Democrats Plot To Kill Filibuster Because They Only Care About Power

Jordan Davidson reporting for The Federalist

A rising number of Democratic legislators are evaluating potentially abolishing or changing the filibuster so they can force their agenda through the Senate without formal protest from Republicans. Proposals for removing the procedure recently ramped up as legislators on the left side of the political aisle continue to peddle their 800-plus-page election overhaul bill as necessary to preserve voting and civil rights, especially for minorities.

“I’m not going to say that you must get rid of the filibuster [entirely]. I would say you would do well to develop a Manchin-Sinema rule on getting around the filibuster as it relates to race and civil rights,” said House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. 

“We’re headed for a showdown between the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the filibuster — a relic of Jim Crow,” Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas warned in a statement to Politico Playbook.

President Joe Biden also hinted that he would support a certain kind of filibuster “reform” if it meant keeping Congress moving. “I don’t think that you have to eliminate the filibuster, you have to do it what it used to be when I first got to the Senate back in the old days. You had to stand up and command the floor, you had to keep talking,” Biden told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday evening.

“So you’re for that reform? You’re for bringing back the talking filibuster?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“I am. That’s what it was supposed to be,” Biden said. “It’s getting to the point where, you know, democracy is having a hard time functioning.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell condemned the Democrats’ sudden commitment to “steamrolling any obstacle to short-term power” noting it would be detrimental to the integrity of the Senate and the preservation of the minority party’s opinion.

“[U]nder pressure from the outside, many of our Democratic colleagues are abandoning their stated principles as fast as possible. … The framers designed the Senate to require deliberation … to force cooperation … and to ensure that federal laws in our big, diverse country earn broad enough buy-in to receive the lasting consent of the governed,” McConnell stated. “Senate Democrats parroted all these arguments when they were the ones benefiting from minority protection. When President Trump pressed Republicans to kill the filibuster, our Democratic colleagues cried foul.”

As McConnell noted, the campaign to employ the “nuclear option” is not new. For years, Democrats, even traditional constitutionalists, vowed to take “urgent and effective action” to ensure the filibuster would not stand in their way, especially if Biden was elected and they regained control of Congress.

“I will not stand idly by for four years and watch the Biden administration’s initiatives blocked at every turn,” Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said in an interview last June. “I am going to try really hard to find a path forward that doesn’t require removing what’s left of the structural guardrails, but if there’s a Biden administration, it will be inheriting a mess, at home and abroad. It requires urgent and effective action.”

Some of these same legislators, however, have also expressed concerns about filibuster reform in the past, especially after former President Donald Trump suggested it, warning that it essentially turns the Senate into the House of Representatives and prevents the minority party from having a say in lawmaking.

“I am committed to never voting to change the legislative filibuster,” Coons said on congressional record in 2018.

“Well, I can tell you that would be the end of the Senate as it was originally devised and created going back to our Founding Fathers,” Sen. Dick Durbin told ABC in 2018. “We have to acknowledge our respect for the minority, and that is what the Senate tries to do in its composition and in its procedure.”

“My colleagues and I, everybody I’ve talked to, believe the legislative filibuster should stay there, and I will personally resist efforts to get rid of it,” Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey said in 2019.

More than 60 Democratic and Republican legislators wrote a letter to Senate leadership in 2017 urging them to reconsider McConnell’s decision to “curtail the existing rights and prerogative of Senators” and prevent the minority party from blocking judicial and executive nominees.

“We are writing to urge you to support our efforts to preserve existing rules, practices, and traditions as they pertain to the right of Members to engage in extended debate on legislation before the United States Senate. Senators have expressed a variety of opinions about the appropriateness of limiting debate when we are considering judicial and executive branch nominations,” the letter stated. “Regardless of our past disagreements on that issue, we are united in our determination to preserve the ability of Members to engage in extended debate when bills are on the Senate floor.”

Article by Thomas Lifson in The American Thinker

 

Dan Bongino to take Rush Limbaugh’s time slot as radio syndication giants battle for his listeners

Of course, nobody can replace Rush, but Westwood One, a syndicator whose parent also owns many of the biggest stations that carried the late talk show giant, is making a bid to grab his audience by moving Dan Bongino’s talk show to Rush’s time slot (noon to 3 PM Eastern) and replacing Rush in many of the top ten markets where its parent Cumulus Media owns the stations on which Rush appeared.

Rush’s show, currently being guest-hosted, is syndicated by Premier Networks, a subsidiary of iHeartMedia, which owns more than 850 AM and FM radio stations across the nation. Thus, the two giants of radio station ownership and syndication are about to enter a titanic battle for the biggest radio audience in modern history.

Here is the “nut graf” of the PR release Westwood One put out:

CUMULUS MEDIA's Westwood One today announced The Dan Bongino Show, a new three-hour radio program airing Monday-Friday from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. ET. The news and opinion show will launch May 24 in markets nationwide, including CUMULUS news stations in top-ten markets New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.

And here is their description of Dan Bongino:

Dan Bongino is an American conservative radio show host, podcast host, frequent television political commentator, and New York Times-best-selling author whose books include "Life Inside the Bubble," about his career as a Secret Service agent, "The Fight: A Secret Service Agent's Inside Account of Security Failings and the Political Machine," and "Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump." Bongino was formerly a Secret Service agent from 2006 to 2011, serving in the Obama and Bush administrations. He served as a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer from 1995 to 1999. Bongino provides expertise on international security and political strategy for outlets such as FOX News and others. Bongino holds an MBA from Penn State University, and master's and bachelor's degrees from the City University of New York.

For the moment, Premier has not added anything to its announcement a month ago about filling Rush’s timeslot. From the Wall Street Journal last February 18:

For Rush Limbaugh, the late conservative media magnate whose brash and unapologetic voice dominated talk radio for over three decades, the show will go on.

“The Rush Limbaugh Show” will continue, using archived segments and clips, primarily airing Mr. Limbaugh’s voice “until his audience is prepared to say goodbye,” Premiere Networks, which distributes the show, said in a memo to affiliates. It will continue to air in its regular noon to 3 p.m. time slot Monday through Friday (snip)

Mr. Limbaugh’s 30 years of audio has been archived and cataloged by subject, topic and opinion, Premiere said in its memo. The show, from now on, will address the day’s news using relevant clips. 

It appears to me that Westwood One saw an opportunity to grab its rival syndicator’s largest audience with a smart, insightful, passionate and very likable (at least to me) host, likely to strongly appeal to most of Rush’s listeners. As a former NYPD cop and Secret Service agent, he has a lot of experience and street cred that he brings to his commentary.

The pressure is now in Premier to come up with its own live broadcast replacement in Rush’s timeslot. Stay tuned.,

Dan Bongino has made no secret of his recent bout with cancer. Ten days ago, the Washington Examiner reported:

Conservative commentator Dan Bongino says a mass that was detected on his lungs is not a tumor just a month after completing treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

After Fox News host Sean Hannity teased the good news on his show Monday evening, the 46-year-old Bongino told the Washington Examiner that he was "relieved" to hear the news.

"I had a mass in one of my lungs that was detected just weeks after completing treatment for my Hodgkin’s lymphoma," he said. "After some imaging, it looks like some scarring and doesn’t appear to be another tumor. I’m relieved."

The former Secret Service agent added: "I have some follow-up testing in early May to make sure there are no additional hot spots. Hoping for the best."

Bongino, who is a father and husband, has kept his large following up to speed on his health ever since announcing that a tumor was found on his neck in September. After successful surgery to remove the tumor, Bongino revealed on his radio show in October that he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of blood cancer.

In my opinion, Dan has a good chance to acquire Rush’s historically unprecedented audience and keep conservatism dominant on the radio airwaves. Congratulations to both Dan and Westwood One. But I await Premier’s live stream entry in the time slot. Among the talk show personalities it syndicates, the obvious choice would be Sean Hannity, who gained national prominence ss Rush guest host, and whose broadcast currently streams to affiliates right after Rush, at 3 PM Eastern. Will Premier move Sean up 3 hours and risk losing some of its key affiliates?

Stay tuned, as they say in the radio biz. This is a cutthroat business, especially because podcasts have been eating into the broadcast radio audience for years. If you believe competition is healthy, then the emergence of Dan Bongino as a rival for the time slot will ultimately benefit conservatives. Time will tell.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/03/dan_bongino_to_take_rush_limbaughs_time_slot_as_radio_syndication_giants_battle_for_his_listeners_.html 

Don't Forget to Recommend
and Follow us at our

W3P Homepage

 

Article by Graham Piro in The Washington Free Beacon

 

Senate Narrowly Confirms Becerra After Confirmation Fight

Former California AG survives grueling confirmation battle after winning support from Manchin and Collins

The Senate confirmed President Joe Biden's controversial top health care nominee Thursday by a narrow 50-49 margin, handing the Biden administration a victory after a contentious confirmation battle.

Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine) crossed the aisle and joined swing vote Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W. Va.) to confirm former California attorney general and congressman Xavier Becerra to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

Conservative groups and Republican senators decried Becerra's confirmation after criticizing him as a partisan nominee. They warned that Becerra would revive Obama-era battles over religious liberty as he heads the department responsible for implementing federal health care policy.

"Becerra isn’t right for the job because in the middle of a global pandemic the Department of Health and Human Services needs to be focused on health and human services," Sen. Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) said. "Becerra is a culture warrior who made his name in bloody-knuckles politics by bullying nuns."

"We have seen a lot of bad nominations from President Biden, but Xavier Becerra is one of the worst," Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) said. "Our nation’s top health official should have some qualifications other than being a woke culture warrior who targets nuns and religious hospitals with the power of the state. This was not a nomination to make the country healthier and safer, it was a nomination to weaponize a massive bureaucracy to carry out the radical left’s woke agenda."

Left-wing groups and Democrats cheered the vote, saying that Becerra's confirmation is key for fighting the coronavirus pandemic. Manchin pointed to Becerra's pledge to be a bipartisan secretary to explain his support after receiving pressure from conservative groups to tank the nomination.

"While attorney general Xavier Becerra and I have very different records on issues like abortion and the Second Amendment, he has affirmed to me his dedication to working with members on both sides of the aisle to address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the numerous needs of our nation in a bipartisan way," Manchin said in a statement.

Becerra faced criticism over his record on abortion and legal persecution of an order of nuns. During one of his confirmation hearings, he defended his aggressive litigation against the Little Sisters of the Poor over the Affordable Care Act's birth control coverage mandate.

"I have never sued any nuns. I have taken on the federal government, but I've never sued any affiliation of nuns, and my actions have always been directed at the federal agencies because they have been trying to do things that are contrary to the law in California," Becerra said. His misleading defense prompted Sen. Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) to rip Becerra for misrepresenting his litigation record and "bullying" the order of nuns.

The contentious hearings resulted in a Senate panel that deadlocked 14-14 over advancing his nomination for a full vote. The Senate cleared him once again Thursday after a procedural vote broke 51-49 in favor of advancing the nomination for a full vote on the Senate floor. Collins was the only Republican to vote to move ahead with the vote, signaling her support for the nomination.

"Although there are issues where I strongly disagree with Mr. Becerra, I believe he merits confirmation as HHS Secretary," Collins said.

An advertising campaign aimed at pressuring moderate Democratic senators to oppose Becerra proved unsuccessful after the conservative Heritage Action for America pumped $500,000 into television advertisements in West Virginia and Arizona.

Becerra's confirmation comes on the heels of Neera Tanden's failed nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget. Tanden withdrew her nomination after coming under fire for her past rhetoric on Twitter and her personal attacks on Republican senators.

https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/senate-narrowly-confirms-becerra-after-confirmation-fight/ 

Don't Forget to Recommend
and Follow us at our

W3P Homepage

COVID-19: Paris among 16 French regions set to go into lockdown for a month from midnight tomorrow

 France has tried to avoid imposing more lockdowns, but has been forced to change direction with tens of thousands of cases a day.

 

 

Paris is among 16 regions of France facing new lockdowns from midnight tomorrow, the country's prime minister Jean Castex has announced.

The measures will be in place for at least four weeks and will be less restrictive than those last March and November

 

 Schools will remain open and outdoor activities will be allowed to go ahead within a 10km radius of a person's home.

 

 

Non-essential shops, not including book shops, will be required to close.

Inter-regional travel will be prohibited, and the nationwide nightly curfew will be moved back an hour to 7pm local time (6pm GMT).

 

 French authorities have gone to great lengths to avoid re-imposing the strictest measures, having previously relied on weekend lockdowns and nightly curfews instead

 

 

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-paris-among-16-french-regions-set-to-go-into-lockdown-for-a-month-from-midnight-tomorrow-12249976 

 

 

American veteran Jack Port has died at 98

 

Veteran Jack Port has died at the age of 98, as confirmed by the Utah Beach Landing Museum in Sainte-Marie-du-Mont. Born April 12, 1922 to Estonian parents who had emigrated to the United States, Jack Port arrived in England in June 1943 and landed at Utah Beach on June 6, 1944, at 6:40 a.m., in one of the first waves of liberators. His unit, commanded by Major O’Malley, who will be killed during the battle of Mortain, freed Villedieu-les-Poêles, Coulouvray, Saint-Pois and Mortain.

Injured for the first time in Montebourg, a second time in Périers, Jack Port then fought in Mortain, Argentan, Alençon and Paris where he paraded on the Champs-Élysées. Honorary citizen of Saint-Pois, where he came regularly, Jack Port was knighted in the Legion of Honor in Paris, at Les Invalides, on June 5, 2009.

” I am not a hero, then declared Jack Port, the real heroes are those who died on the D-Day landing beaches and in the battles that followed. The hope of peace for everyone must be carried by young people. They must be taught the dangers of hatred, wars are not the solution. “

Back in the United States, for many years, he was silent ” to forget “ before speaking again so that we do not forget to American and Lower Normandy schoolchildren. He honors the D-Day ceremonies with his presence and returns to France every year.

 

 In 2019, during the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, Jack Port met Adèle, a 10-year-old girl from Franche-Comté.

 

https://www.world-today-news.com/american-veteran-jack-port-has-died-at-98/ 

 

 

 

Who Is Our Military’s Enemy?

Leftist administrations see the military foremost as a tool for accelerating their own progressive domestic changes.

Victor Davis Hanson for American Greatness

The U.S. military has now turned its wrath inward on Fox News host Tucker Carlson. 

The new secretary of defense relayed his “revulsion” for Carlson’s questioning the role of women in combat—a position that had been the military’s centuries-long orthodoxy until about seven years ago.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby even compared Carlson to the Communist Chinese military: “What we absolutely won’t do is take personnel advice from a talk show host, or the Chinese military.” 

The now-cocky Department of Defense website further boasted, “Press Secretary Smites Fox Host.”  

So what was the biblically “smitten” Carlson’s crime? 

He objected to the military’s fixation on race and gender in high-profile appointments—and questioned whether standards were relaxed to permit women in combat units.

Carlson objected that the Capitol is currently domestically militarized. More troops are on guard against purported American “insurrectionists” than are currently serving in war zones in Afghanistan. 

He noted far too many defense secretaries—he singled out the current secretary, retired General Lloyd Austin—revolve in and out from corporate defense contractor boards and billets. 

His subtext is that too many of our retired top brass virtue signal their wokeness, while otherwise seeking to make a great deal of corporate money from their prior and often future government service and contacts. 

Aside from the fact that the military usually does not use its top officials to react to journalists, the Pentagon should try to refute Carlson rather than comparing him to the hostile Communist Chinese. 

The Pentagon might instead seek to reassure the public that no physical standards for combat troops have been lowered to accommodate front-line soldiers of any sex. 

Kirby also could attempt to reassure the public that defense secretaries and top-ranking Pentagon officials have not recently served on defense contractor boards before or after their tenures. He might object that defense budgets are not soaring in part due to administrative bloat and social welfare costs. 

The Pentagon might also explain the ubiquitous barbed wire and troop presence in Washington—the greatest militarization of the nation’s capital since Confederate general Jubal Early marched on Washington in July 1864. 

No one arrested in the January 6 violent Capitol assault was found to have possessed or used a firearm. No ringleaders were discovered planning a coup. Instead, the dangerous riot was more likely a one-time assault than an ongoing “armed insurrection.”

Last summer during the nationwide Antifa and Black Lives Matter civil unrest, more than 280 retired top-ranking officers and security officials signed a letter blasting President Trump’s consideration of sending in federal troops to restore calm. They claimed the mere idea “risks sullying the reputation of our men and women in uniform in the eyes of their fellow Americans and of the world.”

OK—yet none of those signees voiced objections when the Pentagon recently oversaw 30,000 National Guard troops within the borders of our capital.  

The military has announced it is now conducting internal audits to root out American soldiers suspected of harboring supposedly dangerous ideas. What is going on?

One, the Left now dotes on what it envisions will soon be a woke military. It believes the chain of command can green-light progressive social changes—from women in combat units to subsidies for transgender transition surgeries to timely displays of massive force on the streets of Washington—without bureaucratic red tape or opposition from Congress.

Two, federal agencies in therapeutic fashion often dilute their traditional missions to accommodate social awareness agendas. 

Under Barack Obama, NASA director Charles Bolden, a retired Air Force major general, sought to reset the space agency: “Perhaps foremost, he [Obama] wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math and engineering.” 

“Feel good” does not ensure rockets reach outer space.

Three, there grows a new class rift between the rank-and-file military and the Pentagon’s top current and retired brass. 

Increasingly, some brass spend extended tenures inside the Pentagon or within the beltway attached to the White House or Congress. They master the contours of the military-industrial complex, and profit from them upon retirement. Many acquiesce to now-orthodox progressive ideology omnipresent among federal bureaucracies and much of the Congress.  

Whereas all administrations used to prioritize traditional military preparedness, now leftist administrations see the military foremost as a tool for accelerating their own progressive domestic changes. 

The elite military echelon adjusts—given that careers and promotions are either enhanced or sidetracked accordingly.

As a result, many of our top brass often are far more politicized than in the past, and can grow more ideologically distant from their own lower-ranking officer corps and enlisted personnel.

This recent extraordinary, thin-skinned Pentagon effort to lump Tucker Carlson in with critics like the Communist Chinese military is one more illustration of this far larger—and increasingly dangerous—pathology.

 

Article by Terry Paulding in The American Thinker

 

Legalizing election fraud, forever

HR 1 is Nancy Pelosi’s signature bill, and exploring it is like taking a deep dive into political depravity. A partisan House passed it on March 3, without any Republican votes. While it’s currently before the Senate, provided the filibuster continues to exist, it’s predicted to fail. The filibuster’s continuation depends on ethical behavior by a few moderate Democrats, who are probably getting their arms twisted by Chuck Schumer, who wants it gone.

The ludicrously named “For the People Act of 2021” is a wet dream for elite progressives and a nightmare for everyone else in our great country. Whether or not it fails, it can be viewed as an exposé into the caviar wishes of these liberals, who are the only ones it would serve. Its primary purpose is to prevent fair elections from ever taking place again and to create a one-party dictatorship in perpetuity.

HR 1 is designed to eliminate state control of elections, which was specified in the constitution to safeguard against exactly this type of takeover. Because there are more Republican state governments, 27 Republican governors and 30 legislatures, the only way to destroy our electoral process thoroughly is at the federal level.

No doubt, if the bill is passed, it will be challenged in court on constitutional grounds; the problem is, we now know we have a Supreme Court whose majority is made up of liberals and cowards who would rather not make waves. We’ve seen that with Obamacare and most recently, with the integrity of the 2020 elections being wholly disregarded by the court.

HR 1 wipes out any possibility of a clean election. Most of the provisions of the bill are meant to cause irremediable chaos in the electoral process, thereby obfuscating obvious fraud. There are nine parts to the long bill and, within each, there are multiple sections. Here are just a few “highlights”:

Registering to vote via the internet would be legal and you’d be automatically registered (whether you already were or not) when doing any business with a governmental entity. Election-day registration would be legalized.

Signature verification and voter ID would be eliminated. Teens can “pre-register” when they turn 16. Without signature verification or voter ID, what this means is that they could easily be able to vote. Indeed, anyone could vote anywhere they want, which means, with no verification, as many times as they want.

Felons could vote the day they leave prison. Ballots would be mailed to every voter, drop-boxes for collection would be mandated, and ballot harvesting would not only no longer be illegal, but it would also be encouraged.

States would have to accept absentee ballots up to 10 days after the election. This means that, once people see which way the wind is blowing on the actual election day, they can then start voting in dead earnest for their candidate or cause.

The bill outlines a new process for the District of Columbia to attain statehood, again circumventing the Constitution. It also grants the House of Representatives the authority to redistrict (gerrymander) via an appointed “independent” commission within each state, which panel is specifically taken from an “approved selection pool,” partly designated by race.

Those are just some highlights. The entire bill is available to plow through, should you be interested.

I must ask why these people are hell-bent on destroying the US. It’s hard to fathom. Greed, of course, is at the bottom of it. If no fair elections can happen, the ruling classes can do whatever they please.

They can tax the middle class out of existence, creating a socialist haven where the elite get very rich, and the rest of us get zilch. They can redistribute wealth to all their cronies, and they can create “equity” that sees those who don’t have wealth given a boost up to the level playing field, provided they are willing to be wholly dependent on the largesse of their masters. Those of us who have worked for what we have will be kicked off the playing field entirely.

Once they have consolidated power, look for a wealth tax to bleed not the “uber rich” of their money — those are the people who can manipulate the system, donate to the right people, etc. to avoid losing anything — but the rest of us. Remember Margaret Thatcher’s oft-quoted maxim on the direction we’re heading? “The problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

There’s another old proverb that pertains, too: “Sandals to sandals in three generations.” I’ll add just one more, for my three liberal readers: “Buyer, beware!” 

 https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/03/legalizing_election_fraud_forever.html#ixzz6pT0asefc

 

Don't Forget to Recommend
and Follow us at our

W3P Homepage

 

Article by J.B. Shurk in The American Thinker

 

Is D.C. using its ‘preemptive war’ doctrine against the states?

“There are two ways to be fooled.  One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”  — Kierkegaard

Democrats know so much that isn’t so:

Has there ever been a more disastrous beginning to an American presidency?  I think not.

Democrat enclaves throughout the country are still using the pretext of the China virus to keep businesses, schools, and churches closed.  There’s a humanitarian and national security crisis at the southern border created by Democrats’ malevolent wink-wink-nod-nod policy of promising citizenship in exchange for votes.  The Silicon Valley enforcement arm of the federal government continues to actively censor and financially punish Americans for their points of view.  The real economy — not the imaginary one constructed by fraudulent central bank currency manipulation and investment bank derivative speculation — is hanging by a thread. 

China is so confident that it has the U.S. over a barrel that it engages in genocide without fear of international backlash and openly prepares to invade Taiwan before clamping down on Southeast Asia and Pacific shipping lanes.  The U.S. military is so busy intimidating Americans, empowering BLM’s Marxist agenda, and celebrating diversity for diversity’s sake that it has made itself an international laughingstock almost overnight.  President Popsicle (because he’s kept in the dark and out of reach of children) is intentionally pursuing an energy policy that raises gas prices and, thus, the costs of all commodities and manufactured goods — compounding the Fed’s money-printing problems by enabling the growth of inflation and the reduction of household wealth.  

All the while, Congress primarily dedicates itself to figuring out how best to gut punch ordinary Americans while paying off its partners in crime, largely succeeding by passing a two trillion dollar blue state bailout and moving forward with legislation that punishes the religious faithful (H.R.5), gun owners (H.R.8), and dissident conservatives who refuse to shut up (H.R.1).

That’s a mouthful.  And only the tip of the iceberg.  For every monstrosity the Democrats drag forth before the public, they are pursuing another hundred out of the spotlight within the labyrinthine administrative state that makes law while no-one is looking.  This administration is relentless in pursuing bad policies that hurt Americans and erode further the few constitutional bonds that keep the nation intact. 

Which leads to a painful possibility:

I find myself asking the same questions millions of Americans now ask themselves: given this campaign of outright hostility toward the American people and general dereliction of duty to protect and defend the states, is the American government intentionally trying to provoke civil conflict?  Are all these horrendous policies leading to armed confrontation against red state holdouts?  Has D.C. transformed the Iraq War’s “Preemptive War” Doctrine into a plan of action against its own citizens?

The estimable Sundance at Conservative Treehouse thinks so and recently posted a blunt warning that the Democrats’ overt politicization of the U.S. military (its staged Capitol encampment, ideological purge of Trump voters, and shameful public battles with conservative news pundits and Republican lawmakers) should be seen as part of a larger strategy by the centralized government in D.C. to prepare for the use of military force against individual states and regions of the country that may choose to push back against unconstitutional federal power grabs in the future.  Now that the pretext of using troops to put down MAGA “insurrectionists” has been established, it will be ignominiously used to justify military support for confiscating guns, enforcing extended pandemic lockdowns, and identifying Americans too attached to the Bill of Rights.  (The fact that Sundance chose the Ides of March to outline the likelihood of such an intimate betrayal by the military against the states is, I suspect, no coincidence for a meticulous writer who enjoys reaching readers on an emotional, as well as an intellectual, level.) 

What really caught my eye, though, was the way commenters responded to the article: they almost universally agreed that the U.S. military could no longer be trusted and that it should instead be viewed as yet another institution successfully co-opted by the Democrats to push “woke” socialism, enforce commie cancel culture, and punish conservatives.  Just as James Comey’s spying on the Trump campaign and Robert Mueller’s Democrat-led Russia collusion investigation destroyed the reputations of the FBI and DOJ, and just as John Brennan’s public disinformation and propaganda leaks designed to take down President Trump forever politicized the CIA, now Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision to go after and eliminate Trump voters in the military’s ranks has dramatically weakened the public’s trust in the military.

If these questions don’t haunt the men and women now holding the reins of government in D.C., then they are monumental fools on at least two levels: (1) they have deceived themselves into believing that some chimerical international government will provide global peace and security in the years to come; and (2) they have forgotten so much of American history that they actually believe American patriots can be subdued and brought to heel without causing much of a stir. 

The first failure reflects profound ignorance; the second failure reflects profound hubris. 

And taken together, these Democrat delusions will deliver a profound American tragedy.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/03/is_dc_using_its_preemptive_war_doctrine_against_the_states.html

Don't Forget to Recommend
and Follow us at our

W3P Homepage

The Education Establishment Fears You...

 The Education Establishment Fears You Might Teach Your Kids Unapproved Ideas

Public schools can barely teach kids at all, but their defenders don’t want you trying alternatives.

J.D. Tuccille3.17.2021 7:00 AM for Reason

(IllustrationID 181548361© Ljupco Dreamstime.com, ID 95956824© Szefei| Dreamstime.com) 

With families opting out of the faltering public schools in ever-growing numbers, the establishment's attacks on competing education offerings continues apace. Now, a retired teacher insists that private schools may become terrorist training camps. The over-the-top argument is the latest attempt to reinterpret the refreshing viewpoint diversity offered by chosen educational offerings as a danger to the American way of life.

"[T]he American public school is where we learn to be Americans," arguesone-time journalism teacher Susan Johnson in a Charleston Gazette-Mailcolumn. "In public schools, the public decides the curriculum. The public votes to elect school boards who decide the facts our children will be taught. We leave high school and enter college or the workforce with a common set of civic norms and agreed-upon facts that are derived from reason, critical thinking and the scientific method."

Johnson contrasts values taught in government institutions with what she sees as nefarious alternatives.

"In charter schools, a private board decides the curriculum. Same for private schools. One board might teach that the earth is flat. Another might teach that the pope is infallible; another might teach he is the anti-Christ," Johnson writes. "Many children are homeschooled using private instructional programs — some that are online — that are marketed for particular religious and political persuasions."

Oh, no! To what dire fate could all of these independently selected curricula lead? 

Invoking fearful visions of fundamentalist Islamic schools training terrorists, she asks, "are we very far away from schools like that in America? Proud Boy Academy? Boogaloo Boot Camp?"

This is bang-your-head-on-the-desk silliness, rooted in a fundamental misrepresentation of what public schools are all about. Just last year, The New York Times' Dana Goldstein marveled at the contrasting ideological spin in textbooks crafted for public schools in California and Texas: "The books have the same publisher. They credit the same authors. But they are customized for students in different states, and their contents sometimes diverge in ways that reflect the nation's deepest partisan divides… [C]lassroom materials are not only shaded by politics, but are also helping to shape a generation of future voters."

If this conflict of interpretations is what Johnson means by "a common set of civic norms and agreed-upon facts" the schools in which she taught must use words in extremely unusual ways. Or maybe she's shading the fact that public school curricula are constant sources of struggle over emphasis and ideological content among people with "particular religious and political persuasions."

In truth, disagreements over what kids are taught in public schools are so common that the Cato Institute maintains an online map in an effort to track the various battles. The introduction notes: "Americans are diverse – ethnically, religiously, ideologically – but all must pay for public schools. The intention is good: to bring people together and foster social harmony. But rather than build bridges, public schooling often forces people into wrenching conflict."

Johnson probably knows this — she taught in those schools. Her silly warning that private schools might divert kids into the boogaloo movement is the latest expression of establishment fears that the state is losing its grip on young minds.

"A very large proportion of homeschooling parents are ideologically committed to isolating their children from the majority culture and indoctrinating them in views and values that are in serious conflict with that culture," Harvard Law School's Elizabeth Bartholet huffed last year in a high-profile Arizona Law Review article. Bartholet, who favors a "presumptive ban" on homeschooling, went on to argue that "[p]olicymakers should impose greater restrictions on private schools for many of the same reasons that they should restrict homeschooling."

Once again, it's fair to ask which "majority culture" Bartholet favors: that in California textbooks, or in those of Texas? But that would be missing the point. In less florid language, the Harvard professor preceded the retired teacher in advocating a state monopoly over what children are taught.

"The idea that only government schools can (or should) make people 'American' is a dangerously statist notion that should be rejected," the Home School Legal Defense Association's Michael Donnelly told me via email. "Freedom of education is at the heart of our founding principles of self-governance and liberty. In a free society education should not be one place and one system that seeks to create servile citizens. Rather, education is about helping all learners to achieve their fullest individual potential."

Despite the objections of Johnson, Bartholet, and company, freedom of education is enjoying a boom. In fact, while interest in education choice has been growing for years, (fueling experiments in charter schools, vouchers, tax credits, and homeschooling) it has really taken off in the past 12 months because of the abject failures of the public schooling establishment to effectively teach children during the pandemic.

"COVID-19 has created a strange natural experiment in American education: Families who would have never otherwise considered taking their kids out of school feel desperate enough to try it," Emma Green wrote in The Atlantic last September. 

"Comprehensive national data aren't available yet, but reporting by NPR and our member stations, along with media reports from around the country, shows enrollment declines in dozens of school districts across 20 states," NPR reported in October.

And families, by and large, like their new options.

"Private school and traditional homeschool parents remain more positive about their children's progress compared to district school parents," according to February polling by EdChoice. The numbers remain stronger for homeschoolers and private schoolers than for district school families across academic learning, educational development, and social development.

Undoubtedly, many of the families choosing new educational options are teaching their kids ideas of which Johnson and company disapprove. But as children learn perhaps conflicting ways "to be Americans" that they can hash out in healthy discussion and debate, they're wonderfully free of force-fed lessons crafted by smug defenders of establishment-approved versions of the truth.

 

Article by Michael Smith in The American Thinker

 

Legitimate illegitimacy

We have a 'president' who achieved his office though unconventional -- and in some cases, unusual -- electoral means in several key states, of that there is little question among honest people. He won despite a personal lockdown in his basement and socially distanced campaign events where the press made up most of his “crowds,” all while his opponent drew enthusiastic (and often raucous) overflow crowds in the tens of thousands. That Joe Biden, a lifelong politician of little achievement and substance, won the 2020 presidential sweepstakes after living pictures of incongruence played out on our televisions each night for month after month, leaves the rational mind with questions.

Often phrased in this way, “How the Hell did this happen?”, several of the questions are about the same characteristic – legitimacy.

What is legitimacy? 

In a 1922 essay titled “The Three Types of Legitimate Rule,” Max Weber, the noted German sociologist and political economist, proposed there are three sources of legitimacy:

1. Traditional Authority: Legitimacy may rest on an established belief in the sanction of immemorial traditions and on the need to obey leaders who exercise the authority according to the traditions.
2. Charismatic Authority (Exceptional Personal Qualities): Legitimacy may secondly be based on “devotion to the specific and exceptional sanctity, or exemplary character of an individual person.”
3. Legal Authority: Legitimacy may rest on the belief that power is wielded in a way that is legal. What is done legally is regarded as legitimate.

If we accept these three aspects as accurate, it seems reasonable that the greatest legitimacy will be achieved by satisfying all three criteria and diminished legitimacy would result if there were failings in one or more. It would also seem logical that, if someone ascends to power during the opposite of these types, that would lead to illegitimacy or, at least a form of false legitimacy, one marked by superficially doing things “the approved way” but rising to positions of authority by imitating tradition, presenting exaggerated or false personal qualities to the public, or achieving office, status or power though corrupted legal processes.

I would propose that it is difficult, if not impossible, for leaders to be legitimate if they ascend to their positions through any of the latter practices.

I speak only for myself when I say that I have issues with how Joe Biden was elevated to the Oval Office. 

Since our traditions are those of a representative republic, it could be generally assumed that no person has a right to rule based on “immemorial traditions.” However, it has become a belief within the progressive left that there is a “right to rule” tradition within the Democrat party. That belief verges on believing it is almost a divine right, as the left has adopted the good/evil dichotomy with themselves on the “good” side. The left seemingly has trouble recognizing evil, unless the object of their observation is their opposition. Then, they know and recognize evil (they think).

Biden charismatic? Only if bland, colorless, anodyne, and subservient personalities attract you. Biden has had a few moments in his career – notably the 1994 Crime Bill, the Clarence Thomas hearings, and becoming Obama’s harmless VP – but for every highlight, there is a lowlight. The self-aggrandizing lying about his personal history, the plagiarism, the hair sniffing, the sexual misconduct allegations, the kowtowing to America’s enemies, and his willingness to be manipulated offset anything “good” about his career in public life.

What remains is the situation giving me the most pause – legal authority. In this case, Biden was aided in reaching office by irregularities bounding on the corrupt. The executive and judicial branches of various states changed election rules on the fly, the cavalier handling of both unvoted and voted ballots (mailed out to everybody with an address), the strange events during the counting processes, the statistical improbabilities in the vote counts, the judiciary’s reliance on thin procedure excuses to refuse to entertain arguments and -- the final insult -- the claims that Congressmen and Senators were “insurrectionists” simply for employing constitutional procedures to authorize an investigation, all combine to create a toxic soup of questions.

I have said it before and I will continue to say it -- I have no definitive evidence that the election was compromised but, by the same token, I have no definitive evidence that it was not. I take no comfort in assurances, especially when those assurances are based on even less tangible evidence than that of real and obvious irregularities.

'President' Biden meets none of Weber’s criteria for legitimacy.

And given that he has accelerated Obama’s “fundamental transformation” of America, that is a problem for me – as it should be for all Americans.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/03/legitimate_illegitimacy.html

Don't Forget to Recommend
and Follow us at our

W3P Homepage