The Problem With Kids Today

Sealed off from reality, the youth are terrified 

of themselves and of everything else.

by Christopher Gage for American Greatness

One advantage of skulking around your early thirties is one can freely bemoan the state of the youth today.

By “youth,” I mean anyone younger than me, and anyone under 45 whose puritan leanings I loathe.

I’m enjoying this additional string to my bow of eternal curmudgeon. I scour my local newspapers for the choicest examples of the old whinging about the young, and from those examples excise the time-worn formula of what is crystallized as “In my day.”

Invariably, the authors of what one detracting reader may have called a “typical screed,” are named either Harold or John. The Harold-John Axis lavishes your humble narrator with great reading pleasure.

In Harold’s day, the youth were polite and well-mannered, considerate, and always wore a tie. In John’s day, you wouldn’t dream of dropping litter or talking back to your elders. “Every morning, my father beat me with a polio-soaked birch just to keep me warm. Didn’t do me any harm!” says a permanently-quivering John.

Harold and John have a point. The old will always lament the young. The young will always face charges of impoliteness, self-absorption, degeneracy, and a general fall in standards, from the old.  

The problem is today’s youth are the most conformist, most boring, teetotal, artless, and unoriginal specimens to ever vacate a pair of testicles.

In my day, my fellow reprobates and I fell under the eyes of the local Youth Offending Team, a term of which we vaingloriously co-opted to burnish our high crimes of underage drinking and mild rascality.

The YOT was a cadre of social workers and therapists and assorted professional redeemers missioned with steering kids away from their petty hormonal expressions lest they mutate into actual criminals.

Freed from the tedium of British state schooling, we’d loiter outside the off-licence, our primary directive to convince some sap to finagle us a flagon of fight-yourself cider and twenty fags.

Modern youths, possessed of a social awkwardness so pronounced it could cut ribbons out of lead, don’t clot outside the off-licence in hope of sourcing some liquid fun. They’re too busy taking photos of themselves.

With the loot in hand, we’d skulk off to the groves or a riverbank. After a few hours of downing cans, free from the now ubiquitous screens to which most are beguiled, we’d emerge a little more developed, a little more independent. Our petty transgressions were a rite of passage toward provisional adulthood.

Today, such character-building pursuits are frowned upon. Having fun, like everything else these days, is de facto illegal.

X22, Christian Patriot News, and more- July 5

 

Evening. Here's tonight's news:

So Much Winning

None of this would have happened without the Trump presidency.

by Christopher Roach for American Greatness

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Senate Republicans have given their opponents and our dementia-ridden president a win during an election year. The mostly symbolic gun control bill is unlikely to do anything useful, but the red flag laws it funds contain a lot of potential for abuse through our politicized legal system. In other words, you can always count on some Republicans going along with bad politics and bad policy. 

This is what we have come to expect not just from the Republican Party, but the various institutions of Conservatism Inc., such as National Review and the Heritage Foundation. These well-funded operations produce a lot of nice-sounding papers containing fanciful policy ideas, including a lot of ink defending the military industrial complex, and make a million excuses about decorum and “the way things are done” in order to justify losing. 

By any measure, until last week, the culture war had been a 30-year rout. Conservatives lost on everything: divorce, abortion, gay marriage, immigration, affirmative action, control over media and academia, and the death penalty. When these losses piled up, there was a lot of talk about taking back the Supreme Court, since so many of the problems originated there, but it seemed a pipe dream. 

While the Federalist Society and the conservative legal movement understood the importance of the Supreme Court, commitment to it was mixed among Republican presidents, leading to Supreme Court nominees like Souter, O’Connor, Kennedy, and Roberts. Every one of them turned out to be a disappointment, barely better than those chosen by the opposition. Placing a premium on the Court’s prestige, they were committed to maintaining the radical precedents of the Warren and Burger era.

It may seem like ancient history, but who can forget George W. Bush’s insulting nomination in 2005 of his business lawyer, Harriet Miers. Completely undistinguished by training and pedigree, her nomination was also a repudiation of Bush’s promise to nominate “strict constructionists” in the mold of Antonin Scalia. Her nomination eventually was withdrawn and replaced with Samuel Alito, who turned out to be far superior to Bush’s other nominee, the consummate insider, John Roberts.  

This sorry record of failure is one reason why Trump was so popular and so effective. His chief source of support came from voters. He was not hidebound by the customs and pieties of Conservatism, Inc. Indeed, part of his appeal was his plain talk and contempt for the lies and half-truths that make up political correctness. 

This often manifested in Trump by his accidental speaking of obvious truths. He occasioned some controversy by suggesting women who get abortions may need to be punished, as if this were not obvious to everyone but the professional pro-lifers who make their living inside the beltway. 

Similarly, he stuck to his guns in supporting his nominee Brett Kavanaugh in the face of a defamatory campaign of insane lies. In this, Trump showed courage and loyalty, even though some got weak-kneed at the time and urged him to pull the nomination.  

Trump was not pretending to be conservative, and he was not terribly invested in some of the pet causes of the official conservative movement. But he was completely hostile to the ruling class, which he understood well given his educational background and many years in elite circles in New York City.  

While his presidency had its flaws, not least in its hiring and the way it was bamboozled by then-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), overall he showed an all-American commitment to getting the job done and keeping his promises. 

This culminated last week in a string of victories at the Court, including the once-unthinkable reversal of Roe v. Wade. Many intermediate steps brought this about, including the Republican Senate locking ranks to deny Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland, Trump’s 2016 victory, his subsequent appointment of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s not-really-untimely death at the age of 87, permitting the nomination and confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett. 

After this success, it is hard to forget how the #NeverTrump caucus within Conservatism, Inc. merely brushed aside the problem of the Court, as if it had not been a massive obstacle to the success of conservatives and self-government for the last 50 years. Starting with the Warren Court, the Supreme Court acted beyond the language of the Constitution to overturn democratically enacted laws on abortion, gay marriage, illegal immigrants, prayer in schools, and anything else that deviated from the values of the elite and the D.C. managerial class. The federal government, which was supposed to be kept in narrow lines, had free rein. At the same time, the rubes in flyover country and their states were treated as occupied territory, whose exercises in democracy would have to pass the ever-evolving standards of the coasts. 

Regarding abortion in particular, the Roe v. Wade decision was laughably stupid and sophistical. It is notable that most of the current criticism of the Court’s decision in Dobbs emphasized the importance of precedent in the abstract, rather than the results-oriented garbage that the Court concocted in the original Roe decision. 

None of this would have happened without the Trump presidency. In the alternate universe of #NeverTrump, Hillary’s impact on the Court would have been enormous. And Conservatism, Inc., did not care, because it was more interested in the status and prestige of being a respected (junior) member of the ruling class, rather than achieving the results it ostensibly believed in. 

In this way, the donations and subscriptions keep flowing in the vain hope that the movement will somehow find its way out of the mazes it created. You see a hint of this same spirit today, in those Republicans now worried about a “backlash” from the decision, as if winning elections takes priority over the reasons we say we want to win elections. 

In his 2016 campaign, Trump would famously say, “We’re gonna win so much, you may even get tired of winning. And you’ll say, ‘Please, please. It’s too much winning. We can’t take it anymore. Mr. President, it’s too much.’” 

Well, he was wrong about the second part. Winning is great! And Trump gave us a taste of winning, something we had not had in a long time. He showed the way, and, in doing so, he exposed the fraudulence and flaccidness of his opponents on the #NeverTrump Right.   

Analyzing an 'Analysis': CNN's Warped Take on an America Divided Against Itself on This Fourth of July

Mike Miller reporting for RedState 

This… is CNN… the Most Trusted Name in News™. Yeah, no. This is actually an objective analysis by your not-so-humble conservative political pundit of a CNN “analysis” of the bitter divisiveness gripping America on this, our 246th Independence Day, and those the dumpster fire “news” outlet blames for the strife.

Unsurprisingly, CNN unwittingly makes a case against itself.

In a self-proclaimed “analysis” published on Sunday titled Americans divided over what US stands for on this July Fourth, CNN White House reporter Stephen Collinson’s disingenuous — at best — warped take on the divisiveness in America and why “a fractious partisan age is undeniably penetrating everyone’s lives” is not only laughable; Collinson’s “analysis” is guilty of the very “sins” he attaches to “the usual suspects.”

Let’s shred it, shall we? Objectively, of course.

Collinson kicks off his partisan fairy tale by exploiting Abraham Lincoln and his famous quote: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Then this “observation,” as transcribed from CNN:

The years to come beckon even more national discombobulation. The unity for which President Joe Biden pleaded in his inaugural address seems more elusive than ever.

Reality: President “A Time to Heal” set about purposely dividing America on day one of his presidency by signing a flurry of executive orders shoved in front of him by his left-wing handlers, including killing the Keystone XL Pipeline Project, sending thousands of laborers to the unemployment lines.

Biden’s out-of-control open border policy, which continues unabated, and the ongoing release of illegal aliens throughout the interior of the country — more than 1 million since he took office — has strained Border Patrol resources, overrun border towns, and worse. The “discombobulation,” Mr. Collinson, lies directly at the feet of this president.

“Shockingly,” Collinson then moves to Nancy Pelosi’s Jan. 6 Committee,  a complete nothingburger with toilet-dwelling ratings that ratings suggest have changed zero people’s minds about the silly Capitol riot — and Donald Trump.

US democracy is still fighting for its survival, as the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol reveals ever more frightening details of Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election.

The ex-President is, meanwhile, impatient to launch a 2024 campaign rooted in his election fraud lies that would highlight his increasingly autocratic tendencies.

While my views on Donald Trump’s claims of a “rigged” and “stolen” election are well known, how laughable is it that sanctimonious Democrats whine incessantly about Trump stealing elections, yet they are guilty of promulgating “stolen election” lies, foremost the bogus “Russian collusion” hoax of 2016, engineered by none other than Hillary Clinton?

Trump is Trump. But it was the Democrat Party and CNN that took home the attempted stolen election trophy in a walk.

Next in Collinson’s fairy tale “analysis,” his “objective journalist” analysis of the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade is enough to make one’s patriotic skin crawl:

In another example of startling political disruption, an activist Supreme Court, protected behind high metal fences in its marbled Washington chambers, just stripped away the constitutional right of millions of women to have an abortion.

The decision validates a half-century campaign by conservative activists, many of whom have sincere moral objections against abortion, which they equate with the murder of an unborn child.

“Startling political disruption.” Caused, exactly, by who, Mr. Collinson?

SCOTUS is intentionally and necessarily an independent judiciary, the purpose of which is to arbitrate the constitutionality of actions taken and laws passed by elected officials, actions by private citizens, and, yes, sometimes past actions taken by SCOTUS itself, such was the case with Roe.

Simply, Mr. Collinson, SCOTUS got Roe wrong in 1973; nearly 50 years later, SCOTUS corrected that mistake. Decisions about health-related issues have been returned to states where they were intended to belong; abortion was never intended to be a right, much less protected by the Constitution of the United States.

And notice how this “journalist” refers to conservative activists when in reality it is radical left-wing activists who threaten to assassinate Supreme Court justices, burn faith-based crisis pregnancy centers, and take to the streets in violent protest in support of on-demand abortion (murder) of an unborn child, right up until the moment of birth.

“Given the political discord boiling way beneath the surface of Monday’s national celebrations,” Collinson continued, “it’s hardly surprising that a staggering 85% of US adults in an Associated Press-NORC poll released last week said things in the country are headed in the wrong direction.”

Stop the tape.

Correct. The strong majority of  Americans do believe the country is heading in the wrong direction. But whom do they blame, Mr. Collinson? President “Unity,” Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.

The nonsense continued. Here are a few “highlights”:

The war in Ukraine is making food bills more expensive and spiked gasoline to record prices.

Wrong. While the war in Ukraine has had and continues to have an impact on the economies around the world, gas prices have been steadily climbing throughout the Biden presidency — well before Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Gun crime in cities is recalling a more violent past and every Monday brings a grim accounting of the weekend’s mass shootings.

And how do Democrats and liberal media outlets like CNN and MNSBC react to the violent “gun” crime?

By exploiting the hell out of “mass” shootings, histrionically wailing about “assault rifles” and other such made-up “weapons of war,” and immediately calling for more restrictive gun laws that curtail the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners. Yet, where are the Democrats and their media sock puppets on the deadly weekends on Chicago’s bloody South Side, or every other major city in America? Crickets. Why? Because those killings don’t support the left’s narrative about “evil” “assault weapons” nonsense.

Finally, the most ridiculous line in the “analysis”:

The shadow of Trump’s violent coup attempt hangs over the country.

Jan. 6, while ridiculous, was not a violent coup.

A flurry of restrictions on voting in many conservative-led states and the GOP’s refusal to renew voting rights legislation harken back to a poisoned era of racial repression.

Nonsense. VOTER ID laws are not “racial repression” any more than a bank requiring a photo ID to cash a check. Never forget: Democrats don’t want to make it easier to vote; they want to make it easier to cheat.

To be fair, Collinson surprising noted the following:

Liberals who once dreamed of a new Franklin Roosevelt are dissatisfied with the results of their narrow monopoly on political power in Biden’s Washington. But their radicalism also risks alienating the crucial middle ground of voters who ought to be up for grabs as the GOP dives right.

With the obvious exception of “as the GOP dives to right,” Collinson was correct. Biden’s handlers and the entire Democrat Party made a critical strategic error in the aftermath of the 2020 election, wrongly interpreting the results as a left-wing mandate, which they promptly proceeded to claim as their excuse to radically change America.

Regardless of whether one believes the 2020 election was legit — or not — the only “mandate” delivered by voters was mostly “It ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Sure Democrats hated Trump with a passion — they still do and always will — but the status quo was preferable to radical change.

Collinson’s “analysis” drags on forever, which I eventually tired of reading, but I’ll leave you with one more of his observations.

Almost every day, there’s a controversy or political fight that underscores the antagonism between more moderate, diverse and socially tolerant American cities and suburbs and the conservatism of rural America.

“More moderate, diverse, and socially tolerant American cities.” A complete crock of crap. How long has the Democrat Party preached “diversity,” “tolerance,” and “inclusion” to us? Yet it is precisely the left that remains — increasingly violent  — in opposition to true diversity, is intolerant as hell, and views inclusion as a tool by which to exclude and destroy those who refuse to embrace its radicalism.

I’m “sorry,” Mr. Collinson, but your “analysis” is a joke.

The Left Forgets What Fighting for Rights Is Supposed to Look Like

posted by Joe Cunningham at RedState 

In the wake of several Supreme Court decisions that have not gone progressives’ way – especially where Roe v. Wade and “reproductive rights” are concerned – activists have taken to the streets and once again committed acts of violence against property and people. Antifa is once again on the march, and Democratic politicians have seemingly only encouraged it.

In the lead-up to these decisions, there was an attempted assassination attempt of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. There have been instances of domestic terror against pro-life pregnancy centers. There has been dangerously violent rhetoric, encouraging many with growing mental instability to do something dangerous.

The Left will proclaim, of course, that they are fighting for their rights, particularly their rights to abridge your constitutional rights to gun ownership, free speech, and free expression as well as their right to kill a child in the womb. The problem is that as we look back today on our Founders declaring independence from Britain and their fight for rights and recognition, it becomes clear that the left is doing less fighting and more throwing a temper tantrum.

When the colonists declared their independence, it was a last resort. They considered themselves Englishmen, citizens of Britain, and they wanted to reconcile with their mother country. The British, however, viewed colonists as less than citizens and denied them the rights the colonists felt they were just as entitled to as every other resident of England.

Progressives, by contrast, protest the very existence of America. They do not want to be citizens of the United States. They continuously decry the country’s existence. They make sure everyone around them knows they hate America. They don’t want to be part of it any more than they think it legitimately exists. There is no love or yearning to actually be a part of the country and what it offers its citizens.

They want to re-write the country – from its history to its present – entirely.

Even now, as Americans celebrate the day our Founders broke it off with England, the Left and the government bodies they’ve managed to not lose hold of have attacked the existence of America.

AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

So, when their ability to actually curtail your rights gets stripped away and when their ability to rule via judicial fiat gets overturned, they throw a tantrum, call everything and everyone supporting the system as it is “illegitimate”, and proceed to burn portions of American cities to the ground in what they call “protest.”

The Founders, in declaring their independence, understood something extremely important. It was something they later codified in the Bill of Rights. They looked through history and saw that, in order for there to be freedom and liberty, there have to be universal rights – rights that transcend time and situation, and that are guaranteed no matter the era.

They understood, for example, that every American can and should have a right to own a firearm, no matter the time or technology. The left claims that there’s no way the Founders could have imagined how guns would evolve, but the point of the right is that it doesn’t matter how things change. You have that right forever.

But that is anathema to what the left actually seeks. They don’t want universal rights. They want to be the arbiters of your rights. They aren’t fighting for the freedom to kill children in the womb. They are trying to intimidate the country into allowing it with no restrictions or else. That’s not freedom. That’s not liberty. That’s tyranny.

In 1776, the colonists in the American colonies decided they had enough and wrote a letter to England saying as much. They did not want a government across the ocean to be the arbiters of what rights they did or did not have. They believed in universal rights and freedoms and strongly believed they (and everyone else) were entitled to them. That is not what today’s progressive movement seeks. They want to be the British crown circa 1776. Don’t let them fool you into thinking otherwise.

In Super-Brave 'Act of Resistance,' AOC... Gets Her Nails Done

Mike Miller reporting for RedState 

There are 91 U.S. military veterans in the 117th Congress: 17 serve in the Senate, 74 serve in the House. Among the 91, three combat veterans have a total of five eyes, five arms, and four legs. These American heroes represent the best of the best–their extraordinary courage, exemplary.

However, none are braver than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who on Friday announced to her Instagram groupies that she would — in a super brave act of “resistance” — get her nails done. Lest you guffaw, here it is from the horse’s mouth AOC in her own words of really cool defiance:

Hello, everybody, happy Friday. And I say ‘happy, because joy, too, can be an act of resistance. I wanna talk about personal acts of reclamation, because sometimes people will say, ‘There’s nothing I can do. … I feel so powerless.’

And, there is not act too small, um, that you can engage in. And, even today, I have a personal errand. Um, I need to redo my nails. And I’ve decided that I’m going to use my new manicure as almost like a personal act of reclamation for me.

Yeah, I got nothin’. Except… imagine, for a nanosecond, AOC’s reaction if a man — a white, conservative man, of course — said to her: “You know what, Alex? As an act of resistance, why don’t you go get a manicure?” I’d probably do pay-per-view to watch that play out.

As if her adoring fans were clamoring for more — of course they were — our erstwhile bartender posted a follow-up video in which she suggested she was suppressed by her parents when she was young, and not allowed paint her nails red or wear red lipstick.

It was very socially conservative, again, like, to the point where I couldn’t really even paint my nails red until I pretty much graduated and left the house because there was just a lot of discussion about how red nails, red lipstick.

It just portrays a kind of a message about the kind of woman that you are. And I think a lot of times, that kind of woman, which [sic] is ungovernable, it often gets translated to ‘loose’ — is seen as bad or negative.

Ah! There’s that profile in courage I was desperately seeking, here!

So, there you have it, my fellow Americans. On this 246th Independence Day. I encourage you, wherever you are and whatever your circumstances, to follow Socialist Barbie’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s courageous lead. Yes, my fellow patriots, if you’re feeling all resistance-y, get your nails done.

Better yet, get a pedicure. Unless your feet are super ticklish, of course

Senator Lindsey Graham Returns from Turkey Hopeful to Close Deal on F16 Sales

Senator Lindsey Graham (U-DC) was apparently in Turkey around the same time as the NATO summit.  According to a Twitter announcement by Graham he has returned to the U.S. hopeful to close the deal on selling F-16”s to Turkey now that Turkish President Recep Erdogan has removed opposition to Finland and Sweden joining NATO.

“I will do all in my power to support the Biden Administration’s decision to sell F-16s to the Turkish Air Force,” Graham writes.

Also adding, “These fighter jets, in the hands of our NATO allies, will create a sense of stability and provide capability to the Turkish military that is most definitely in America’s national security interests.” {link}

On Tuesday of last week Turkey removed their block of Sweden and Finland from joining NATO, and on Wednesday Joe Biden agreed to sell Turkey 40 Lockheed Martin-made F-16 fighters and nearly 80 modernization kits for its existing warplanes:

Newsmax – The Biden administration threw its support on Wednesday behind the potential sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, a day after Ankara lifted a veto of NATO membership for Finland and Sweden.

Celeste Wallander, Assistant Secretary for Defense for International Security Affairs at Pentagon, said strong Turkish defense capabilities would reinforce NATO’s defenses.

“The United States supports Turkey’s modernization of its fighter fleet because that is a contribution to NATO security and therefore American security,” she said. (read more)

Finland now represents an additional 1,340 km (830 mi) long direct border with Russia.  The border runs mostly through uninhabited taiga forests and sparsely populated rural areas.

Woke Employee in 'Mourning' Over Roe v. Wade Is Promptly Fired for Refusing to Work

Mike Miller reporting for RedState 

And so it continues. “It,” being the histrionic meltdown on the left, which continues 10 days after the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade. In this episode, a super-woke production coordinator in the music industry claims he was fired for “speaking up” about abortion rights after admitting he refused to work because he was in “mourning” over Roe. Hopefully, it was a “Don’t let the door hit you…” swift kick.

Ah, but something tells me it was about more than Roe. Read on.

Michael Lopez, a production coordinator at Universal Music Enterprises, posted a lengthy note on LinkedIn last week in which he blasted the company as “anti-gay” for terminating a “queer brown person” during Pride Month for “speaking up in defense of abortion rights,” as reported by the New York Post.

Last Friday, like countless other folks, I was devastated by the news of the supreme court’s [sic] attack on abortion rights. Paired with the flood of anti-queer and anti-trans legislation, it’s been hard to process how company’s [sic] expect us to be productive while our rights are being stripped away.

Lopez explained that every Friday, “One of my tasks was to process reports for upcoming releases,” and then to email the reports to 275 people. But instead of doing the usual process reports, noted the Post, he wrote an email that read: “I didn’t do them today.”

I’m in mourning due to the attack on people with uteruses in the US. Federally guaranteed access to abortion is gone.

Instead, it’s Lopez who is gone.

If you’re so inclined, here’s his post. If not, skip it and read on, below — we’ll hit the “high” points.

Incidentally, it should be noted that unlike the majority of his fellow brethren in mourning who were instantaneously able to define “women” in response to the Roe overturn — no word on how many of said brethren also instantaneously became biologists — Lopez commendably stuck with “people with uteruses.”

Lopez included a mini manifesto, which he laughingly signed, “Yours in fury, Michael Lopez.”

Vivendi and Universal Music Group must stop donating to anti-abortion, anti-queer and anti-trans politicians. Politicians like Marsha Blackburn, Ken Buck, Victoria Spartz, etc. Or expect more unproductive days. Yours in fury, Michael Lopez.

So, how’d that all work out?

As noted by the Post, Lopez said he received several supportive replies from co-workers — but was told by a manager to “take the rest of the day off.” When he returned to work the following Monday, he said he was greeted with “a surprise Zoom video chat with HR,” adding:

I was being let go for (paraphrasing) ‘Not doing your job, disrupting the day of 275 people and poor judgement.’ [sic]

Lopez then said he sent a “follow up” [sic] telling his fellow employees he had been fired:

Just got fired for this email from Friday, so they’re letting you know where they stand on employees speaking out on politicians that support marginalization for folks like me.

A brown queer person terminated during Pride month speaking in support of abortion rights. Seems like that’s exactly what America is all about right now.

Classic left-wing victimhood at its “finest.”

The bottom line:

Earth to Michael Lopez: It makes zero difference that you are, as you describe yourself, a “brown queer person,” any more than if you were a white heterosexual male, a green intersexual male, or a purple asexual “person with a uterus.”

You were hired to work, Mr. Lopez. To do your job. You were not hired to protest anything on the job; much less refuse to work. As you proved to yourself, your employer didn’t give a damn about your “victim card.”

Moreover, the same logic would have applied if Roe had not been overturned, and a random conservative Christian decided to demonstrate his or her state of “mourning” by refusing to do his or her job.

Think of it as “inclusion,” Mr. Lopez.

Bradford Freeman, Last 'Band of Brothers' Survivor, Dead at 97

 

Former U.S. Army Pvt. First Class Bradford "Brad" Freeman, the last surviving member of the 101st Airborne Division's "Easy" E Company, the 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment that inspired the book and HBO series "Band of Brothers," has died.

Freeman, who was presented with a Silver Service Medallion at the National World War II Museum's American Spirit Awards in New Orleans last month, died Sunday. He was 97.  

He was preceded in death in 2008 by his wife, Willie Louise, who he had known since they were children. The couple had two daughters, Beverly Bowles and Becky Clardy.

Freeman enlisted in the military at 18, volunteering as a paratrooper. He was one of eight children who grew up working on a dairy farm and joined the military while he was a freshman at Mississippi State, where he had been studying agriculture. One of Freeman's brothers, also wanting to become a paratrooper, joined the military as well and ended up in the Pacific, fighting against Japan.  

He entered the Army on Dec. 19, 1942, a little over a year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In the fight against the Germans, Freeman was part of the mortar squad and was on one of the first three planes on June 6, 1944, headed to Normandy, France, on what became known as D-Day.

During Freeman's time in the military, he was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge, saw action in Operation Market Garden, and was part of the occupying troops in Berchtesgaden and Austria.

Freeman had been stationed in Aldbourne, England, and was scheduled to jump on June 5, 1944, but rain postponed the invasion of Normandy until after midnight on June 6, or on D-Day. His job in the invasion was carrying the mortar's base plate while his squad leader, Sgt. Donald Malarkey – one of the soldiers featured in “Band of Brothers,” carried the other part of the weapon and three fellow soldiers carried the ammunition.  

In later years, Freeman recalled how Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, ordered his company to take a German-occupied beach town on a French peninsula. He recalled how his unit subsequently jumped into Eindhoven, the Netherlands, in the largest airborne offensive in history on Sept. 17, 1944, in what was known as Operation Market Garden. After that, Easy Company and the 101^st Airborne was the linchpin to victory at the Battle of the Bulge, defending Bastogne, Belgium, in December until relieved by elements of Gen. George Patton’s 3^rd Army.  

Freeman was shot in the right leg during the battle.

After recovering in England, Freeman returned to his company and was guarding a bridge near Adolf Hitler's Eagle's Nest retreat when Germany surrendered.

Freeman had by then served in the military long enough to return home in Mississippi, where he resumed farming and then became a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service for 30 years.

Freeman said he watched the HBO mini-series, created by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, several times and played a role in its making. The program was based on the book of the same name written by historian Stephen E. Ambrose, founder of The National WWII Museum.

He also participated in the museum's educational travel program by providing a firsthand account of his wartime experiences.   

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/bradford-freeman-band-of-brothers-obituary/2022/07/04/id/1077198/   

Remember July 4, 2021, When Biden Was Just a Dolt?

by Jim Thompson for RedState 

Remember the good old days? You know, when Joe Biden was just a dolt?

It was July 4, 2021, before Biden’s Afghanistan debacle, with people falling out of the wheel wells of a C17. It was before Biden left Americans citizens behind for the Taliban to track down and murder. It was before 13 American soldiers were blown up because of Biden’s rank incompetence, and before Joe retaliated by killing 10 innocent people with a JDAM.

It was before Biden was seen checking his watch, while the bodies of American soldiers were brought home.

It was before inflation started to accelerate like a drag racer on a green light, hitting a 40-year high.

It was before Drag Queens became the go-to for sexualizing 5 years old, and before drag queen readers were arrested for child porn.

It was before we knew the contents of Hunter’s laptop and the depths of the “Big Guy’s” corruption.

It was before Biden called voting rights reform “21st Century Jim Crow Assault.”

It was before Biden threatened Americans with a COVID “Winter of Death” — unless we listened to the America’s Lawn Gnome, Lord Fauci.

It was before Ukraine and before Biden could blame Putin for everything he’s mucked up.

It was before families had to make a decision to put gas in the car or food on the table.

It was before Biden’s team admitted the truth that it’s all intended for a “New Liberal World Order.’

Last year, we had fun with Biden when his Administration did their silly flex about bringing down the cost of a Fourth of July barbecue by 16 cents. It was mockable, silly, and a lie. Like Biden’s entire presidency.

Yeah. Good Times.

Dutch Farmers Intensify Protests, Setup Blockades on Roads, Bridges, Ports, Angry at Energy Mandates, Forced Livestock Reductions

Sundance reporting for Conservative Treehouse 

The politicians in Dutch government recently passed sweeping new climate regulations that will result in more than a third of farmers losing their business. The government announced a €25 billion plan to radically reduce the number of livestock in the country in order to curtail emissions.

As the Guardian reports, “A deal to buy out farmers to try to reduce levels of nitrogen pollution in the country had been mooted for some time,and was finally confirmed after the agreement of a new coalition government in the Netherlands earlier this week.” The plan is to reduce farming in the Netherlands, by a “one-third reduction in the numbers of pigs, cows and chickens in the country.”  However, the farmers are fighting back.

The unorganized grass-roots groups have been randomly blocking roads and transportation hubs for the past three days.  They have also been dropping truckloads of manure at the entrances of government businesses.  In a show of solidarity, the fishing industry is now blocking ports.  Additionally, the farmers are starting to block the distribution centers of supermarkets and key roads forming a cauldron where transit is at a standstill.

As grocery store shelves go empty, the government is now asking the military to intervene and stop the farmer blockades.  However, the Dutch people overwhelmingly support the farmers.  Things have evolved into a social and economic war between the farmers and Build Back Better government ideology chasing climate change goals.

(Reuters) – Dutch farmers angered by government plans that may require them to use less fertilizer and reduce livestock began a day of protests in the Netherlands on Monday by blocking supermarket distribution hubs in several cities.

Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport and KLM, the Dutch arm of Air France (AIRF.PA), have advised travellers to use public transport, rather than cars, to reach the airport, as farmers’ activist groups said on social media they planned to use tractors to block roads.

Several traffic jams were reported on highways in the east of the country and on ferry routes in the north, but none near Schiphol during the morning commute.

Dutch and European courts have ordered the Dutch government to address the problem. Farmers say they have been unfairly singled out and have criticised the government’s approach.  Monday’s protest is widely supported by farmers’ groups but not centrally organised.  (read more)

You can follow more on The Dutch Uprising HERE.