grand thoughts under threat of death on July 4, 1776. This declaration of a new nation’s independence, the first of its kind in so many ways, changed their lives and ours forever, and they changed the world. Billions today are free all around the world right now because those men wrote down and acted on these principles and carried them through to the best of their ability.

Were they perfect about it? Did the nation they founded start off in perfection? The answer to both is no, because men aren’t perfect and neither is any institution they create. Even they needed a do-over from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution. But understanding their own imperfections, they created a constitution that pitted ambitions against one another for the good of the people. This was also unheard of and radical, yet aimed for justice. It’s not always perfect, but it has served its people better than any other system of government over the centuries.

How many French republics have there been during America’s one? How many times has Germany changed forms, disastrously, and Russia, and China, and Korea, and Japan, all disastrously? How many dictatorships in how many forms have risen and fallen since 1776? You don’t have to believe in American exceptionalism if you don’t want to but the facts win: America is exceptional. America has stood as the exception to most of history’s arbitrary violence and will to power. Because the founders saw the natural rights of being human more clearly than most anyone else had before, and they had both the wisdom and the courage to explain the world as they saw it and then put their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor on the line to defend their beliefs.

That was 244 years ago.

On July 4, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered the greatest address of his life in Rochester, New York. At the time he spoke, slavery still existed in the United States as it had for thousands of years around the world. As he stood and addressed the nation, Douglass asked the question of the age: “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” Douglass had every right and reason to ask that question. Douglass himself had escaped the bonds of slavery just 14 years earlier. He knew what it felt like to be owned by another person. He also knew what it felt like to be a free man. He knew what it was like to be ignored as less than human. He knew what it was like to be respected and listened to.

Rather than denounce the nation that celebrated its birthday that day, he pointed directly back to its founding day and asked why any slave should celebrate the 4th of July. He answered:

Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? It is neither.

He was right.

And:

Cling to this day. Cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight… At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed… It is not light that is needed, but fire. It is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake…

Douglass called upon the Fourth of July, therefore the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution’s preamble, which simply says:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Taking the words of the Declaration together with the preamble to Constitution and Douglass rightly saw the ideas that would inevitably end slavery, as long as the republic endured long enough to see it. In 1852, as now, this was not ironclad. So, to the free man, the Fourth of July represented his guarantee. To those still enslaved, the Fourth of July represented hope of freedom to come. Frederick Douglass’ experience led him to see this more clearly than anyone else of his age and probably anyone since or now.

The storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake Douglass spoke of came, in the form of a destructive civil war. America paid in blood and treasure as it never had before, and slavery was ended. Douglass lived through it as one of abolitionism’s most ardent, eloquent, passionate, and heard spokesman. He had risen from slavery to become a friend of presidents, as a citizen, though not yet in full. Few have the power of oration without experience, and Douglass had experienced it all. He had lived under unjust law. He had broken that law. And he also respected and served the higher law, the Constitution, which he respected as a means of reaching understanding and offering hope. He was a true American on July 4, 1852, more true than many others.

On July 4, 2020, people as yet unknown damaged and toppled the statue of Frederick Douglass in Rochester that marks his moment and his speech. The damage was so extensive that it will probably have to be replaced.

Douglass believed in the words of the founders, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” He called upon these truths to make America live up to them. Rather than reject America’s founding, he embraced it and wanted to see it fulfilled.

Is there any clearer rejection of these truths than toppling, one by one, the statues of George Washington, who fought for them on the battlefield, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote them down, and Frederick Douglass, who used them to point toward freedom that was yet to be obtained? Is there any clearer rejection of these truths than the wanton killing of innocent men, women, and children over these past weeks?

We hold these truths to be self-evident… But do we? As a nation?

We now know that many do not. The New York Times revealed in its dishonest 1619 Project that it does not. It has fully rejected America’s founding. Many others have evidently followed or have been led down that same path in education that either succeeded in indoctrinating them in lies—but failed them and the nation—or failed to educate them in facts, also thereby failing them and the nation.

I pray that a majority still do hold these truths to be self-evident. Until this past year or two, it was a given. Our future and our hope of freedom very much depend on it.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/bryan-preston/2020/07/06/do-we-still-hold-these-truths-to-be-self-evident-n610185

Charlie Daniels, Country Music Hall of Fame Member, Best known for ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia,’ Dead at 83

 The Grammy-nominated country music firebrand Charlie Daniels has died of a stroke at 83; had hit with ‘Devil Went Down to Georgia’.

A statement from his publicist said the Country Music Hall of Famer died Monday at a hospital in Hermitage, Tennessee, after doctors said he had a stroke.

 He had suffered what was described as a mild stroke in January 2010 and had a heart pacemaker implanted in 2013 but continued to perform.

 Watch below: 



Daniels, a singer, guitarist and fiddler, started out as a session musician, even playing on Bob Dylan’s “Nashville Skyline” sessions. Beginning in the early 1970s, his five-piece band toured endlessly, sometimes doing 250 shows a year.

“I can ask people where they are from, and if they say `Waukegan,′ I can say I’ve played there. If they say `Baton Rouge,′ I can say I’ve played there. There’s not a city we haven’t played in,” Daniels said in 1998.

Daniels performed at White House, at the Super Bowl, throughout Europe and often for troops in the Middle East.

He played himself in the 1980 John Travolta movie “Urban Cowboy” and was closely identified with the rise of country music generated by that film.

“I’ve kept people employed for over 20 years and never missed a payroll,” Daniels said in 1998. That same year, he received the Pioneer Award from the Academy of Country Music.

In the 1990s Daniels softened some of his lyrics from his earlier days when he often was embroiled in controversy.

In “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” a 1979 song about a fiddling duel between the devil and a whippersnapper named Johnny, Daniels originally called the devil a “son of a bitch,” but changed it to “son of a gun.”

 Watch below: 



In his 1980 hit “Long Haired Country Boy,” he used to sing about being “stoned in the morning” and “drunk in the afternoon.” Daniels changed it to “I get up in the morning. I get down in the afternoon.”

“I guess I’ve mellowed in my old age,” Daniels said in 1998.

Otherwise, though, he rarely backed down from in-your-face lyrics.

His “Simple Man” in 1990 suggested lynching drug dealers and using child abusers as alligator bait.

His “In America” in 1980 told this country’s enemies to “go straight to hell.”

Such tough talk earned him guest spots on “Politically Incorrect,” the G. Gordon Liddy radio show and on C-Span taking comments from viewers.

“The Devil Went Down to Georgia” was No. 1 on the country charts in 1979 and No. 3 on the pop charts. It was voted single of the year by the Country Music Association.

In the climactic verse, Daniels sang:

“The devil bowed his head because he knew that he’d been beat.
“He laid that golden fiddle on the ground at Johnny’s feet.
“Johnny said, `Devil just come on back if you ever want to try again.
“I told you once you son of a gun, I’m the best that’s ever been.”

He hosted regular Volunteer Jam concerts in Nashville in which the performers usually were not announced in advance. Entertainers at thes shows included Don Henley, Amy Grant, James Brown, Pat Boone, Bill Monroe, Willie Nelson, Vince Gill, the Lynyrd Skynyrd Band, Alabama, Billy Joel, Little Richard, B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eugene Fodor and Woody Herman.

Daniels, a native of Wilmington, N.C., played on several Bob Dylan albums as a Nashville recording session guitarist in the late 1960s, including “New Morning” and “Self-Portrait.”

Eventually, at the age of 71, he was invited to join the epitome of Nashville’s music establishment, the Grand Ole Opry. He was inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.

He said in 1998 that he kept touring so much because “I have never played those notes perfectly. I’ve never sung every song perfectly. I’m in competition to be better tonight than I was last night and to be better tomorrow than tonight.”

Daniels said his favorite place to play was “anywhere with a good crowd and a good paycheck.”

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2020/07/06/charlie-daniels-dead-at-83/

Redskins Change Name To ...

Redskins Change Name To 

'Lizard People' To 

Better Represent Population Of Washington, D.C.

July 3rd, 2020

WASHINGTON, D.C.—There has been much talk about renaming the Washington Redskins, since their offensive name has no place in our modern, enlightened society that has done away with all other immorality and sin.

The District of Columbia informed the team that they cannot return to playing within the district until they have a name that is more fitting for a team representing the capital of our country. To that end, the team officially announced today they would be renaming themselves to "The Washington Lizard People."

"This is a much better name, far more reflective of the great city of Washington, D.C.," said Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.'s representative. "All the politicians, bureaucrats, and leaders here in the district felt the name had great appeal."

Politicians immediately expressed their support for the name change, saying they can relate to a team called the Lizard People. "I see a name like Lizard People, and I know that's a team I can be proud of," said Adam Schiff, his eyes hungrily following a fly buzzing around the room. He licked his lips. "Much better than that Redskins nonsense. Hey, look over there, is that Vladimir Putin?" As reporters turned to look, Schiff shot a long tongue out of his mouth, lightning-quick, and nabbed the fly. "Oh, must have been mistaken," he said, shrugging.

"I pushed for 'The Turtles,'" said Mitch McConnell. "But Lizard People is acceptable, I suppose. It implies patriotism, good football, and a reptilian conspiracy to enslave puny, meaningless humanity beneath the glorious, scaly claws of lizardkind, humans forever in subjugation to their cosmic superiors, MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"I mean, um... can you believe how bad Nancy Pelosi is?"

Six Weeks, Six Cities, 600 Murders

posted by Kevin McCullough at Townhall

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own 

and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall

Six Weeks, Six Cities, 600 Murders

Source: AP Photo/Seth Wenig

The single most important domestic issue of our time is not the rising number of new people testing positive for COVID-19. Deaths have hit all-time lows.

The single most important domestic issue of our time is not even the continued economic hardship of a nation that was artificially shut down and sent spiraling into a faux recession. Millions of jobs have been added over the past 60 days and the skyrocketing unemployment has turned around to nearly where it was percent wise in most of the Obama early years (11.1 vs 9.9.)

Nope!

The single most important issue, affecting some of the largest swaths of populations in America, is the scandal the media ignores even as it explodes in our faces.

In only six weeks, city after city operated by entrenched Democrats have seen a massive expansion in lawlessness, violence, and murder. Stunningly, many news outlets seem gobsmacked and mystified at how or why such an explosion of lawlessness has occurred.

For the sake of brevity, let’s sample six of the nation’s largest cities, including all of the top three.

New York:

The Democratic mayor has long been understood as anti-police. His wife recently imagined the city as “Nirvana” if the NYPD were eliminated altogether.

Thus far in 2020, homicides are up 21 percent. Shootings are up by 46 percent. The Democratic mayor’s agenda included emptying the prison known as Rikers Island, bail reform letting perps walk before the paperwork is completed, and the effort to #DefundPolice that took 600 anti-crime units out of commission.

Los Angeles:

June saw disturbing trends. An increase in the month’s first week by 250 percent of homicides, and a 56 percent increase in shootings. Following the death of George Floyd in May the LAPD received a $150 million cut.

Chicago:

Year-to-date shootings have eclipsed 1,508 for 2020, putting them 350 ahead of 2019. To date homicides sit at 254, placing them ahead of 2019. Important to note that the Cook County board voted in favor of defunding police. Eleven city alderman raced to the fore to demand that not a single penny of $333 million in federal dollars not go to police, and various proposals are being considered to cut current funding by more than $30 million in current spending.

Washington, D.C.

Year-to-date homicide numbers are 13 percent higher than this time a year ago. Nevertheless, the District PD is slated to be defunded by more than $15 million.

Philadelphia:

Shootings are up 67 percent. Victims of armed violence are up 29 percent. Homicides are up 25 percent. So of course it makes sense to defund the Philadelphia PD by $19 million.

Baltimore:

As consistently one of the most dangerous cities in America with a five-year streak of more than 300 murders, last year Baltimore set a new recordat 348 homicides. Yet in 2020 they outpace last year’s record and will see defunding to the effect of $22 million.

As I said there are many more that I could highlight for you.

So why did all of these cities take such violent turns? Is it because their leadership capitulated to the anger of the mobs as opposed to thinking clearly and strategically about an effective response?

Or do these Democrat-run towns literally operate with denial in good and evil?

How else can you explain that in the city of Minneapolis (where a nation watched in horror and subsequently responded to the murder of an innocent man) that within 30 days they would record 1,600 shots fired? But then respond by voting to dismantle its police operations all together?

The single most important threat to our nation at this moment are Democrats who are voting in favor of eliminating law enforcement and who are by extension responsible for the greater and greater increase in the loss of life.

They are allowing Marxists and Anarchists to create complete chaos and disorder. They also seem utterly unconcerned about any lives mattering, black or white.

They appear to be holding on to an idea that they are not impacted by the scum and villainy at play under their jurisdiction. 

They even perhaps believe that this is all worth it, if it will allow them to have electoral success in the fall.

If so, they need to brace themselves for three basic truths.

It’s time they learn the truth.

It’s time they be held accountable.

And...It’s time to stop them!

President Delivers Patriotic Speech Sending Trump Deranged Media Into Rage

Tristan Justice reporting for The Federalist

Trump Derangement Syndrome eclipsed new heights Friday after the president delivered an unapologetically patriotic speech at the base of Mount Rushmore prompting an uproar from legacy media vilifying the address as a jingoistic screed from an American emperor espousing white supremacy.

“This monument will never be desecrated, these heroes will never be defaced, their legacy will never be destroyed, their achievements will never be forgotten and Mount Rushmore will stand forever as an eternal tribute to our forefathers fathers, and to our freedom,” Trump triumphantly declared at the foot of the mountain as the nation’s heritage sits under siege from the radical left targeting the four men enshrined on the monument.

Trump’s speech celebrated American greatness, paid tribute to its founders, shared tales of their heroism, and railed against the destructive cancel culture that runs antithetical to its values. The speech decried anarchic mobs launching a left-wing assault in a brand new 21st century cultural woke revolution seeking to destroy its history in a Marxist movement.

“Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our Founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash waves of violent crime in our cities. Many of these people have no idea why they’re doing this, but some know exactly why they are doing it,” Trump said. “They think the American people are strong and brave, and they will not allow our country, and all of its values, history and culture to be taken from them.”

Trump also spoke aspirationally of its future after issuing a passionate defense touting its unprecedented innovation with dreams that “one day very soon, we will plant our flag on Mars,” while supplying desperately needed imagery to a public that their president stands behind their country. The night ended with the first fireworks display at the iconic monument for the first time in a decade.

Legacy media infected with an increasingly severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome however, immediately perpetuated lies about the patriotic ceremony. Moments after the speech, the New York Times released a breaking news update characterizing Trump’s rhetoric as “dark and divisive.”

“With the coronavirus pandemic raging and his campaign faltering in the polls, his appearance amounted to a fiery reboot of his re-election effort, using the holiday and an official presidential address to mount a full-on culture war against a straw-man version of the left that he portrayed as inciting mayhem and moving the country toward totalitarianism,” wrote the Times, because it is Trump who is tearing down George Washington, defacing Abraham Lincoln, toppling Thomas Jefferson, and calling for the removal of Theodore Roosevelt in the 21st century cultural war.

The usual culprits followed suit. ABC News charged Trump with pushing “racial division,” even as the president announced an executive order to construct a new “National Garden of Heroes” honoring American icons like Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman.

At the Washington Post, the paper where Democracy dies in darkness, reporters joined the corporate media chorus chastising a speech on American exceptionalism as one that “exploits social division” which seeks to “amplify racism.” 

CNN’s Chris Cilizza meanwhile, claimed to be completely oblivious to left-wing attempts to blow up Mount Rushmore, a proposal endorsed by 44 percent of self-identifying liberals and supported by the Democratic Party as not such an insane idea.

“Uh, was there some sort of movement to tear down Mount Rushmore I was unaware of or….?” Cilizza wrote in a piece titled “The 28 most outrageous lines from Donald Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech” singling out Trump’s pledge to protect the monument.

Even as each story above reads the subjective opinions of its writers, every story presented here is advertised to readers as straight news put forward by allegedly objective truth-seekers in the noble name of journalism.

While purportedly objective reporters leap to criticize Trump’s Independence Day remarks, Federalist Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway noted it reveals “an unquestionable sign of its quality and success if they are all-hands-on-deck lying about it.”

Patriotism Is Becoming ‘White Supremacy’

 

Article by Rich Lowry in "National Review":
 
The reaction to Trump’s Rushmore speech was unhinged. 
 
Never before has a speech extolling America’s virtues and the marvels or the nation’s heroes played to such poor — and completely dishonest — reviews.

At Mount Rushmore on Friday night, President Trump gave a speech that was very tough on the woke Left, while largely celebrating America — its Founders, its ideals and freedom, its capacity for self-renewal, its astonishing variety of geniuses, adventurers, warriors, inventors, and great musicians and athletes.

Then, his speech ended, and the press piled on with one of its most its unhinged and dishonest performances of his presidency, which is saying something.

The Associated Press headlined its report on the speech “Trump pushes racial division, flouts virus rules at Rushmore.”

(The delicate way the news service put the targeting of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt was inadvertently amusing: “He zeroed in on the desecration by some protesters of monuments and statues across the country that honor those who have benefited from slavery, including some past presidents.”)

The New York Times played it exactly the same way in its news alert:

Breaking News: President Trump delivered a dark and divisive speech at Mount Rushmore, leaning into the culture wars and barely mentioning the pandemic.https://t.co/03WOgau4Zx

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 4, 2020

CNN led a news report with this: “On a very different Fourth of July holiday, when many Americans are wrestling with the racist misdeeds of the country’s heroes and confronting an unrelenting pandemic with surging cases, their commander-in-chief is attempting to drag America backward — stirring fear of cultural change while flouting the most basic scientific evidence about disease transmission.”

The opening of a Washington Post report struck a similar note: “President Trump’s unyielding push to preserve Confederate symbols and the legacy of white domination, crystallized by his harsh denunciation of the racial justice movement Friday night at Mount Rushmore, has unnerved Republicans who have long enabled him but now fear losing power and forever associating their party with his racial animus.”

The Post wrote this even though the Rushmore speech didn’t mention Confederate monuments.

It’s worth underlining that none of these pieces were columns or op-eds. All purported to be straight news written by straight-news reporters.

So what did Trump say at Mount Rushmore? “Our Founders,” he declared, “launched not only a revolution in government, but a revolution in the pursuit of justice, equality, liberty, and prosperity.” In insisting that all men are created equal, they “enshrined a divine truth that changed the world forever.” Indeed, “these immortal words set in motion the unstoppable march of freedom.”

He said that Americans “believe in equal opportunity, equal justice, and equal treatment for citizens of every race, background, religion, and creed. Every child, of every color — born and unborn — is made in the holy image of God.”

He warned of those attacking the Founding of our country: “They would tear down the principles that propelled the abolition of slavery in America and, ultimately, around the world, ending an evil institution that had plagued humanity for thousands and thousands of years.”

And not just that: “Our opponents would tear apart the very documents that Martin Luther King used to express his dream, and the ideas that were the foundation of the righteous movement for Civil Rights.”

He ran through a roll call of American heroes: “We are the country of Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Frederick Douglass. We are the land of Wild Bill Hickock and Buffalo Bill Cody. We are the nation that gave rise to the Wright Brothers, the Tuskegee Airmen, Harriet Tubman, Clara Barton, Jesse Owens, George Patton — General George Patton — the great Louie Armstrong, Alan Shepard, Elvis Presley, and Mohammad Ali.”

He called for children to be taught “once again to see America as did Reverend Martin Luther King, when he said that the Founders had signed “‘a promissory note’ to every future generation.”

In sum, he insisted, “it is time to plant our flag and protect the greatest of this nation, for citizens of every race, in every city, and every part of this glorious land.”

So where’s the hate? Where’s the white supremacy? Where’s the Confederacy?

You can say that the speech was insincere, or that Trump’s tweets matter more than anything he reads from a Teleprompter, or that he doesn’t have the credibility to make this sort of speech, but you can’t say it was racially divisive.

There’s no doubt that Trump’s attacks on the Left were hard-edged. In one line oft-quoted by journalists, he said, “In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance.”

You can object to the label “fascism,” which as a general matter is overused in our political debate, or argue that “absolute allegiance” puts it too strongly, but Trump is obviously right about the illiberal character of the wave of cancellations sweeping our culture.

In fact, I suspect that the very journalists who scoff at his description all know that if they or their colleagues say something disparaging or even skeptical about Black Lives Matter, their jobs would instantly be at risk.

Trump’s proposed “national garden” of statues of our heroes can also legitimately be criticized as gimmicky, with a random list of people to be honored. Yet, the idea is a version of a compromise proposal sometimes floated in the statue wars: Don’t tear down what we have, build more.

The proposed list, by the way, includes Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman, and Booker T. Washington, and can’t possibly be characterized as racially divisive, either.

Part of what is going on here is simply a reaction to anything Trump says or does, but there is a deeper factor at work. The media presumes that it must necessarily be wrong to criticize, as the Washington Post put it, a “racial justice movement” — it’s catch-all phrase for the woke Left.

Forced to choose between what once would have been the uncontroversial patriotic sentiments expressed at Mount Rushmore and that movement, it’s not even close — patriotism has to be thrown overboard.

If this seems to be putting it too starkly, just wait. This tweet from Colin Kaepernick on July 4 was ominously forthright:

Black ppl have been dehumanized, brutalized, criminalized + terrorized by America for centuries, & are expected to join your commemoration of “independence”, while you enslaved our ancestors. We reject your celebration of white supremacy & look forward to liberation for all. ✊🏾 pic.twitter.com/YCD2SYlgv4

— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) July 4, 2020

 

 

That position still seems extreme, but so did kneeling a couple of years ago. Now, it’s going to be de rigueur for many athletes.

If and when the day arrives when championing our Founders and exulting in July 4 is flatly considered an expression of white supremacy, we will look back at the reaction to the Mount Rushmore speech as the canary in the coal mine.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/president-trump-mount-rushmore-speech-distorted-by-media/

Activists Demand University Fire All Professors Deemed ‘Racist,’ Hold Black-Only Graduation

 

Article by Mike Miller in "RedState":

A black student activist group is demanding that the University of Pittsburgh fire all faculty and staff deemed to be “racist” by a black-only student council.

The group —  Black Pitt — is also demanding an end to First Amendment free speech rights for all employees at the public university, and a black-only graduation, among other demands.

As reported by Washington Free Beacon, the black coalition outlined its list of demands in a letter to the university. The letter reads, in part:

Faculty and staff with one incident or complaint of racial bias, excessive force, or unlawful arrest/detainment should be terminated and banned from the University campus immediately if found at fault. During the time of the investigation, the faculty/staff should be disclosed by name and banned from the University campus until its completion.

Think about that for a moment.

A single complaint. Reported to a black-only council. The accused’s name is immediately disclosed to the public. The accused is immediately banned from the university campus until completion of an “investigation” by a black-only student group.  The “investigation” is over. The university employee is fired. Thank you very much, next case.

Don’t misunderstand;  the concern here is not about skin color. It is about predisposition, elimination of protection under the First Amendment, assumption of guilt, and predetermined punishment.

Katlyn Patton, spokeswoman for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, told the Washington Free Beacon that Pitt is bound by the First Amendment regarding professors’ free speech rights.

As a public institution, the University of Pittsburgh is bound by the First Amendment in its decisions concerning when to discipline a professor. While these students are free to express their concerns and propose ideas, Pitt, like any public college or university, must consider the protections afforded to professors by the First Amendment and the principles of academic freedom in evaluating allegations of racial bias based on speech.

Those “student concerns” are reflected in a 12-page list of demands, which includes, in addition to the termination of “racist” university faculty and staff:

• a Black-only graduation
• the creation of a “People’s Voice” committee  comprised of “Black faculty, staff, alumni, and student liaisons who are well-versed in the field of Black studies/culture”
•  an overhaul of university curriculum to be more “inclusive and comprehensive regarding the plight and triumphs of Black people”
• the establishment of a Masters and PhD program in “Black studies”
• the firing of “racist” university polices officers and severing of ties with the city of Pittsburgh’s police department
• full financial support as well as University assistance with securing a location for events and projects that cater to the “Black Experience”
• creation of a space in the William Pitt Union solely for Black students
• an increase in the population of Black students on campus
• the establishment of 51 new scholarships for Black students
• the creation of a Black Advocacy Council
•  

A Pitt spokesman told Pitt News that the university is giving the list of demands “serious consideration.” Black Pitt, which did not respond to a request for comment, called on the university to implement all of its demands by the start of the 2020-2021 school year.

Pitt isn’t the only public university to be challenged in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, as colleges around the country grapple with the Black Lives Matter movement and heightened “racial sensitivity.”

As we reported last week, the University of Colorado announced in a memo to faculty and staff that all applicants to the university must be willing to “combat racism,” adding that the criterion is now a “non-negotiable condition of enrollment and employment.”

The memo read, in part:

A series of racist, discriminatory and threatening social media messages — some posted by current and incoming students — have come to light in recent days. […]
Regardless of when these messages were posted, they were found at a time when our community is hurting due to the violent deaths of George Floyd and many other Black Americans.
[…]
We may be confronting the unparalleled challenges of a global pandemic, but we can’t let that work distract us from making real changes to our campus culture to combat systemic racism and bias-motivated behavior.
These changes must be seen in how we recruit students, faculty, staff and administrators — in how we signal to them the need to embrace our community values as a bottom line, non-negotiable condition of enrollment and employment.

Clearly, the rights of all Americans are protected by the U.S. Constitution, not just those with whom we agree.

In protecting those rights, we must also be vigilant in protecting the rights of those with whom we disagree. If we do not, it will be one day be “us” that “they'” seek to silence.

https://www.redstate.com/mike_miller/2020/07/06/activists-demand-university-fire-all-professors-deemed-%e2%80%98racist%e2%80%99-hold-black-only-graduation/

Eviction Crisis Threatens...

Rick Moran writing at PJMedia

Eviction Crisis Threatens 

Tenants, Landlords, and Building Owners

America faces an impending housing crisis. The federal government extended the moratorium on evictions from federally-subsidized housing and apartments until August 31, but that represents only about half the tenants who are at risk. The real crisis will come when the extra unemployment benefit expires on July 31 and millions of people will be faced with eviction and, ultimately, homelessness.

But the problem isn’t confined to tenants. Landlords and building owners with mortgages must get paid rent on the property they own to prevent their own bankruptcy. In some states, building owner groups and tenants have joined together to call for relief from states and the federal government.

Something is going to have to be done or the homeless crisis will become exponentially worse and apartment buildings will fall into disrepair as owners are forced to abandon them. Then, we’ll really be in trouble. There will be fewer rental units but the same number of people looking to rent.

Not a pleasant state of affairs to contemplate.

There is going to be a bailout of some kind from Congress. They can’t keep extending moratoriums on evictions, so there is either going to be direct relief to tenants or some kind of special loan program for building owners.

NBC News:

“So now, less than half the country is covered by an eviction moratorium that isn’t federal in nature,” [Emily Benfer, a law professor at Wake Forest University,] said. “And as the unemployment insurance expires at the end of July, along with the majority of the remaining eviction moratoriums, we can expect to see a severe eviction crisis in the United States.”

She added, “And if they lift before federal financial support is in place, the United States will plummet into a major eviction crisis that will have negative consequences for all of society — because when the rent isn’t paid, mortgages and property taxes go unpaid, so states, cities, school districts, landlords, banks, the housing market, entire communities suffer as a result.”

Democrats, as usual, are playing politics with the crisis, not wanting to waste it.

The Democratic-controlled House passed a $3 trillion relief bill in May, called the HEROES Act, but hit a roadblock in the Republican-controlled Senate. Another bill sponsored by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., which recently passed the House, is expected to meet a similar fate. That bill specifically targets housing by extending the eviction moratorium put in place by the CARES Act through March 2021, placing $100 billion into the coffers of COVID-19 rental assistance programs and creating a $75 billion relief fund for homeowners.

President Donald Trump has also signaled he wants to see a “generous” second round of relief payments to Americans, but nothing has materialized.

Those are actually ballpark figures being talked about by Republicans. But the bells and whistles Waters attached to her bill make it unpalatable to anyone with common sense.

There’s a compromise to be had in the next stimulus bill, but it’s going to have to take a desire from Democrats to give up their gargantuan $3 trillion bill and settle for something less than half that amount. Republicans believe the government should help but the non-crisis-related veritable crap that Waters and the Democrats want to load in any relief bill is going to be resisted.

I’d say the odds of passage by the target date at the end of this month are less than 50-50.

SUSPICIONS: CONFIRMED

First of all, I knew nobody is going to intentionally wreck their Jaguar just to take out some idiotic fat chick protesters. 

ABC Finally Gives Us The Scoop On Who Hit the Protesters in Seattle and It's Unreal

Nick Arama reporting for RedState

I’ve been waiting patiently for something that we seem to be missing, something rather important in the case of the protesters being hit by a car while standing in the middle of the highway in the middle of the night.

Where’s the de rigeur picture of the arrested suspect?

People arrested the man, Dawit Kelete, media has described him as 27 years old, a Seattle resident who went to Washington State University. But despite the fact that he was taken into custody shortly after the incident on Saturday morning, we have yet to see a mugshot of him or a mainstream media picture released of him, not even from the local stations as is commonly done.

Although an official picture has not been released, social media pics including Instagram pictures of an individual with the same name, age and attendance at Washington State University, are of a black man. But police and media have not verified that.

While he may have gone around a closure around a ramp to get onto the highway, it’s not clear at all that he knew the protesters were there or if he saw them until right before he hit them. It’s sort of the perfect storm of bad – people dressed in dark clothing standing in the middle of a highway late at night just around a bend in the road with their cars stretched out across the road, further obscuring the view of the protesters behind them.

Two white people, Summer Taylor, 24 and 32 year old Diaz Love were hurt in the incident. Taylor later died at the hospital.

The police did arrest the man and charge him with vehicular assault, but that charge doesn’t necessarily indicate they believe there was intent, one can make that charge for example if it is believed he was driving recklessly.

Meanwhile instead of releasing the picture of the suspect, here’s what ABC had to say about the incident.

Apparently a “luxury car” was to blame. What does the fact he was driving a Jaguar have to do with anything? Evil rich person did it? What the heck?

Comrade Cuomo Reminds Good Citizens To Comply With Big Tech Health Surveillance

Comrades, when we transmitted the original warning on April 11th, and then again on April 12th, we were met with scorn and derision.  ‘They would never‘, they said…

Ah, but they did.

Comrade Andrew Cuomo now deploys the exact COVID compliance strategy we warned would be weaponized in the interest of the state. [Tweet Link]

This is very much not a spoof, and you won’t like what follows when you answer the phone only to discover you have been identified by contact tracers as a potential carrier.

Comrade Cuomo is not happy with non-compliant citizens refusing to adjust their wrongful thinking to benefit the needs of our new state. During these stressful times thought, without regard for collective need, is an indication a citizen may be a subversive. Please report subversives to the Ministry of COVID Compliance, so they too may be blocked from the benefits of the new union; and encouraged with enhanced support.

OUR WARNING – If non-compliant behavior continues due to some pre-conceived notion of liberty; or if wrong-thoughts continue to be expressed; it may become necessary for the Ministry to deduct 200 credits from your social compliance score. Please do not put the Ministry in the position of having to make such decisions. Compliance is in your best interest.

State influence agent, Comrade Cuomo, helps to correct wrong-thinking. The state will never force you to share your health records. Only if you wish to remove yourself from voluntary home confinement, access rights, and unlock your social privileges, will you be encouraged to join a health registry via your voluntary cell phone/transponder provider.

The Ministry would never force your compliance comrade. You may choose to remain external to the Federated United State System (FUSS). You may also choose not to participate in the employment network, state services, access to civil transit, large entertainment gatherings, parks and restaurants. Nothing is mandated. Relax comrades, the Ministry is sensitive to your previous rights as we initiate our new, safer, society.

The COVID Compliance Ministry appreciates good citizens who voluntarily participate in the registry. We reward good citizenship status with enhanced credits allowing access to a safe COVID Compliant Society. A safer society; where odds will always be in their favor.

Would it not be preferable in the new regime to have an alert on your phone warning you of your proximity to a non-compliant, possibly infected, citizen?

A rogue citizen could put a compliant society at risk of infection. They may not just carry biologics they could carry a more alarming virus of wrong-thought against the interests of the state. Rogue citizens would be subversive to our new society.

Surely all good citizens would agree with Comrade Adams; there must be an emergency alert of some form identifying the larger audience to these subversive public enemies so we could respond accordingly. The infrastructure is already established. Society is familiar with “Amber Alerts”, this would be a slight modification to avoid viral spread.

Relax, it’s going to be lots of fun Comrades. Perhaps we just start with digital armbands, certifications within your portable transponder unit, to compliment our mandatory face masks. Each state could create their designated digital stamps for your COVID ID.

Traveling will be so much fun, we can collect the whole set. “Achtung Juden – New York”, “Juden Raus – California”, and the larger federal “Enemy of the People”, designation.

Social Distancing or House Arrest…. Details, comrades,… details.

I’d be very interested in how Comrade Scott Adams now positions himself after previously promoting exactly this type of surveillance state.  Apparently, freedom is so overrated.

I mean what could possibly go wrong with a merging of Big Tech and government control of society? Would it not be preferable in the new regime to have an alert on your phone warning you of your proximity to a non-compliant citizen?

As you can see, it has come to pass.

Good luck.