Tuesday, March 16, 2021

Almost a third of children have COVID-19 antibodies in Texas study

 https://www.yahoo.com/news/almost-third-children-covid-19-035458485.html



A large ongoing study in Texas has found that between 14 percent and 34 percent of all Texans have COVID-19 antibodies, including about 30 percent of children age 5 to 19, KERA News in Dallas reported Monday. The surprise preliminary findings suggest children could play an important role in helping Texas and the U.S. achieve herd immunity.

The Texas CARES study, a collaboration between University of Texas School of Public Health in Dallas and the Texas Department of State Health Services, collects and tests thousands of blood samples and patient surveys, looking for the prevalence of COVID-19 in the state. It runs through July.

"Children actually have a higher seroprevalence than adults do," Sarah Messiah, a professor of epidemiology at UT Health and a collaborator on the study, tells KERA News. Half of the children with antibodies experienced no symptoms, she added. "Children have not been a part of this conversation," but "think about the households that have children in them." Herd immunity is when enough people are infected or vaccinated to stop the virus from spreading in a community. Experts estimate up to 80 percent of people must have immunity to reach that point.


Two Charged With Bear Spraying Capitol Officer Sicknick

Two men were charged with using chemical spray against Capitol police, but neither were charged in Sicknick's death, the cause of which is being kept hidden from the public.



Authorities charged two men with assaulting U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick with bear spray during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, but still did not disclose the reason or official cause of death for the law enforcement officer’s passing.

According to Politico, Julian Khater, 32, and George Tanios, 39, were both arrested over the weekend after the FBI claimed to have identified them carrying and using the chemical spray against Capitol law enforcement including Sicknick in footage from the Capitol chaos. 

“The officers were temporary blinded by the substance, were temporary disabled from performing their duties and needed medical attention and assistance from fellow officers,” the criminal complaint reads. “They were initially treated with water in an effort to wash out the unknown substance from their eyes and on their face. All three officers were incapacitated and unable to perform their duties for at least 20 minutes or longer while they recovered from the spray.”

While Sicknick appeared to be “in good spirits” after the riot, even texting his brother, he later collapsed at Capitol Police headquarters and died after being admitted to the hospital.

While corrupt corporate media outlets such as the New York Times first reported on anonymously sourced claims that Sicknick was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher by a Trump-loving mob during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a false story that quickly spread on social media and was amplified by congressional Democrats seeking action against former President Donald Trump, it is still unclear what caused Sicknick’s death.

Just last month, Sicknick’s mother told the Daily Mail that the officer may have died from a stroke but that his family has yet to be informed of the official cause of death.

“We think he had a stroke, but we don’t know anything for sure,” Gladys Sicknick said almost a month after stories about her son being bludgeoned to death by Trump supporters went viral. “We’d love to know what happened.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray recently refused to disclose any information about Sicknick’s passing to Congress, offering no further details other than “there is an ongoing investigation into his death.”

“I have to be careful at this stage because it’s ongoing, not to get out in front of it,” Wray said.

“So does that mean since the investigation’s going on, you have not determined the exact cause of the death?” Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley of Iowa asked.

“That means we can’t yet disclose cause of death at this stage,” Wray replied.

“But you have determined the cause of death?” Grassley pressed.

“I didn’t say that. We’re not at a point where we can disclose or confirm the cause of death,” Wray stated.


Cannes Film Festival: Spike Lee asked again to be first black jury head

 

Spike Lee has again been asked to chair the Cannes Film Festival jury after last year's event was cancelled because of the pandemic.

The Malcolm X and Do The Right Thing director will be the first black film-maker to take on the prestigious role.

Lee has premiered seven films at the festival. "Cannes will always have a deep spot in my heart," he said in a video message.

This year's event is due to take place in July instead of its usual May slot.

"Book my flight now. My wife Tonya and I, we're coming," the director added.

But with Covid-19 cases still at high levels in France, there is a chance that the event could be called off again.

 

 

"Throughout the months of uncertainty we've just been through, Spike Lee has never stopped encouraging us," festival president Pierre Lescure said in a statement.

"We could not have hoped for a more powerful personality to chart our troubled times."

 

 

Lee first made an impact on the film industry at Cannes in 1986 with She's Gotta Have It, which won the youth award. He returned to the festival three years later with Do The Right Thing, his landmark film about one day of charged race relations in Brooklyn.

Other Lee films to have been screened at Cannes have included Summer of Sam and BlacKkKlansman, while he is also known for Malcolm X and his latest release, Da 5 Bloods, about a group of US Army veterans returning to Vietnam.

The official selection for this year's festival, along with the rest of the jury, are due to be named in early June.

Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-wai is the only Asian to have been president of the Cannes jury, while French-Algerian actress Isabelle Adjani was the first of African descent to preside in 1997.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-56413896?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Bbbc.news.twitter%5D-%5Bheadline%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D&at_campaign=64&at_custom4=79610DA4-8682-11EB-A9D3-FA874744363C&at_medium=custom7&at_custom2=twitter&at_custom3=%40BBCWorld&at_custom1=%5Bpost+type%5D 

 

 

 


 

Putin vows to take down Twitter: Service will be blocked in Russia in 30 days if it does not delete 'banned content' related to porn, suicide and Alexis Navalny protests

 

Russia has threatened to block Twitter within 30 days unless the site acts to remove what the government refers to as 'banned content'. 

Vadim Subbotin, deputy head of watchdog Roskomnadzor, said on Tuesday that the ban would come into effect unless Twitter removed the content, which he said includes child porn and information on child suicide and drugs.

But critics say the crackdown is actually an attempt to stop Putin's political opponents organising rallies, as they did in a number of cities earlier this year.

 

 Twitter is not reacting to our requests as they should. If the situation carries on then it will be blocked in a month without a court order,' Subbotin said. 

It comes a week after Subbotin announced that Twitter's internet speed would be slowed down unless it removed the offending content.  

Meanwhile Twitter is also being sued in Russia for allegedly failing to delete material encouraging children to join anti-Putin protests.

Twitter said at the time that it was worried about the impact on free speech despite Russian laws specifically outlawing children attending protests. 

Russia has also railed against social media sites for censoring state-controlled media such as RT, which have been branded propaganda sites by foreign governments.

Back in January, Putin personally accused social media giants in January of 'controlling society' and 'restricting the right to freely express viewpoints.'

Around 9million Russians are thought to use Twitter, just eight per cent of the country's total population, though it is the favoured means of communication for Putin's critics including the likes of Navalny.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9367999/Russian-threatens-block-Twitter-30-days-banned-content.html 

 


 

What’s Going on With U.S. Military and Democrat Politicization of The Institution


There are numerous reports of the U.S. military engaging in recent political activity that has raised some eyebrows.  Many are wondering what is going on…. and there’s likely an alarming reason.  Considering the specific examples over the past few years, I would argue the Democrats are positioning for use of the military in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act -or- by an expressed act of congress.

Following the evidence to its logical conclusion is simple.  The political apparatus of the DC state has framed a fraudulent narrative that “insurrection” against the federal government is an ongoing possibility.

Toward that end the U.S. military national guard troops have been sent to Washington DC indefinitely (current deployment extended through May).

If we consider there is a reasonable argument now surfacing about states choosing to nullify federal laws, it is not a stretch to see the insurrection narrative as a proactive assertion to support the deployment of active military against any state who would be non-compliant.

Would this violate the Posse Comitatus Act? Quite possibly, yes; it would depend on whether congress passed an expressed act authorizing military troops against specific state action.

When we consider that most of the constitutional checks and balances have been deconstructed or usurped by hardline leftist action; including the weaponization of the intelligence community, and specifically the FBI as a federal law enforcement agency; we are left to recognize that any Posse Comitatus violation would likely be supported by a leftist and aligned media arguing that the military is needed in order to stop a rebellion of states.

If our suspicions/predictions are correct, this would explain exactly why there has been a recent uptick in the visual politicization of the military; including empirical examples of emboldened U.S. military leadership openly engaged in domestic political advocacy against Tucker Carlson.

The marching of the U.S. military through the Capitol building to the offices of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene would be another orchestrated optic sending the same political message.

These are not examples of the military “woke” community advancing political correctness, instead these are examples of advanced politicization of the military (in an open context) in preparation for domestic political use.   The “insurrection narrative” is then considered a seed planted to blossom later in support of the overall agenda.

One of the data-points highlighting future intent was clearly visible and seemingly overlooked by almost all media.  It happened when Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman first became a political whistle-blower against the office of President Trump.

It was not the details of the Vindman accusation that stood out, though that was the aspect the media focused on.  What was more concerning was the lack of action by the Pentagon after Vindman compromised his position as an advisor to the commander in chief.

2019 – When we consider that Lt. Col. Vindman was carrying out what he believed to be his role; and when you overlay his military purpose; and when we accept Vindman was assisting CIA agent Eric Ciaramella in constructing his dossier to remove President Trump; and when we stand back and look at the aggregate interests involved, including Vindman’s divided loyalties toward a foreign power; and when we consider there was ZERO push-back from the ranks of military leadership, specifically the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and when you accept Vindman was simply allowed to return to his post inside the White House – where he remains today; well, the alarming aspect increases in direct proportion to the definition of the word: “coup”.

I would encourage all readers to think long and hard those factual data-points.

Despite his admitted usurpation of President Trump policy, Vindman was sent back to his post in the NSC with the full support of the United States Department of Defense.

The onus of action to remove Vindman from the NSC did not lay at the feet of the White House and National Security advisor Robert O’Brien; upon whose action the removal of Vindman could be positioned as political.  The necessary obligation to remove Lt. Col Vindman resides purposefully with the Dept. of Defense.

The Pentagon could easily withdraw Vindman from his position at the National Security Council; yet, it does not…. and it has not.   WHY?

There is a code within the military whereby you never put your leadership into a position of compromise; ie. “never compromise your leadership”.

In this example, President Trump cannot remove Vindman from the White House NSC advisory group due to political ramifications and appearances… The Joint Chiefs certainly recognize this issue; it is the very type of compromise they are trained to remove.  Yet they do nothing to remove the compromise.  They do nothing to assist.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was the majority (#1) source for the material CIA operative Eric Ciaramella used in a collaborative effort to remove President Trump from office.  Let me make this implication crystal clear:

The United States Military appears to be collaborating with the CIA to remove a U.S. President from office.

The Pentagon has done nothing, absolutely nothing, to countermand this implication. The Secretary of Defense has done nothing to remove the conflict that Vindman represents within the National Security Council.  The Joint Chiefs of Staff have done nothing, absolutely nothing, to diminish the appearance of an agenda toward the removal of President Trump.

This is not a complex issue.

No-one in the foreign policy group is going to take any advice or opinion from Vindman.  No-one is going to allow him to engage in material of a sensitive or confidential nature.  Lt. Col. Vindman has compromised himself; and therefore eliminated any usefulness to his prior assignment.  Yet his command does nothing? (more)

That was the alarming lack of action from the Pentagon everyone seemed to overlook.  Why did senior military leadership not remove Vindman from his post at the White House once he clearly compromised his ability to carry out his duty?  Their lack of action was stunning when you consider their primary obligation.

Fast forward to 2021 and now a very political military officer, General Russel Honore’, is appointed by Nancy Pelosi to be in charge of the military deployment around Washington DC.  When you consider the political ramifications of the military supporting a false narrative, this is more than just another data-point.

The increased frequency of the military being politicized is what leads me to believe this phase is all just a public relations pre-positioning.  I fully expect to see the standing U.S. military deployed against any state who stands up against unconstitutional federal demands… the likely origination point will be federal COVID mandates.

The leftists are weaponizing COVID mandates for a political agenda.  It is only a matter of time before states start to rebel against federal COVID demands.  That, in my opinion, will be the inflection point.  That will be when the U.S. military is held as a compliance activation against any rebellious state.  It could be another issue that activates this triggering of the military (ex. state election laws), but as it stands right now federal COVID compliance seems the most likely trigger.

Bottom line… The American electorate are being positioned to accept deployment of the U.S. military against U.S. citizens, under the guise of insurrection and/or a public threat.  That is why we are seeing so much willful politicization of the military.

If you live in a region or state that values individual liberty and/or freedom, you are likely in a location that leftists consider a risk to their ability to execute their agenda.  You are likely right now being defined as a ‘dissident’, or possibly a “domestic terrorist.”  As a result, get ready to see this type of activity in your neighborhood.


Rep. Omar introduces Agenda 21

 

Article by Anony Mee (?) in The American Thinker
 

Rep. Omar introduces Agenda 21

Without respect to the fact that states have the authority to regulate housing contracts, Ilhan Omar uses a viral smokescreen to begin implementing some of the worst features of Agenda 21, the leftist promise that the government will provide affordable housing for everyone. On March 11, she introduced H.R. 1847, a bill “To suspend obligations of residential renters and mortgagors to make payments during the COVID-19 emergency, and for other purposes.” So far only a draft of the text is available.  

Essentially, the bill says that real property tenants can stop paying their landlords. Our country was not founded on the moral code that one is not responsible for one’s obligations and debts. However, these socialists would make it so.

Unsurprisingly, this bill is full of problems. It provides for a COVID suspension period ending April 2022 (Sec. 8(3)), but the landlord relief fund runs for five years (Sec. 5 (c)(1)). It seems as if it’s planning to extend for up to five years a tenant’s freedom from rent obligations, should the bill become law.

Under H.R. 1847, tenants may simply stop paying their rent, without restriction, for a period of one year (for now). There is no means-testing to determine if rent relief is warranted. In fact, the bill doesn’t even require that the tenant notify the landlord. However, our taxpayer money will go to notify every renter in the country of this provision (Sec. 3(c)). No mention is made of notifying every landlord, yet landlords can be held responsible, to the point of forfeiting their property if they ignorantly, but in accordance with their lawful contract, pursue their tenants for rent (Sec. 4).

While tenants can just withhold money, landlords must apply for relief of unpaid rent (Sec. 5). The requirements are onerous and include freezing the rent for a period of five years regardless of the market – a provision that could cut both ways. The owner must agree to rent vacant units to HUD and other tenant-assistance grantees, even if it is apparent that the tenant cannot afford usual utilities. In some localities, landlords are on the hook for unpaid utility bills in occupied dwellings.

Potential tenants cannot be rejected for their arrest and conviction history, presumably including a history of arson, running a brothel, destroying rented housing, cooking meth at home, drug dealing, or pedophilia even if the unit is across the street from a school. Too bad, landlords, when your insurance rates triple due to this law, but your ability to charge rent is still frozen.

Applications for rent relief must include Personally Identifiable Information for any person with any ownership interest in the property, except for shareholders in a publicly-traded company; an unrestricted list of all their assets and liabilities; and comprehensive info on all rentals in which they have an interest, not just the one on the application. This, of course, is specifically designed to give the federal government a complete listing of all rental housing in America, and a basis for implementing a wealth tax.  

The communism begins to sneak in in Sec. 5(e), where priority for landlord reimbursement is tiered based on income. Non-profit owners and those with the fewest assets get the highest priority.

Rental property owners get totally trashed if they own a multi-family (five or more dwelling units) structure (Sec. 7). For five years, they cannot sell or transfer their property -- presumably, this includes transfers via a trust to one’s heirs -- without the permission of HUD, which will notify all eligible purchasers that the property is available. This is a prima facie violation of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.

The first right of purchase will go to non-profit or other such housing organizations, at a sale price that HUD approves. We the People…er, sorry, HUD will pay for this housing. We will also pay for operations and maintenance costs, seemingly in perpetuity (Sec. 7(f)(2)). Nothing in this draft bill prevents these guv-funded purchasers from turning around and selling the property. There’s no reimbursement provision at all. Not a bad gig, but on the other hand….

New owners of multi-family facilities face life-of-the-facility-long restrictions, including no refusing housing based on criminal history or immigration status (Sec. 7(d)(4)). Hide your teenage daughters, you other tenants, because that means that these private, public, or quasi-governmental organizations must rent to MS-13 if they show up at the door. This provision also abrogates the short-term public charge requirements of immigration law for most legal immigrants -- a feature of immigration statutes that pre-dates Trump, going back to 1882.

Tenants must be provided with comprehensive social services, regardless of whether they are already provided with these services in the community outside the facility (Sec. 7(d)(5)).

The coup de gras is found in Sec. 7(d)(6) “Tenants of the project shall have control of living and operating conditions…”

But here’s what Omar’s bill doesn’t mention: H.R. 1319 – the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (i.e., $1.9 T boondoggle bill) – which Biden signed into law on March 12, contains a provision for housing assistance, essentially for every category of need, under Subtitle B Housing (sections 3201 – 3208). This assistance continues for 18 months.

What this means is that there is no need at all for Omar’s little one-year bill. Her bill is a trap to get We the People to pay for everyone’s housing and it’s the opening gambit to bring all housing under the control of the federal government.

And there’s your Agenda 21 “affordable housing for all.”

 







Don't Forget to Recommend
and Follow us at our

W3P Homepage


President Cloward, Vice President Piven

 

Article by Brian C. Joondeph in The American Thinker
 

President Cloward, Vice President Piven

Cloward-Piven is a political strategy of calculated chaos first described in 1966, by two Columbia University sociologists, Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. Their theory was published appropriately in the far left The Nation, the oldest continuously published news magazine in the country. Cloward-Piven’s goal was the creation of chaos so that: “A political crisis would result that could lead to legislation for a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty.”

The activities of the past year, from an imported Chinese coronavirus to a rigged and stolen presidential election are textbook Cloward-Piven, leading to a massive shift in the leadership and direction of America. We have gone to government by, of, and for the people to a tyrannical autocracy controlled by a small cabal of self-appointed elites.

Welcome to President Cloward and Vice President Piven, or vice versa for those who believe the current vice-president is really in charge, rather than the cognitively impaired president in name only.

Cloward-Piven’s objective is chaos and turmoil, or in their words, “A massive drive to recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls.” This is followed by: “A federal program of income redistribution has become necessary to elevate the poor en masse from poverty.”

Is there any better recap of COVID, including lockdowns, closed businesses, schools, and churches requiring the ruling class spending trillions of dollars they don’t have, to rectify the damage and destruction unleashed by the same ruling class that now wants to correct it?

The so-called stimulus is massive income redistribution, from the producers to the nonproducers who are in their situation either by choice or through the diktats of the ruling class and their decisions which turned producers into nonproducers. The stimulus will result in much of the middle class, and states in general, to further dependency on the federal government sustenance.

In Cloward-Piven terms, a crisis is: “A publicly visible disruption in some institutional sphere.” How do they create such a crisis? “Crisis can occur spontaneously (e.g., riots) or as the intended result of tactics of demonstration and protest which either generate institutional disruption or bring unrecognized disruption to public attention.”

Think of the George Floyd protests and riots, a convenient excuse for institutional disruption. Institutions of law and order suffered disruption, from calls to defund the police to blatant disregard for private property and businesses.

A pre-planned riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6 created a false panic and a rushed certification of the Electoral College votes without scrutiny or review, Congress rubber-stamping a fraudulent election. It had the bonus of allowing a bogus impeachment of President Trump, kicking a man already down as a giant middle finger to Trump and his millions of supporters.

Cloward-Piven did not begin with the Trump presidency but during FDR’s New Deal, then further codified in the 1960s when it was given a name. This included Medicare, Medicaid and the Great Society welfare programs. New government agencies and bureaucracies choked innovation and economic growth. Ill-conceived and endless wars, expansion of food stamps, Medicaid, and other social welfare programs, resulted in the majority of Americans receiving government benefits.

A crisis led to each of these programs. Seniors and the poor unable to afford their medical care gave us Medicare and Medicaid. The government, replacing stay-at-home fathers, created the welfare state. A shortage of reliable Democrat voters was rectified by opening our borders to anyone, providing them with free benefits in exchange for not biting, or voting against, the hand that feeds them.

Democrats offer programs, unpopular and unappealing to the majority of Americans. Cloward-Piven is how they muscle their agenda through. It is their only strategy, accomplishing through chaos, fear and coercion what is unreachable via the ballot box. Bringing down the current system provides an opportunity to remake American society into their idealized version of Utopia, which in reality is the Soviet Union, Cuba, or China, with a small ruling class in charge and everyone else subservient. In other words, a real-life Hunger Games dystopian society.

Donald Trump was simply a speed bump on the Cloward-Piven expressway. He was supposed to blow up the road to serfdom but instead only slowed it down for a few years. The deep state won easily.

I wonder if Trump even stood a chance. Did he simply provide an opportunity for the deep state to test their new strategies of weaponizing the government against political opponents and rigging elections to the point that they are irrelevant?

Now we have rule, not by our elected representatives, but by a senile old man, signing elective orders put in front of him, orders created by his puppet-masters hiding behind the curtains.

COVID restrictions and lockdowns created such economic carnage that an entirely new dependency class was born. Add to that tens of millions of illegal immigrants, bringing dependency as well as potential health care concerns and costs and animosity toward the country paying all their bills, displacing American workers already struggling to regain their footing after COVID.

Any resistance is met with protests and riots. Those who speak out may be cancelled or worse. The media simply parrots the talking points of the ruling class, acting like court eunuchs for the ruling establishment.

Massive income redistribution via government programs with attacks on the First and Second Amendments make it impossible for the people to push back, either verbally or physically, against a tyrannical government, all to supposedly end poverty by making everyone poor and calling it the middle class.

Universal income doesn’t eliminate poverty it simply expands it, but under a different name, something trendy, like equity. Putting dog poop on a scoop of ice cream and calling it an ice cream sundae doesn’t make it so, except in the eyes of the government that defines the acceptable terms.

You can be sure that guaranteed annual income will simply create a subservient lower class, eager to vote for their paymasters each November as long as they keep dripping narcotic dollars into their wallets, not enough to climb the economic ladder but enough to keep them satisfied.

The productive ones, pulling on the economic oars, will eventually tire from their efforts and take their guaranteed stipend and let someone else row the boat. Those in charge will live lavishly as they did in the capitol city of the Hunger Games.

Chaos and confusion, fear and uncertainty, in a never-ending stream courtesy of the government, solved with executive orders by the same government designed to “fix” the very problems they created.

All of this is being ushered in under the whip of President Cloward and Vice President Piven. And it seems the entire ruling class, regardless of political party, has signed on.

 





Don't Forget to Recommend
and Follow us at our

W3P Homepage


Terrified Biden Wanders Around The White House Wondering Where Obama Went



WASHINGTON, D.C.—According to anonymous sources, Biden was seen wandering the White House grounds this morning, desperately looking for President Obama. 

"Barack! Barack! Where are ya, you ol' devil?" Biden yelled as he shuffled through the hallways in his bathrobe and slippers. "You can't hide from me, I know all the best hiding spots around here, you know that! Barack? Helloooo?"

After several minutes of fruitless searching, Biden got more agitated and uncooperative, aides say. At one point he bumped into Kamala Harris and asked for her help. "Michelle! Where's your husband Michelle? I need him real quick. Important meeting."

Amid increased calls for Democrats to show some humanity and help Biden step down and live out his remaining years peacefully, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said to the press: "Statements by these anonymous sources are completely false. The President is in perfect health and also has a fully functional brain."

"Also, there is no crisis at the border," she added. "But if there is, it's totally Trump's fault. No further questions at this time." 


Neighbors turning in neighbors

Article by Matt Rowe in The American Thinker
 

Neighbors turning in neighbors

Both sides of my wife’s family were broken up during and right after World War II. As a result, she has family in both Poland and Croatia and has kept in close touch with both. We’ve sent our teenage sons to the month-long Polish Scout Camp where they teach the kids fieldcraft and basic survival skills. It isn’t basic training, but the kids build their own camps, prepare their own food, and get ready for another Russian or German invasion. My son’s welcome gift upon arrival was a Fiskars ax.

In the 1970s, when my wife visited Croatia as a teenager, the country was still clearly under communist control. She happened to be there during the Christmas holidays, a celebration that the communist government forbade.

Despite this edict, Croatia has always been a predominantly Catholic country. Therefore, many Croats, rather than abandoning Christmas, tended to celebrate the holiday quietly, out of the neighbor’s sight, lest a non-Christian neighbor inform on them, subjecting them to a police visit and arrest.

When my then-teenage wife learned of this, she loudly exclaimed that she could not believe people could get arrested for celebrating the birth of Christ! Her Croatian family quickly closed the windows and pleadingly “shushed” her to prevent unscrupulous neighbors from hearing the incredulous teen and, perhaps, informing the police.

The Catholic Poles, on the other hand, collectively told their communist leaders to jump in a lake if they thought they could prevent Poles from going to church or celebrating religious holidays. Make no mistake: There was government pressure to suppress religion, but too many Poles were willing to stand up, and the authorities were not quite as feared as Tito’s secret police in Croatia.

In the past, these were things that we Americans knew about communist oppression during the Cold War and, like my future wife, we were outraged whenever we heard about them. Even though various groups in the United States have been oppressed for their beliefs throughout our history, we have made steady progress toward becoming a more free society.

Ironically, in the mid-20th century, we oppressed people in this country who had ever considered being communist. Many ended up “blacklisted” and could not get work and were cut off from association with coworkers and friends. The U.S. has never been perfect, but it was always our general belief that we should try to be.

Nonetheless, today in America we are seeing the return of another round of oppression. Cancel culture is the most obvious, but now we are seeing neighbors and colleagues informing on each other. After the Capitol Rush on January 6, the FBI made available on social media images of suspects in the hope that friends, family members, co-workers, and others would inform on them.

Recently, a Georgetown law school professor resigned under pressure simply because, during a Zoom call with another professor, he did not correct her for “racist” comments. The other professor expressed her concerns that Black students generally had lower academic performance every semester. That professor was fired by the Dean of the Law School.

I am not privy to all the information, and there may be evidence that both professors are in fact racist. On the other hand, perhaps neither one is racist and they were simply discussing truthful information. Since I do not believe that systemic racism and Critical Race Theory are the real problems faced by Black Americans today, I tend to think the latter, but I reserve the right to change my opinion with more evidence.

Still, the thought of one person losing a lifetime’s career because he did not correct a fellow worker who was speaking in good conscience smacks of the behavior we saw in those communist countries I described. I wonder how a third party even obtained that Zoom meeting to find out what was said. This reminds me of the “telescreen” in Orwell’s 1984 that the Party used to monitor everything anyone did that might be considered disloyal to “Big Brother.”

Leftist Big Tech tells us what we should think, and what we cannot say on social media. The tech companies punish anyone who violates these norms, as in the case of Amazon shutting down Parler, or Apple deleting content it deems white supremacist, or Disney firing right-leaning actors.

Are we now being monitored by our neighbors and colleagues to see if we are loyal to the leftist agenda? Are we now prepared to turn in our neighbors, friends, and even our families? As the left increases social and political power, will we be able to push back as the Poles did, or will we be terrorized like the Croats?

 
 




Don't Forget to Recommend
and Follow us at our

W3P Homepage


Watch as Stacey Abrams' Voting Rights 'Expertise' Goes Down in Flames on CNN



The media-driven myth of Stacey Abrams being a voting rights expert has been annoyingly persistent since the former Democratic Georgia gubernatorial nominee failed to defeat Republican nominee Brian Kemp in 2018.

Unlike Republicans who make claims about election irregularities and possible fraud, Abrams’ allegations about how the 2018 election was “stolen” from her (to this date she still has not conceded she lost) have been treated as the gospel truth in most media/Democrat/Never Trump circles. To the media, Republicans who allege such things are anti-democratic and support “insurrectionists,” while Democrats who make such claims are treated as bold leaders speaking Truth to Power™ and should be considered shoo-ins as viable Senate contenders or vice-presidential possibilities.

But while the myth of Abrams’ supposed expertise and prowess has been pervasive for over two years now, in reality, Abrams’ skill at what she does has been vastly overrated, as I documented here after Democrats and the media credited her for voter registration efforts that her defenders say made the difference in the Georgia presidential race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

As further proof that her creds on these matters are majorly overblown, I present to you an interview Abrams did on Jake Tapper’s “State of the Union” program on CNN over the weekend where she discussed alleged GOP voter suppression efforts. In the process, she made a whopper of a claim about what the Constitution says about who has the power to regulate elections (bolded emphasis added):

TAPPER: The House just passed a sweeping voting reform bill. It’s about to run into the Senate filibuster. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn said it would be catastrophic if the filibuster was allowed to be used to block these efforts to ensure voting rights. What’s your message to Democratic senators such as Kyrsten Sinema or Senator Joe Manchin or even to President Biden, who all support voting rights, but have made clear that they’re not in favor of eliminating the filibuster, which will all be guarantee this bill dies?

ABRAMS: I don’t believe that it’s necessary to wholly eliminate the filibuster to accomplish the purposes of passing these bills. The Elections Clause in the Constitution guarantees that the Congress alone has the power to regulate — to regulate the time, manner and place of elections. That is a power that is sacrosanct. We are watching across this country as individual legislators try to use the big lie to restrict access to the right to vote.

Watch:

Umm… no. That is not correct, as others observed:

What makes this an especially embarrassing look on her part is the fact that this is like Elections 101 stuff. This is not any deep, intricate thing that a supposed “expert” might forget. It literally says in the Constitution that state legislatures have a very significant role to play in this process.

While Abrams made a complete fool of herself on live TV, Tapper didn’t do a bad job of making one of himself by not fact-checking her:


Considering how much of a Democrat tool Tapper’s confirmed himself to be in recent months, I guess that shouldn’t be a big surprise to anyone, though.