Saturday, July 3, 2021

Heavily Armed Militia Group Shuts Down Massachusetts Highway in Bizarre Standoff



A cadre of armed men from a militia group called the Rise of the Moors shut down a highway outside of Boston for more than nine hours on Saturday morning after allegedly refusing to comply with police orders and taking off into the woods with guns.

The group says on their website that they’re “Moorish Americans dedicated to educating new Moors and influencing our Elders.” In YouTube videos of the incident, they claimed they were only trying to travel peacefully to their “private land” to camp and “train” on Saturday. CBS Boston reported that they were headed from Rhode Island to Maine.

According to Massachusetts State Police, a trooper saw two cars on the side of the I-95 at about 1:30 a.m. with hazard lights on, attempting to add gas to their tanks. 

When the officer stopped to assist, they noticed the men were wearing military gear and had a lot of guns. The trooper asked for driver’s licenses and gun licenses but the men allegedly refused to provide any, and refused to put down their weapons. The trooper called for backup but some of the men fled, police said.

In a livestream video on the group’s YouTube page, a member of the group, dressed in camo gear, said they were traveling with gas tanks to refuel their cars so they could avoid “making any unnecessary stops” that might “alert or alarm the public.”

He claimed they had not violated any laws because they were legally allowed to own guns in the state from which they traveled.

He claimed that they had asked officers to explain what their probable cause was, and a sergeant allegedly said he did not know.

“We do not intend to be hostile, we do not intend to be aggressive,” he said, adding that they are not “anti-police” or “Black-identity extremists.” 

“Our nation has a treaty with your government,” the man said, gesturing to another man standing on the highway, holding what looked to be a Moroccan flag. He said they were immune to state laws.

“We’re not anti-government, we’re not anti-police and we’re willing to give them any information they need so that way we can continue with our peaceful journey,” he continued.

The Southern Poverty Law Center says that several organizations and individuals have identified with the Moorish sovereign citizen movement in the U.S. since the 1990s. The movement is associated with the anti-government sovereign citizens movement, and some Moorish sovereigns have come into conflict with government agencies over their refusal to obey laws. They believe that African Americans “constitute an elite class within American society with special rights,” SPLC writes.

“Their self-professed leader wanted very much known their ideology is not anti-government,” State Police Col. Christopher Mason said in a Saturday morning briefing.

A section of I-95 was closed in both directions and a shelter in place order was issued for residents in Wakefield and Reading. Large trucks were brought in to block the highway, and road spikes were deployed.

“We continue to engage the suspects in conversation in an effort to de-escalate the situation on 95 and bring it to a peaceful end,” Massachusetts State Police said in a tweet at 9:30 a.m. EDT.

By Saturday afternoon, following a sweep of the woods and a nine-hour standoff that police called “highly dynamic and evolving,” all 11 members had been taken into custody without injury, and the highway had been reopened.

In a press conference after the incident ended, Mason said the State Police will work with the District Attorney’s Office and “appropriate charges” will be brought against the 11 men. 

“You can imagine, 11 armed individuals standing with long guns slung on an interstate highway at two in the morning certainly raises concerns and is not consistent with the firearms laws that we have here in Massachusetts,” he said.

He said the men did not have gun licenses on them. Either way, he said, Massachusetts does not allow unloaded or loaded guns to be carried on an interstate highway. 

“I understand that they have a different perspective on that,” he said.

He said he was unclear about what the group’s intent was in traveling on the highway, including whether it was “staged” to draw the attention of police.

Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said they were told the men were on their way to Maine from Rhode Island for “training” but investigators have not confirmed that.


We've forgotten the brilliant principles behind America's founding

 
 
Jefferson wrote the Declaration, Franklin and Adams edited and added their thoughts
 

Article by Lucius Riccio, (lecturer at Columbia University), in The Hill


We've forgotten the brilliant principles behind America's founding

With July 4 approaching, America seems to be facing an identity crisis about how our democracy is designed to work. In that regard, let me ask two questions.

First, when was the last time you read the Declaration of Independence, the July 4 document? It’s a good read. It has a great opening, then a series of rather significant accusations. The accusations, called usurpations in the document, were directed at the behavior of King George III of England. Reading it, you realize that we did not rebel against England — we rebelled against the king and his powers. They swore never to have anyone with those powers governing in or over America.

Right after the American Revolution, there were some people who wanted George Washington to declare himself king. Actually, the Europeans were astonished that he didn’t do just that; they could hardly believe that the general who had won the war did not want the power and, instead, relinquished all authority. That had never happened before in human history.

Second question: Who was the first President of the United States? It was George Washington, of course, you say. No, it was Samuel Huntington of Connecticut, the first president of the “United States in Congress, Assembled” under the Articles of Confederation, America’s first national governmental organizing document.

When was the last time you read the Articles of Confederation? It, too, is a good read. The Founding Fathers wanted to have nothing to do with a chief executive. Each state was to have the rights of a “country,” and the Articles provided how these separate states would cooperate for their mutual benefit, through Congress. Congress would make all “national” decisions. 

The overwhelming opinion was that the Revolutionary War was fought to get rid of having an all-powerful ruler. So ingrained was this idea that there should be no supreme ruler that the Founders created the Articles of Confederation without one. The people would rule.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, that was no way to run a country. The Federalist movement resulted in the creation of our Constitution, primarily modeled after Connecticut’s state constitution. It had become clear that there was a need for an executive branch whose fundamental purpose was to administer the ongoing governmental functions, functions which were to be delineated by Congress. Said another way, the executive branch was to carry out the assignments which Congress gave it to do. Even the Federalists believed that the main power should remain with Congress. 

The president was to be commander in chief, but he or she could not declare war, the most significant responsibility of the government at the time; only Congress could declare war. The president could negotiate treaties, but the Senate had to approve them. The president could nominate high-level government officials and judges, but the Senate had to approve them as well. The president was not entitled to tell Congress what it could or could not do. Instead, Congress could — had to — tell the president what to do. The State of the Union report by the president was intended to be a progress report, not a political address.

Over almost two and a half centuries, things have changed. Presidents have taken on great powers, some granted by Congress as stipulated in the Constitution, others by bully precedent. Over time, the Office of the President (unlike Washington’s idea of a low-key chief executive) has become a symbol of our national will and the leader (and controller) of his party. With that, the public has “granted” the president far more powers than did the Constitution.

We now have doubts about who is in charge of our government. The press keeps pounding the idea that Congress is dysfunctional — even when it is effective. The public says it is too slow — but it’s a deliberative body by design. Our schools don’t teach civics anymore. Few people understand how our government actually works. Even our members of Congress refer to Congress as a co-equal branch of government — yet, as conservative historian and columnist Jay Cost entitled a 2019 column in the National Review, “Congress is Supreme.”

A representative form of government functions properly by creating consensus based on debate, deliberation and compromise. This “committee” concept is baked into almost every part of American life, from local school boards to corporate boards of directors. We are a country of laws. Congress makes the laws; the president administers them.

We do not have “co-equal” branches of government. Congress is the government. We have three branches with separate powers and separate responsibilities. But the original design was to have Congress set the agenda and to have the executive branch effectively, efficiently carry out those orders. The executive — like a company’s CEO — can propose policies and plans. The Constitution says that “He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient,” but Congress — like a company’s board of directors — has the final say on big issues.

Although Alexander Hamilton wanted “energy in the executive,” the Founders — even the Federalists and all the states voting for the Constitution — rejected the concept of a dominant, powerful leader.  

On this July 4, we should dedicate ourselves to relearning the brilliant principles upon which this country was founded.

 

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/561029-weve-forgotten-the-brilliant-principles-behind-americas-founding 




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What Isn’t To Be Done

We know what the Left is doing and we will be able to counter it 
when political circumstances afford the opportunity 
to govern again. Choose wisely.


Writing in Newsweek, Ben Weingarten reveals how the “Biden Domestic Terror Strategy Codifies Woke War on Wrongthink.” He concisely dissects its key components—the  partisan “experts” with their false premises and politicized conclusions, perpetuating and expanding the Obama Administration’s weaponization of the police and surveillance powers of the state against the woke regime’s political opponents and, indeed, all dissenting Americans. 

On a particularly chilling note, Weingarten cites Kyle Shideler’s succinct encapsulation of the Left’s weaponization of the federal government against dissenters: “Opposing the regime is racism, racism is terrorism, terrorism is a national security threat.”

Weingarten’s piece is well worth reading, as are other examinations of the “woke” Left’s totalitarian attempts to pervert the role of government from the defender of our God-given rights to the omnipotent destroyer of our God-given rights. In addition to providing a roadmap of the tyrannical aims of the Biden Administration and its woke comrades (in both the public and private sectors), it is oddly reassuring. 

Sometimes, as with critical race theory, leftists resemble poison mushrooms: they thrive in composted manure and darkness. Still, mushrooms can grow in daylight; and in this latest attack on the citizenry, the woke are brazenly announcing their war against dissent, and revealing their goal, strategy, and tactics. 

Perhaps they knew their abuses of power couldn’t be concealed and chose to create the narrative that “autocracy in the pursuit of our democracy is no vice.” Moreover, the attempted psychological intimidation has the effect of putting dissidents on notice, chilling free speech and, indirectly, freedom of conscience.

What, then, could possibly be reassuring about Weingarten, Shideler, and others exposing  the totalitarian woke Left’s weaponization of government?

We know what they are doing; and will be able to counter it when political circumstances afford the opportunity to govern again. (And, please, spare me the cant that “we will never win an election again.” That is precisely what the Left wants you to think.) But with this knowledge comes an uneasy, existential question regarding the future of the Republican Party, center-right populism, and the free republic itself: What is to be done? Or, rather, what isn’t to be done?

There are two main options possible.

First, do unto others as they have done unto you. Employing their own installed “experts,” a succeeding Republican administration can employ the already weaponized federal government against its opponents by, for instance, declaring “wokeism” a racist ideology; recalibrating selective law enforcement to reclassify the 2020 riots as insurrections and domestic terrorism; and demonizing anyone who believes in the Left’s hateful, racist, destructive, terroristic screed as the number one domestic threat to Americans’ safety and tranquility. 

And don’t think for a minute that the vast majority of Americans—who can’t stand the woke cancel culture, critical race theory, and forced indoctrination struggle sessions under the guise of “sensitivity training”—will do anything but applaud the decision.

Or second, do the right thing. Disarm and dismantle the powers of the federal government that have been weaponized against our own citizens.

Given the totalitarian Left’s abuses of power that will continue over the next four years of the Biden-Harris(-Obama) Administration, there will be an intensifying temptation to choose option one. If Republicans and center-right populists succumb to this temptation, in the abusive, escalating politicization of public and private life, we will become what we despise and, in the process, lose all we cherish. Then, amid the ruins of the republic, when the Left returns to power, what will we be able to claim we are fighting to restore? 

The republic’s descent into Hell will be irreparable and irredeemable.

It is better to heed the sage advice of the late 20th century poets/philosophers, Page and Plant: “Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there’s still time to change the road you’re on.”

In sum, the existential question is a false choice thrust upon us by the totalitarian woke Left. There is only one option. Only by disarming and/or dismantling the weaponized federal bureaucracies can all the American people and their God-given rights be secure from the abusive depredations of a woke government gone amok—as well as from an abusive government run by anyone else

As heirs of Lincoln, Republicans and center-right populists must reject the temptation for revenge and heed the “better angels of our nature.” 

“And if you listen very hard, the tune will come to you at last; when all are one and one is all, to be a rock and not to roll.” 

And choose wisely in the defense of every American.


10 Disasters That Were Actually Caused By Climate Change



The nation's energy secretary has declared that the tragic collapse of a condo building in Miami was related to climate change. And since we always trust the experts, we believe her. When have experts ever been wrong, after all? Can't think of a single time, especially in the last year. 

But the condo collapse wasn't the first time climate change has punched humanity in the face. Here are ten disasters caused by climate change:

1. The Hindenburg disaster - If the weather had been cooler, it wouldn't have caught fire. Thanks, climate change!

2. The Jan. 6 capitol riots - Climate change radicalized Trump supporters, who couldn't think clearly in the heat. Plus they had to start going shirtless and wearing buffalo skins. Because of the heat.

3. The Destruction of Alderaan - Scientists now believe that the global temperature on Alderaan heated very rapidly just before it blew up. Should have had more regulations!

4. Chernobyl - The Soviet Union was oppressed by climate change-causing capitalists in the Cold War, causing them to blow up their nuclear plants? Or something.

5. The defeat of the English at Bannockburn in 1314 - The dastardly Scots only won because they were wearing kilts, allowing them to weather climate change's deadly heat.

6. Taylor Swift's transition to pop music - Just listen to the difference between     "Teardrops on My Guitar" and "Shake It Off" - a true tragedy. Caused by climate change.

7. Cats (2019) - We can only think this must have been climate change.

8. The Monica Lewinsky scandal - Bill Clinton's interns had to wear more revealing clothes to weather climate change. Curse you, climate change!

9. Hyperinflation under Biden - It's either Trump's fault or climate change.

10. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah - It's the only explanation.

What other disasters might have been caused by climate change? Let us know by shouting them at your screen! (Or you can subscribe and actually comment below).



Lay off the President: it’s a holiday weekend, man!

Today the last of the US forces stationed at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan were making their final departure, as the Biden administration began the handover to a fragile alliance. But who really needs to answer questions from the press on that kind of monumental foreign policy decision when there is a giant cooler of 16-cent hotdogs waiting in the yard in Delaware?

You could almost see the outlines of Biden’s board shorts under his pressed slacks on this, the first Friday he hasn’t left Washington in…well, he can’t remember. The President was so ready for his Fourth of July party to start that he snapped at fearless reporters, who dared use the holiday occasion to question the commander-in-chief about Bagram. ‘I want to talk about happy things, man,’ he clapped back. Happy things like our racist anthem, our racist flag and our very problematic gatherings over this weekend, according to the new Uncle Sam himself, Anthony Fauci?

No, Biden’s Fourth of July is about revving those damn monster truck engines, throwing your grandkids into the pool and forgetting about them, blowing your adult son’s allowance at the strip club.

‘I’m concerned that you guys are asking me questions that I’ll answer next week. It’s the holiday weekend. I’m going to celebrate it,’ Biden said. As you should, Mr President. Gas for $4 a gallon? Record inflation, rising crime and a tenuous withdrawal from a 20-year war? That can all wait — and the little babies in the media daring to ask a hard question of Ol’ Joe once every six months had better understand that.

The presidenting can take a back seat until Tuesday. The ice cream cannot. When Joe wants fireworks and an extra hour to sleep in, that’s what Joe is going to get, according to Co-President Dr Jill Biden.

America, you are put on notice, leave the malarkey and the questions about our Armed Forces on your way out the door. The President won’t be able to hear them over the roar of the Trans-Am. This is Joe’s weekend, man — and America better get that straight.


Our Toughest Assignment

 


Article by Paul O'Brien in The American Thinker


Our Toughest Assignment

In the summer of 2009, several months before he died, my father told me he had something important to ask. He was emphatic that I had to be straight with him. “Tell me,” he said in a mixture of order and query, “where has your mother gone and why did she leave?”

It was perhaps the toughest assignment I’d ever been called upon to handle. Mom had passed away more than nine years earlier, a little more than 55 years after she and my dad married. It was then, I suppose, that my father’s decline, which I’d previously refused to fully accept, was clear to me.

My dad was a retired history professor. His English was impeccable, his French acceptable, and his Mandarin frighteningly fluent for a westerner, especially of his generation. I sometimes wonder what I’d have done if I’d had half his intellectual prowess -- and then I remember that I probably do.

My generation’s parents composed what we have come to call, thanks to Tom Brokaw, “The Greatest Generation.” The moniker is a generous and loving one. But, as with virtually everything labeled by us boomers, it is ultimately self-referential (and reverential). It is as if to say, “our generation was raised by the best; hence…”

In no way do I mean to diminish what they experienced and accomplished. But I have no doubt that my late mother would have rejected the sobriquet, insisting that her parents’ generation was superior, pointing to its sacrifice during WWI, its grace and courage in surviving a true pandemic that claimed five times the casualties of the one we -- having displayed neither grace nor courage -- are now exiting, and in ushering her own generation through the Great Depression. From the stories I have heard of them, my grandmothers would have claimed the prize for their parents’ generation. One suspects that sort of judgement would go on and on, back to our Founding Fathers.

America’s history is marked by one generation after the next that exhibited greatness. No generation has been perfect; in fact, each has suffered from an inevitably mortal flaw -- humanity. The Founders recognized and accounted for this imperfect condition in designing our republic. Acknowledging that our rights come from God and not from government, they intentionally limited government’s ability to control the governed -- a self-evident need sprung from a keen understanding of a certain self-evident truth.

Far from mandating that God be expelled from the town square, our founding is actually explicit in announcing that any hope we have of achieving an enlightened, democratic republic is inextricably linked with one fundamental understanding: with Him, we may flourish; without Him, we will perish. Paradoxically, it is recognizing our imperfection and imperfectability that allows us to right wrongs and to forgive our adversaries. It is no coincidence that the movements for emancipation and civil rights, for example, were driven by grace-fueled believers.

The alternative, a presumption of infallibility or at least the pretention that such a state can be achieved, leads in its most benign form to a static arrogance, e.g., socialism, that bars actual progress. With that system, if you are lucky, you get inertia, a paralysis that overtakes the people one law and one tax at a time. Far worse, that joyless ride readily morphs into a sinister intransigence -- torturing reality until it bends to a theory’s demands, i.e., totalitarianism.

Ultimately, a society has the same choice that an individual has: (1) it acknowledges our creator, and demonstrates a submission to His eternal and unchanging nature through the way it behaves, recognizing eternal verities and values in the laws it enacts; or (2) it doesn’t.

Our Founders chose Option 1. None of this is to say that nonbelievers cannot comprehend or appreciate the genius of the nation’s founding. I know self-proclaimed atheists and agnostics who deeply understand, as President Washington did, the indisputable intersection of freedom and biblical teachings.

“Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” -- Washington’s Farewell Address, September 17, 1796

I do mean to suggest, however, that if, as a people, we reject Option 1, we are doomed. (Yes, the word conjures thoughts of outdated melodramas, but I went easy on you -- I could have just as easily, and perhaps as accurately, said damned.)

So what of Option 2? It is fully on display in China, should you need an example. But, regrettably, we have examples that are much closer to home, as well.

Option 2 is hideously displayed in the sort of brutish intolerance that forces girls to surrender dreams of athletic success in order to permit otherwise unremarkable boys to steal their trophies; it’s evident in the hard bigotry that expects blacks and Latinos to fail when left to their own devices, presuming that they will always be the white liberal’s burden; it is realized in the ugly condemnation of  innocent children as monsters for no other reason than because they are white. (It’s all-too-telling that leftists routinely paint white folk as “privileged” no matter their actual socioeconomic status.) And, worst of all, it manifests in the corpses of unborn infants too numerous to tally.

How far will we allow our society, our government to stray from the principles that gave it birth? The Internal Revenue Service recently denied tax exempt status to a religious-based organization because biblical teachings are typically affiliated with the Republican Party and its candidates. In a way, its action delights me because it draws such an express conclusion  (although that conclusion is not always deserved). It provides the skeletal structure for the contention that “the choice is clear” in next year’s political campaigns. Now, it’s time for Republicans to put some meat on the bones.

I have developed a habit of late of encouraging action. Largely, I have limited myself to the role of cheerleader. “Go Team!” When asked for specific assignments (“So, Paul, what do you suggest we do about it?”), I simply advocate for creative, original action borne of critical thinking. In other words, I generalize. For mine is not to instruct; but, on this occasion, I will give an assignment. For some it will be a tough one.

If you believe in God, get yourself and your families to church or synagogue, pray for this country. If you don’t believe in God, thoughtfully reconsider. If you still don’t believe, get yourself to a place of worship anyway. Consider it “networking” if you must. If nothing else, you will be a thorn in the side of the left. Bask in the delicious irony of collectivists losing their minds over people gathering corporately. We must turn our collective face towards Him.

I urge this in order to avoid my most horrifying nightmare, one in which I find myself saying to my son, in a mixture of order and query, “Tell it to me straight. Where has my country gone and why did it happen?”

My most solemn prayer is that I won’t be asking him in Mandarin.

 

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/07/our_toughest_assignment.html





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Media keep trying — and failing — to take down Florida’s Ron DeSantis



Like Wile E. Coyote, the self-anointed geniuses in the political media just keep trying to spring new traps on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. And like the Road Runner, DeSantis keeps escaping with his head high while his pursuers’ plans detonate in their faces.

Example: The building collapse in Surfside, Fla., has cost at least 11 lives, likely many more. There must be some way to blame DeSantis, right?

Hannah Dreier of The Washington Post claimed on Twitter that “FEMA was ready to deploy to the condo collapse almost immediately, and included the crisis in its daily briefing, but didn’t get permission from Gov. DeSantis to get on the ground for a full day.” In fact, the law required DeSantis to wait for an emergency declaration by the local mayor; once he had one in hand, he issued his own declaration within an hour. DeSantis, the Democratic mayor and Team Biden have had nothing but good things to say about each other’s cooperation.

Others tried to blame DeSantis’ views on deregulation for the collapse. But he wasn’t even in office when the building was last inspected.

Example: The Washington Post also published an article on a new Florida law with the eye-catching headline claim that “DeSantis mandates surveys of Florida college students’ beliefs.” Creepy, right? But as ­legal scholar Jonathan Adler noted after reading the bill, “the required survey is not a survey of the political ­beliefs of students and faculty. . . . It does not ask student, faculty and staff what their viewpoints are, but whether they feel free to express their viewpoints, whatever they may be.”

Example: A pickup truck rammed into a group marching in a gay-pride parade near Fort Lauderdale, killing one. Florida media has usually been better than the national reporters, but this time, it was Florida journalists who rushed to blame DeSantis. Miami-based Lesley Abravanel, the publisher of FloridaPolitics.com, tweeted, “Domestic terrorism made legal by bigot #KimJongRon #DeathSantis. Charlottesville, Part 2.” It turned out this was an accident; the truck driver was a member of the local Gay Men’s Chorus chapter heading for the parade.

Example: The media can’t seem to quit “whistleblower” Rebekah Jones, even after a May exposé by my National Review colleague Charles Cooke of her bogus tales of having been ­directed to manipulate the Sunshine State’s COVID data to DeSantis’ benefit. As recently as this month, The New York Times still cited Jones as an ­authority, and CNN’s Chris ­Cuomo still dismisses Cooke’s thorough debunking as “right-wing fringe attacks.”

The Daily Beast and the Miami Herald ­recently claimed that she had been designated a whistleblower by Florida’s inspector general, when she had only applied to be considered one.

Example: Last month, Politico published a hit piece headlined “Scarred DeSantis staffers form a support group,” alleging, “We talked to a dozen or so onetime aides and consultants to the Florida governor, and they all said the same thing: DeSantis treats staff like expendable widgets.” But the main thrust seemed to be that consultants and operatives were upset that he hasn’t hired or listened to enough consultants and operatives. And unlike Politico’s unnamed sources, many former DeSantis staffers went on the record to push back.

Example: In mid-April, MSNBC’s Joy Reid and legal analyst Glenn Kirschner claimed that DeSantis must feel “like things are creeping closer and closer to him” in the sex-trafficking investigation of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), and that to avoid jail time, Gaetz will have “to give up somebody bigger than him.” Kirschner added, “We’ve seen the pictures. We’ve heard the stories.” The entire basis of this tinfoil-hat theory of DeSantis being implicated in a sex scandal is that Gaetz was on a 2018 trip to the Bahamas with a guy who raised money for DeSantis.

Example: In April, a “60 Minutes” story claiming that DeSantis had given a COVID-19 vaccine deal to Publix supermarkets in exchange for campaign donations blew up in the face of CBS News. Local TV captured the questioning of DeSantis by the “60 Minutes” reporter, exposing that CBS had deceptively ­edited out his detailed explanation — backed up by state and ­local officials — of why Publix was chosen to help vaccinate Florida seniors.

All that in three months of news.

There are common threads here: Journalists keep jumping to conclusions without adequately investigating the facts or seeking comment, and national reporters keep getting things wrong ­because they don’t care to learn basic things about Florida — and because they seem bent on taking down a highly popular GOP governor. But, as happens to Wile E. Coyote, each trap also backfires in its own particular way. Meep meep.


The Ideas Behind July 4th

 

 

Signing of the Declaration of Independence

 

Article by Scott S. Powell in The American Thinker


The Ideas Behind July 4th

Most Americans celebrating the July 4th holiday today underappreciate or have forgotten that it was the sheer power of the ideas in the Declaration of Independence that was the determining factor for the Americans in winning the War of Independence.  

Additionally, most today have no idea how somber the occasion was when those 56 members of the Continental Congress committed themselves to signing the Declaration in July of 1776.  They knew that taking pen to paper as a signatory was for each a death warrant for being a traitor to Great Britain.  Thus, the first Declaration of Independence that was signed on July 4, did not have signatures from the committed delegates. Instead, there were two signatures on that first document: John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress and Charles Thomson, secretary of the Continental Congress.

It took more than two weeks for the Declaration to be “engrossed” -- that is written on parchment in a clear hand. Many of the 56 delegates to the Continental Congress who had agreed to sign the document did so on August 2, but there were new delegates who replaced some six of the original delegates and there were an additional seven delegates who could not sign until many weeks later. At that time Great Britain was the dominant power in the western world, and the reality was that the untrained and underequipped American colonial army had almost no chance of defeating the British army and navy -- the most formidable military force in the world.  So the 56-signatory Declaration was held in abeyance to protect the lives and property of the signers for release at a later time.   

General George Washington was in New York preparing its defense, when on July 6, 1776 a courier from Philadelphia arrived to deliver a copy of the two-signature Declaration of Independence that had been agreed upon by the Continental Congress several days before.  Deeply moved by the power of the Declaration’s words, Washington ordered copies sent to all generals in the Continental Army and that chaplains be hired for every regiment to assure that, “every officer and man, will endeavor so to live and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier, defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country.”  Like the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration was a true covenant of absolute commitment, with its last sentence invoking: “…with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

A few days later, on July 9, after the meaning of the Declaration had sunk in, Washington called a halt to his troops’ battle preparations, and announced a respite and gathering in order to read the Declaration to his soldiers and townspeople.  The crowd hustled down to what is now lower Manhattan where they could see the British ships at anchor in New York harbor. The occasion was also marked by a few rowdies pulling down a monument to King George III, severing the statue’s head. 

Under Washington’s command were about 18-19,000 men making up what was a rag-tag colonial army.  They faced about 35,000 professionally trained and well-equipped British and German mercenary Hessian soldiers who had arrived on some 150 British ships.  When conflict finally broke out on Long Island on August 27th, Washington’s men were quickly and soundly thrashed and forced to retreat. Washington’s troops would face two more devastating routs in the next two months, with nearly six times more casualties than the British suffered -- forced to leave New York in total and abject defeat.

Washington’s greatest challenge then in marching in November to Philadelphia was maintaining the morale, confidence, and loyalty of his greatly diminished and discouraged troops, numbering only about 3,500 at that time. But for a gallant few, nearly all thought the Revolution was lost.

Encamped near Philadelphia on the bank of the Delaware River, Washington pondered his next move.  His faith and belief in the cause of independence sustained him, but he knew at this point only a decisive victory could bring about a reversal of fortune. That prayer was answered when reliable intelligence from a spy revealed that a large contingent of Hessians under British command were occupying Trenton only nine miles away. Washington immediately set to planning the famous crossing of the Delaware on Christmas night and the march to Trenton that followed.  The surprise attack that ensued early the next morning was a resounding victory. And after another intelligence tip a few days later, Washington made a second successful surprise attack on the British encamped in nearby Princeton.

Perceiving this dual miracle as a harbinger of more victories to come, and perhaps with many recognizing the power of providence and the vital importance in the ideas manifest in the Declaration, the Continental Congress ordered the reprinting and dissemination to all the colonies of the now famous 56-signature Declaration of Independence on January 18, 1777 -- some six months after the original document had been drafted and resoundingly approved.   

On balance, the colonial army lost more battles than it won, but the persistence of Washington over the next four and three-quarter years and the victory at Yorktown on October 17, 1781 brought an end to the war, the surrender of the British, and the complete independence of the United States. 

Washington remains the greatest president in the minds of many because of his fearless courage in battle, his incredible perseverance against unfathomable odds, and his attendant faith in the providence that provided protection and empowered him to achieve the impossible. 

As we reflect on the meaning of July 4th this year, we should celebrate and take heart that the same good ideas and principles -- natural God-given rights and obligations -- expressed in the Declaration of Independence -- that inspired Washington are as real today as they were then. And when these ideas and principles are acted upon by enough people, good will triumph over evil. 

 

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/07/the_ideas_behind_july_4th.html







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Hunter Biden Is Back In The News. . . So The Media Goes Again For The Scoop




It seems like whenever Hunter Biden is in the news, the Biden staff screams, the media screams, “we all scream for ice cream.” On October 19, 2020, the Biden campaign and its protective cocoon of media faced the discovery of Hunter’s presumed laptop with details of his (and his uncle’s) influence peddling while Joe Biden was Vice President. The solution? Joe Biden went for ice cream and the media peppered him with questions about his confectionary choice (Spoiler: he ordered a two-scoop chocolate and vanilla combo) Then they went away.

Now, Hunter is back in the news as new emails surfaced that directly contradict what Joe Biden has said to those every same reporters. Biden and the media seemed to make a beeline for the nearest ice cream shop. It turns out that now Biden now prefers . . . (wait for it). . . chocolate chip.

The only indication that there were still any reporters present was a soft scoop question “Mr. President, what is your message to Republicans who are prepared to block the Jan. 6 commission?” Biden responded “Eat some chocolate chip.” It summed up the state of journalism in America perfectly.  The media got their intended scoop. And this time the scoop was actually different!

It is not clear how long the President’s cholesterol or the media’s reputation can tolerate this pattern.

Before the election, the national media and social media companies imposed a virtual blackout on the Hunter Biden story.  Even when Biden’s laptop emerged with highly embarrassing and incriminating emails, Democratic politicians and the media pushed a conspiracy theory that the emails might be Russian misinformation, even though the recipients of the emails confirmed their authenticity and American intelligence dismissed the theory.  Worse yet, a key business associate of the Bidens, Anthony Bobulinski, confirmed the authenticity of the emails and accused Joe Biden of lying about his involvement. Bobulinski detailed meeting with Joe Biden in a hotel to go over the dealings.

Social media companies like Twitter responded by barring the original New York Post story before the election. The media (which exhaustively investigated any story involving the Trump children) simply ignored the growing evidence that Joe Biden lied repeatedly for months in claiming to have had no knowledge of his son’s business dealings. The media refused to investigate the story even after Hunter himself contradicted his father’s repeated denial.

Soon after Biden was safely elected, the media began to reluctantly acknowledge that the laptop might be authentic while avoiding the obvious questions about millions acquired from influence peddling or Joe Biden’s apparent lying to these reporters.

The laptop revealed that, while receiving millions from the Chinese and other foreign sources, Hunter was an utter mess. He admits that during this period he was a crack addict and alcoholic: “[d]rinking a quart of vodka a day by yourself in a room is absolutely, completely debilitating” as well as “smoking crack around the clock.”

The new emails contain additional information directly contradicting Joe Biden. In addition to earlier pictures from golf trips and references to his involvement or knowledge, the new material refers to an actual dinner arranged in Washington, D.C.

Hunter arranged for then Vice President Biden to have dinner on April 16, 2015 with his Ukrainian, Russian and Kazakhstani business associates. They appropriately chose a private room at Café Milano, a Georgetown restaurant that brags that it is “Where the world’s most powerful people go.”  After the dinner, Hunter received an email from Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, to thank him for introducing him to his father: “Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure.”

Notably, the guest list from Hunter three weeks before included Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina and her husband, and Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov (a notoriously corrupt politician). While one email pitched the dinner as connected to the World Food Program USA, it was a smörgåsbord of influence peddling and purchasing.

Hunter and his uncle in the meantime were reportedly racking in massive amounts. Baturina wired $3.5 million on Feb. 14, 2014, to Rosemont Seneca Thornton LLC, a Delaware-based investment firm co-founded by Hunter and Devon Archer, a former adviser to Secretary of State John Kerry.

Notably, these sources of income for Hunter would largely dry up after his father left office and his value as an influence peddler was lost.

The Chinese files also raise questions over how the Chinese funneled money to the Bidens when Hunter said he was a hopeless crack addict. Hunter worked with Patrick Ho Chi Ping who was a corrupt businessman closely associated with the Chinese government. He was later convicted of bribery in dealings associated with the energy conglomerate CEFC China Energy, the same company that paid Hunter. Hunter’s “renumeration package” included a possible return of $10 million. Hunter reportedly received millions from the company as well as a 2.8-carat diamond from CEFC’s founder and former chairman Ye Jianming.

Some of the emails are from a 29-year-old Chinese-American assistant, JiaQi Bao, who talks about Hunter’s ample expense allowance. On some of his charges, she notes “not sure if the accounting department will let this go.”  However, when the company collapsed, she told Hunter to run up charges on the accounts to “keep as much as you can” before the company dissolved.

The record is now rife with individuals associated with foreign governments and intelligence organizations giving millions to Hunter and his uncle as well as luxurious expenses and gifts. Moreover, given the apparent illegal conduct captured in the images, it is reasonable to expect that these foreign governments hoped to have influence that was not just limited to the windfall payments.

That is why everyone is (again) eating ice cream. Call it a comfort food for the politically and journalistically challenged.`


Democrats’ Latest Fear About Kamala Harris Has Serious 2024 Implications


 

Article by Matt Vespa in Townhall


Democrats’ Latest Fear About Kamala Harris Has Serious 2024 Implications

She’s a walking disaster zone right now. There is only one word to describe how Vice President Kamala Harris has handled every task handed Biden has given her: poorly. It took her over 90 days to visit the border, which is in chaos, but only after it was announced that Donald Trump and Greg Abbott would be assessing the damage. Her office is reportedly a toxic wasteland, with top staffers either ignoring or demeaning staff, taking credit for when things go swimmingly, and ready to throw anyone under the bus when the situation bursts into flames. This shouldn’t shock anyone who’s been paying attention. There’s a reason why her 2020 campaign sank quicker than the Lusitania. She has no plan, no strategy, and no discipline. She was propped up by the media. It really says something about you as a candidate when people like Tom Steyer, Deval Patrick, and Julian Castro had more successful presidential campaigns; they stayed in the race longer. Harris’ performances as VP has been so bad that even top Democratic advisers are warning that the heir apparent won’t be able to beat ANY Republican, including Trump (via NY Post):

Democrats are increasingly fearful Vice President Kamala Harris’ missteps will open the door for Republicans to regain the White House, a new report said Friday.

Dems, including senior White House officials, fear that Harris will lose to any Republican she faces — including former President Donald Trump — if President Biden does not seek reelection in 2024, Axios reported.

At 56, Harris is more than two decades Biden’s junior — and has been considered the heir apparent to the 46th president since he selected her to be his running mate last year.

While Harris will still be the presumptive nominee if Biden becomes the first president since Lyndon Johnson to not seek a second full term, Axios reports that a series of blunders have left officials and operatives concerned.

Right now, one operative told Axios, the feeling among Democrats isn’t “‘Oh, no, our heir apparent is f—ing up, what are we gonna do?’ It’s more that people think, ‘Oh, she’s f—ing up, maybe she shouldn’t be the heir apparent.'”

She can’t beat Trump. Should Harris somehow clinch the 2024 Democratic nomination—c’mon we all know Joe isn’t lasting that long—and she loses to Trump in a national contest, blue states would probably secede. But it has been one public relations nightmare after another. Here ‘I haven’t been to Europe’ bit when pressed over her refusal to visit the border was not just a poor attempt at humor but showed the lack of urgency Democrats have towards this national security issue. She reeks of the liberal mindset that they know best, almost as if to mock the suggestion that she should go to the border at all since in her mind—this isn’t a real crisis. It’s climate change, white supremacy, and other white liberal issues that aren’t real problems facing normal Americans. 

She’s very much in the vein of Hillary Clinton when it comes to candidate strength. She’s awful. In fact, she might be worse. Hillary was at least able to get large swaths of the Democratic delegates and even clinch the 2016 nomination. Harris folded after Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) called her out over her record as a prosecutor. Her national profile bolstered by a fawning liberal media, but as you can see—that can only take you so far. 

 

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/07/03/democrats-latest-fear-about-kamala-harris-has-serious-2024-implications-n2591997 


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