The Vitriol Against a Christian Speaker Is Getting Weird

Rebecca Downs reporting at TownhallVIP 

We've had a Speaker of the House for almost a week now after Republicans got their act enough together to rally around Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA). Although he was the fourth nominee, Republicans were completely united, and none of them voted for anyone else. Johnson was not particularly well-known, though that may have been in his favor, actually. Democrats were quick to speak out against him for his socially conservative views, including how he had once worked with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) on opposing same-sex marriage, long before the U.S. Supreme Court made it the law of the land with the Obergefell v. Hodges decision in 2015. 

People also really went after Johnson for being a Christian, a fact he highlighted extensively in his speech and subsequent interviews. Predictably, there were ridiculous trends on X regarding the widely misunderstood concept of Separation of Church and State and even the term "Christofacist." Even nearly a week later, there are still trends regarding Johnson.

So-called "fact-checkers" like PolitiFact examined whether Johnson worked for a hate group, with a piece from last Friday asking, "Did Mike Johnson work for a hate group? SPLC and Christian law firm have sparred over label." The fact that the Southern Poverty Law Center is a highly discredited far-left organization that designates Christian law groups and parental rights groups on the same "hate maps" as they do groups like the Ku Klux Klan tells you all you need to know. SPLC itself could very well be described as a hate group.

So obsessed were social media trolls with Johnson's views on marriage that, as our friends at Twitchy highlighted, the Call to Activism X account, shared an old photo of the now speaker with his wife celebrating a birthday, implying he looked gay as an insult.

It's not just social media trolls that have been going after Johnson and his faith, though. NewsBusters highlighted some examples of the mainstream media going after Johnson, including MSNBC's Joy Reid. "On October 26, Reid praised the hysterical insight of The Daily Beast’s David Rothkopf on her show The ReidOut: 'Johnson is more dangerous than Donald Trump because Johnson actually wants to make America into a Christian theocracy,'" the piece mentioned.

She had also invited New York Magazine’s Irin Carmon and author Judd Legum on to freak out about Johnson's views.

Rothkopf's headline declared "Here’s Why Mike Johnson Is More Dangerous Than Donald Trump." Like the social media trolls, he harps on "Christofacism" throughout his piece:

The most dangerous movement in American politics today is not Trumpism. It is Christofascism. With the election of Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the organized effort to impose the extreme religious views of a minority of Americans on the entire country, at the expense of many of our most basic freedoms, took a disturbing step forward.

...

In fact, even as we see with chilling clarity how those with a similar motive have sought to infuse the law with their religious beliefs on the Supreme Court and in state capitals across the country, Johnson may be the most extreme example of a dangerously empowered religious fanatic in our recent history—and yes, I remember that Mike Pence was, not so long ago, the Vice President of the United States.

The term Christofascism may seem inflammatory. It is not. It is intended to provide the most accurate possible definition of what Johnson and those in his movement wish to achieve. Like other fascists they seek to impose by whatever means necessary their views on the whole of society even if that means undoing established laws and eliminating accepted freedoms. Christofascists do so in the name of advancing their Christian ideology, asserting that all in society must be guided by their views and values whether they adhere to them or not.

Although Johnson was little known outside Republican congressional circles (and not that well known within them), he made it clear from his first moments as speaker who he was and what kind of speaker he would be. In his opening remarks, he even suggested it was divine intervention that made him the second in the line of succession to the U.S. presidency. He said, “I don’t believe there are any coincidences in a matter like this. I believe that scripture, the Bible, is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority.”

...

As benign as that may sound to those who find solace or inspiration in their Christian beliefs, the desire to institutionalize those beliefs and to impose them upon even those who do not share them is pernicious. It is the way of the Taliban and the mullahs in Iran, of Israel’s hard right and theocratic dictators throughout time. It negates the idea that the citizens of a nation should be the final authority in determining the course and laws of a society. In the name of a “higher authority,” it strips away rights and puts at risk all those who disagree.

...

Unfortunately for all of us, their wisdom and their warnings are seemingly being forgotten and all who hold beliefs inconsistent with those of a chosen evangelical Christian few are now increasingly at risk, as is the very idea of America as a free and democratic society.

It's no wonder that Reid would speak to such a piece. As extreme as she may be, Reid is just one example from the network, though. Others from MSNBC also have gone after Johnson.

Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who now has a platform with her MSNBC show, went after the speaker in a particularly insufferable segment during her Sunday show, "Inside With Jen Psaki."

Mediaite highlighted that recent segment in a biting column from Caleb Howe, who mentioned in his closing, with original emphasis, that "[b]ecause you see, being a snarky, anti-religious, culty progressive DNC talking points prophet does not just inform Psaki’s world view, it is her world view."

With a sarcastic tone that Howe was quick to pick up on, Psaki pointed out that "first glance, Mike Johnson does seem fine, fine-ish. Conservative, yes. But he once started to civility caucus with a Democrat. And I mean, if nothing else, he wears a suit and has glasses. How threatening can this guy actually be?"

Psaki then revealed Johnson "gave us all a little clue as to how he would actually govern in an interview this week," playing a clip from the speaker's interview with Fox News's Sean Hannity from last Thursday, his first since taking on the role. 

That clip showed Johnson daring to point out that he holds a Christian worldview. "I am a Bible-believing Christian. Someone asked me today in the media, they said, 'Well, it’s curious. People are curious, what does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?' I said, well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That’s that’s my worldview."

"You heard that right," Psaki pointed out, as if Johnson had made some shocking declaration. "The Bible doesn’t just inform his worldview, it is his worldview." The screen then showed a headline from The Washington Post, "Mike Johnson suggests his election as House speaker ordained by God." 

Actually, Johnson suggested in his speech on the House floor that all of the members' elections were ordained by God. "'I believe that Scripture, the Bible, is very clear: that God is the one who raises up those in authority,' Johnson said in his first speech after being elected speaker in a 220-209 vote. 'He raised up each of you. All of us,'" the piece quoted the newly elected speaker as having shared in his first speech. Psaki's program conveniently cut off the part that applies to all House members though.

"I don’t believe there are any coincidences in a matter like this. I believe that Scripture and the Bible is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority. He raised up each of you, all of us. And I believe God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment and this time. This is my belief," Johnson said in a more full context. "I believe that each one of us has a huge responsibility today to use the gifts that God has given us to serve the extraordinary people of this great country and they deserve it."

Psaki saw it as another reason to mock, Johnson though, and by omitting context. "In fact during his first speech in his new job, Johnson suggested that his election as speaker was an act of God. Talk about a bit of a humblebrag there," she said, which again is negated by the part of Johnson's speech that mentions other members as well.

Howe pointed to even more examples from the network going after Johnson, including but not only limited to Psaki and Reid, who also had an articlepublished on the MSNBC website for Saturday. He mentioned "The Katie Phang Show," The Sunday Show With Jonathan Capehart" as some of the weekend coverage, as well as other articles posted to the MSNBC website. 

It's not merely MSNBC or The Daily Beast, either. The New York Times had a particularly involving piece on Johnson's election as speaker, "For Mike Johnson, Religion Is at the Forefront of Politics and Policy." There were even subsections, including "Religion at the Forefront" and "A Win for the Far Right."

X22, And we Know, and more- November 1st

 

STASI – American Style

For every Jan6 protester, 100 amateur sleuths stood ready to help the feds

by Dwight Sutherland for American Greatness

After the Berlin Wall came down, many residents of the former East Germany learned that they had been spied on by the Ministry for State Security (“STASI”). A combination of the secret police, intelligence service and bureau for investigations of political criminal cases, this organized network of government informants numbered almost ninety thousand people, one out of every 30 East Germans.

A similar network still exists in present day Cuba and is known as the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, with chapters on each block, charged with turning in their neighbors for such heinous crimes as buying rice and beans on the black market or selling a used washing machine without a government permit. How far away are we from this system in this country?

Consider the following transcript from the Morning Edition show on National Public Radio on January 5, 2022:

NPR host “A” Martinez: In the days after the attack on the U.S. Capital, an informal community started coming together online to identify people who took part. These amateur sleuths have come to be known as “Sedition Hunters.” And they’ve been a big help to the police. NPR’s Odette Yousef is here to tell us more. Odette, all right, Sedition Hunters has a HGTV reality show vibe to it. Who are they?

Correspondent Yousef: (Laughter) Well, at the beginning it seemed like they were everybody with a laptop, a free hour, and some outrage over what they witnessed over live television last January.”

The interview continues with conversations with the actual Sedition Hunters themselves. Yousef cheerfully admitted that, “In the beginning, there were mistakes. Some people were incorrectly identified as being at the Capital.”

In other words, these endearing amateur sleuths falsely accused people of crimes. Another Sedition Hunter, who would only give her first name (“Mary”), said she “investigated” all members of the Oath Keepers (the right wing activist group) “who showed up that day, regardless of whether they entered the Capital or committed a crime.” Interestingly, several of the people interviewed don’t even live in the United States. One was identified as “a German American living in Switzerland.” None seem to have been the least bit bothered by turning innocent people-who they admit had committed no crime-into the FBI for investigation.

This zeal to be a Junior G-man, a government informant, is reflected in the number of “tips” the FBI January 6 hotline received in the first 30 days it was operational: 200,000. This meant there were 100 “Sedition Hunters” for every protester.

It would also refute the insistence by many commentators that the amateur sleuths had to make “regrettable” “painful,” “agonizing,” “anguished,” “upsetting” decisions on whether to turn someone into the feds. (All these adjectives were used to describe how people struggled with their conscience before “dropping a dime” on someone. Yeah, right!)

If you were appalled and shocked by January 6 you should be just as appalled by the travesty of the disruption of Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation process. Not only were the hearings repeatedly interrupted by screaming protesters, but at one point the Hart Senate Office was occupied by protesters, who also had to be physically removed just like those disrupting testimony in Capital hearing rooms. (“Anti-Kavanaugh Protesters take over Senate Building,” CBS News, 10/4/2018). Later protesters forced their way into the actual U.S. Senate Chamber while the roll call confirmation vote was proceeding. Their shrieks from the Gallery and pounding on the doors to the Senate Floor can be heard in the audio of the vote on C-Span and all the other networks. The anti-Kavanaugh protesters also confronted individual senators in their offices and the Senate corridors and upbraided them to vote against the nominee.

Finally, another mob tried to force its way into the Supreme Court Building to stop Kavanaugh’s swearing in after his confirmation. All told, at least 700 anti-Kavanaugh protesters disrupted the confirmation process, which, after all, is an important government proceeding, just like certifying electoral college votes.

As infuriating as these actions were, none of the Kavanaugh protesters has faced multiple felony counts for actions virtually the same as those charged for the January 6 protests!

None has been held in a special political offender’s jail for years without trial. None has been imprisoned in appalling conditions, without medical care, sanitary conditions, and in solitary confinement. None was preemptively labeled a white supremacist leaving them at the mercy of sadistic prison guards. None was submitted to such an ordeal that their lives were destroyed, and they committed suicide. Nor should they have been, as obnoxious as they were. I only ask why the Left thinks it’s funny that the 6^th protesters have been subjected to an unending nightmare for the same behavior as the Kavanaugh protesters that was ignored.

At least the amateur sleuth’s or Sedition Hunters’ (one such group called itself the “Deep State Dogs”- cute!) motives were clear. They want to imprison and impoverish their political opponents, starting with Donald Trump, for their crimes against humanity. This means, of course, not supporting the Democratic mission to turn the country into a one-party, police state.

What’s even more repellant is the glorification of the turning in of family and friends for the moral atrocity of protesting at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, regardless of the form it took. (Just as there are “Many Mansions in My Father’s House,” there are many guises of Election Denialism).

The sophistry employed by liberal apologists for the Family and Friends Chapter of “Sedition Hunters” is more studied. You need to understand, they say, that informing on those near and dear to you is actually an act of “tough love” for those who “won’t take your help.” “Help” is, of course, understood to mean being able to force someone to renounce political beliefs you don’t agree with.

To support this rather interesting take on the virtue of betraying loved ones to the police for the crime of entering a public building, liberal journalists have frequently turned to some left-wing academics. You know, the ones ensconced at some bogus think tank with a name like “The Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab” at American University in D.C. (PERIL, get it?) I wonder how many left-wing extremists PERIL monitors?

One such academic is Elizabeth Jeglic of John Jay College of the City University of New York. She said of the January 6 protesters: “This is not Uncle Bob or Aunt Jane anymore. This is a mob of people attacking our nation, our freedom, our values, and this is not what families are about. When you see that it can be devastating. It’s like a betrayal of your family and you want to keep your family values whole.” NBC, 1/27/21

In other words, by betraying your actual family, like your father or brother, you’re upholding your figurative family. After all, doesn’t your primary loyalty run to the nation state, embodied in the government? Just because someone gave birth to you and raised you, what does that matter?

Of the thousand people initially arrested for January 6, fully a third were arrested based on tips from spouses or lovers. Do you believe this was anything other than people carrying out personal vendettas? Do you really expect us to believe that these informants were motivated by a respect for the Constitution and the democratic process?

To really bring it into focus, consider how, by contrast, an anti-Trump January 6, counter protester was treated by the authorities and his/her own family.

Leslie Grimes of Grand Rapids, Michigan was one of a group of six left-wing activists who went to Washington to confront Trump supporters at their Stop the Steal Rally on January 6, 2021.

The Michiganders got their way. Mr./Ms./Zhir/Zhey Grimes, a transgender woman who uses feminine pronouns, got into an altercation with MAGA types. After getting kicked in the stomach, Ms. Grimes and her comrades fled the scene, but their car was pulled over by the Washington Metropolitan Police.

In the trunk of Ms. Grime’s car, the police discovered a pistol without a license, unregistered ammunition, and a large ammunition feeding device. Grimes claimed that she had no idea these items were in the car but faced potential federal criminal charges that could have sent him/her/zhir to prison.

However, not only did she get away with all charges dropped, but her family bragged about her involvement. Her father, Robert Grimes, boasted that his daughter got away “scot free,” A fellow left-wing activist, Mr. Grimes said his daughter should never have been arrested in the first place because of, well, Trump. The newspaper account seemed to suggest that the decision not to prosecute Grimes was made so prosecutors could focus exclusively on Trump supporters for what occurred at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. See “Prosecutors Won’t Proceed with charges against Michigan woman arrested during Capitol Insurrection.” The Detroit News, January 8, 2021

This suggestion is further borne out by an unusual series of articles, totally three dozen or more, by K.C. Star writer Judy Thomas. These articles, appearing in the Star and other McClatchy papers, focused on January 6 protesters from this region. The whole point of the series was an unabashed exercise in class snobbery. Again and again, the modest socio-economic background of the pro-Trump protesters is stressed, to contrast their benighted, pathetic beliefs with the enlightened, educated views of their intellectual superiors, i.e. young journalists who watch Steven Colbert and therefore know what to think and say.

Recently, Thomas wrote an article about a young Trump supporter, who was arrested in July of this year, more than two and a half years after the January 6 protests he took part in when he was 21 years old. A Hispanic, Angelo Pacheco, is charged with four criminal counts for entering the Capitol and staying inside, wait for it!, for six seconds.

This is a cruel taunt by Thomas, meant to mock and ridicule her and the Star’s political enemies. It is saying that we can destroy your life for the most trivial of reasons and laugh in your face while we do it. “There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy.” George Orwell, 1984

Thomas’s words are meant as both derision and threat. It’s the Deep State using the press to intimidate its opponents.

If you are on the right side, like Ms. Grimes, you can come to Washington looking to inflict violence, armed and dangerous. You will not only be absolved of any crime but will be lauded as a hero! (Or should I say heroine?) If you are on the wrong side, like Mr. Pacheco, no matter how innocuous your actions, your life will be up-ended.

If there is any doubt this is happening considering what I just heard today on the news. Several hundred pro-Palestinians demonstrators are illegally occupying the Cannon House Office Building adjacent to the U.S. Capitol. Policemen have been assaulted by the demonstrators, who refuse to leave. Congress hearings have been disrupted but you can be sure that none of these people will be dealt with anything like the ferocity with which the January 6 protesters were treated, even though the offenses in virtually every instance were the same; trespass, “parading,” and disrupting a government proceeding.

Our republic has as its foundation equal justice under the law. Every day of the Biden administration that ideal seems more and more irretrievably lost given the actions of the Democratic Party and its media adjuncts.

Law Enforcement Intel Report Warns of Terrorism Coming to the US, Biden Regime Does Nothing to Prevent It

Matt Funicello reporting for Redstate 

In a recent warning to American law enforcement, the San Diego Field Office of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Department's Intelligence Division has issued a chilling but not surprising advisement for law enforcement agencies along the southern border to expect terrorist groups like Hamas to enter the United States through the open southern border.  

In the advisory, which is marked "Law Enforcement Sensitive," the agency says that people in the U.S. who are sympathetic to Hamas and are attempting to join the group in the area of the war may attempt to leave through the southern border. In addition to this, they further warn that foreign fighters associated or sympathetic with Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad will most likely attempt to conceal their travel or transit to the United States by coming through the open southern borders. 

The tweet continues:

Gives officers instructions on key indicators to look for, including single, military aged males w/ undetermined travel plans. 

You can remember recently when RedState covered the gaslighting attempt by NBC when they reported the lack of "credible threats" by the government to suggest a terrorist attack is possible or imminent, and that the right was fear-mongering to push an agenda. 

Conservative social media influencers have been filling platforms such as X and Truth Social with speculation not backed by any evidence that attacks on civilians in Israel would soon be followed by similar attacks in major U.S. cities and that people should begin preparing — including by avoiding cities and purchasing firearms.

The speculation with no evidence to support it has come from former President Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr. and a host of right-wing commentators with big followings who issued vague warnings about imminent invasions or attacks. Many of the posts tie in a hodgepodge of Republican Party talking points on subjects such as gun rights, immigration from Asia, crime and Iran policy.

NBC goes on to admit that people on the terrorist watch list have been apprehended at the southern border, illegally attempting to enter the country. 

NBC News reported last month that U.S. border agents have taken into custody a growing number of people on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist trying to enter via the southern border, but there is no evidence that Hamas fighters who carried out attacks in Israel in recent days are pouring in from Mexico. 

When the agency alerted law enforcement agencies across the southern border and in those regions to the probability of our boundaries being penetrated by terrorists, we expect the rest of the country to be warned of this as well. So where has NBC or the left-wing news media been since this came out? Furthermore, where has the administration of President Joe Biden been, and what are they doing? We have not seen any shift in resources or any move by CPB, Border Patrol, or the entire Department of Homeland Security to increase resources or change policies or tactics to counter this threat. 

When this country has seen record-breaking numbers of people entering the U.S. illegally over the two-plus years that Biden has been in power and the millions of people who got in without arrest or detection, our worst fears have been completely justified. 

So far in 2023, according to The Center for Immigration Studies has said that over 1.3 million people had entered illegally and eluded capture by authorities and that the CBP and Border Patrol had no idea where they went or where they are right now. It is completely in the realm of possibility, especially with how the border has been handled under President Biden's administration, that an unknown number of Islamist terrorists have already entered or plan to enter this country illegally through the southern border. And with the world still reeling from the Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel, Hamas issued a call to arms around the world for all Arabs to fight in what he called the Al-Aqsa Flood. They made clear that it was the duty of all Arabs to sacrifice themselves for the "Palestinian" people tomorrow on the 13th. 

Hamas urges “the masses of our Arab and Islamic nation and our Palestinian people in all places” to march toward “the borders of our beloved Palestine in massive gatherings.” It also urges “the free people of the world to mobilize in solidarity with our Palestinian people and in support of their just cause and legitimate rights to freedom, independence, return, and self-determination.” Robert Greenway, director of the Center for National Defense at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal that the statement will result in bloodshed. “It is an unambiguous global call to arms,” Greenway said. “It will be heeded. There will be blood.”

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has not changed his policies or issued any orders to address this threat. Nobody in the Biden administration has made any attempt whatsoever to stem the flow of people into this country through our southern borders. It is a complete and utter disaster, and the federal government is not just asleep at the wheel, they are putting blinders on their eyes and plugs in their ears so they cannot see or hear anything about it. This has major and catastrophic consequences, and the people who will pay the price for that will be innocent civilians. There will absolutely be another terrorist attack in this country; it is not a question of if—but when. And to deny that fact would be to admit complete ignorance. The lessons we should have learned after 9/11, and even the attacks that Israel suffered on October 7th, should show us that unconventional attacks can and will cause massive amounts of casualties. 

When that attack comes, the blood of those killed or wounded will be on the hands of all those who decided not to act. Biden, Mayorkas, and the rest of the administration will be the sole people responsible. Even if the attack doesn't come for years after Biden leaves office, it's his administration that has allowed the border to go unchecked and our immigration laws to be either ignored or flat-out disregarded. The worst part is that the mainstream media and the entire leftist virus that plagues this nation will deny and pass off any and all responsibility to anyone but themselves. 

President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas are both asleep at the wheel on this issue. Nobody in power or in a position to effect change has tried to correct the course that we are currently on. What they are doing is tantamount to being an accessory to murder. They have the tools, the resources, the money, and the laws to rectify this problem, yet they refuse on "moral" grounds. To enforce our immigration and or criminal laws would be viewed as oppressive or unjust to them, but to all of us rational and sane Americans, it is basic national security 101. 

Wray & Mayorkas Squirm Over Censorship Allegations

Evita Duffy-Alfonso reporting for The Federalist 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray were grilled during a Tuesday Homeland Security Committee hearing by Sen. Rand Paul over their respective agency’s assault on the First Amendment.

The DHS and FBI were exposed by the now-famous Missouri v. Biden case for annihilating free speech in America, but instead of showing remorse or promising reform, Mayorkas and Wray were defensive and dishonest during the hearing.

Mayorkas insisted that DHS employees only ever met with Big Tech companies “to speak of the threats to the homeland so that those companies are alert to them.” When asked whether “threats to the homeland” include criticism of vaccine efficacy, Mayorkas said that it does not, suggesting that DHS never directed social media companies to censor vaccine-related content.

However, Missouri v. Biden revealed that during the years of Covid hysteria, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a subsidiary of DHS, did direct the censorship of speech critical of Covid vaccines and authoritarian lockdown measures implemented by the government.

“[Missouri v. Biden] lists time and time again, discussion of constitutionally protected speech that has nothing to do with national security,” Paul told Mayorkas, refusing to let the secretary lie.

To Wray, Paul asked whether the FBI is “still meeting with social media companies?”

“We’re having some interaction with social media companies,” said Wray. “But, all of those interactions have changed fundamentally in the wake of the court’s ruling,” he added, referring to two Missouri v. Biden court rulings, which put an injunction on the FBI and other agencies, preventing them from infringing on the First Amendment.

“That’s sort of an acknowledgment that perhaps you weren’t just talking about national security, child pornography, and human trafficking, right?” asked Paul. “You had other areas of discussion that did involve Constitutionally-protected speech?”

This put Wray on the defensive, and he quickly stated that it “was not an acknowledgment of that.” When asked how the FBI changed its behavior, all Wray could say was that the FBI was acting with more caution, which presumably means the agency has limited the brazenness of its speech policing to avoid more legal troubles.

“Did anybody from the FBI ever discuss Constitutionally-protected speech with social media organizations,” Paul continued. “Not to my understanding,” retorted Wray.

This is a lie. According to Missouri v. Biden defendants, among many instances of illegal censorship, the FBI played an integral role in the systemic suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story. Polling suggests suppression of this story helped Joe Biden win the 2020 presidential election.

Mayorkas and Wray head agencies charged with what the initial Missouri v. Biden judge, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, described as arguably “the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”

This month, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Missouri v. Biden but blocked the lower court injunction preventing further speech policing until it can address the case. For now, Wray and Mayorkas are likely able to continue violating one of Americans’ most sacred and essential rights. The case is expected to be heard by the Supreme Court sometime before the end of June.

Gretchen Carlson's Ignorant Tweet About the AR-15 Sets the Internet Ablaze

Nick Arama reporting for RedState 

The ignorance of people on the left about guns is sometimes mind-boggling. 

Joe Biden has said some real whoppers, including that a bullet from an AR-15 "blows up inside the body."

Ben Shapiro made a post that highlighted some of that cluelessness from Joe Biden. It's just astonishing how Biden sits in such a position of power and is always spouting off about guns yet knows next to nothing. He attacked "semi-automatic weapons," saying they had no socially redeeming value -- without realizing that most everyday handguns are semi-automatic. The people who protect him every day carry them, but that's allowed because Joe is special. You ordinary Americans would not allowed to protect yourselves with those same weapons if Joe Biden had his way.

But what added to the overall ignorance was "journalist" Gretchen Carlson's response to Shapiro's post about the AR-15. Carlson has worked for CBS and Fox, yet that doesn't mean that she knows anything. This may be one of the dumbest posts about the AR-15 that you're likely to see. 

"Ordinary people didn’t have AR-15s before 2004," Carlson claimed. 

"They’re not some time-honored American tradition, they’re a recent mistake that we could fix and save thousands of lives in the process."

Oh my, how wrong can you be? 

Carlson got whacked with a Community Note pointing out how wrong she was about people not having such guns before 2004: “For more than a half-century, the AR-15 has been popular among gun owners, widely available in gun stores and, for many years, even appeared in the Sears catalog.”

Indeed, it's been available to civilians since it was made in 1959. 

Yes, Gretchen, the right to bear arms is a "time-honored American tradition" (in addition to being a protected Constitutional right). You don't get to decide what guns people can and cannot have, particularly when you, like Joe Biden, don't have any idea what you are talking about. 

The perception of the AR-15 is manipulated by the liberal obsession with it and their fixation on mass shootings. But as a percentage of those who are killed with guns, rifles are a very small percentage, and AR-15s are a percentage of that percentage. So this fixation is not based in reality, it's based on the belief that somehow the AR-15 is some evil weapon/machine gun that can kill more people faster, without understanding it's a rifle that fires one bullet per trigger pull. The AR-15 is also one of the most popular rifles in the country, with millions in circulation. But let not reality interfere with leftist propaganda, it's about "Alinsky-izing" the rifle. 

Carlson's post went viral because it was so incredibly bad. The internet let her have it with a huge ratio. 

American Troops Go Unpaid While The Pentagon Bankrolls Abortions And Ukraine’s Forever War

Shawn Fleetwood reporting for The Federalist 

While America’s military leadership once prioritized the well-being of their troops, today, it seems far more concerned about funding abortions and never-ending proxy wars.

On Friday, Military.com reported that the military has failed to compensate roughly 9,000 National Guardsmen “the bonuses they were promised for signing up” to serve, with some payments having “been missing for years.” According to the report, the Guard is also “tracking an additional 3,900 soldiers who completed their service and left the military without getting any bonus payment, though some may have lost eligibility.”

As noted by the outlet, these bonuses, which can total as high as $20,000, are divvied up over the course of soldiers’ enlistment contracts, with the first half to be distributed after an enlistee completes initial service training. Meanwhile, the second half is “disbursed halfway through soldiers’ first contracts.”

Guard officials claim the usual waiting period to receive the first bonus is six months, although enlistees and their families have indicated “it can take years” to receive the payments.

“I was really relying on this money to help with moving into a new place with my wife,” one soldier told Military.com. “I did my end of things, and this is a really bad introduction to the Army, not taking care of people.”

The main cause of the issue appears to stem from understaffing and mismanagement of a “payment-processing system that has faced multiple long-term catastrophic outages.” According to the outlet, the system’s routine failures have resulted in staffers having to “repeatedly track and process payments manually” for years, prompting delays in payments to Guardsmen.

Despite honorably serving their country, these soldiers’ financial plights are at the bottom of the Biden Pentagon’s to-do list. A day before Military.com dropped its bombshell report, the Defense Department announced it was shipping another multi-million-dollar aid package to Ukraine. Totaling $150 million, the package includes an array of weapons, ammunition, and defense capabilities purportedly aimed at helping Kyiv continue its fight against Moscow.

While Congress and the Biden administration committed more than $113 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars to Ukraine in 2022 alone, that hasn’t stopped the White House from bullying Congress into authorizing even more aid for the Eastern European nation. A little over a week ago, the Biden administration proposed a $105 billion spending package that would force Congress to ship billions more to Ukraine as a package deal with U.S. aid to Israel. In essence, the Biden administration is using Hamas’ attack on Israel to coerce House Republicans into dumping more money into Kyiv’s coffers.

It’s not just subsidizing Ukraine that takes priority over paying U.S. service members, however. The Pentagon is also busy at work bankrolling abortions for its female employees. In February, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the agency would financially cover abortion-related travel expenses for service members and their dependents. This prompted Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville to launch a protest of the policy the following month. Using his position on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Tuberville has been slow-walking military promotions requiring Senate confirmation.

Despite facing hysterical attacks from congressional Democrats, former intel officials, and high-ranking military members, Tuberville has stood strong in his defense for life and pledged to continue his protest until the Defense Department revokes the policy. While Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tacitly admitted he had the power to bring military promotions to the Senate floor the entire time last month after he filed cloture on several Biden nominees, that hasn’t stopped Democrats from trying to change the rules to skirt Tuberville’s holds.

According to The Hill, Senate Democrats and “a handful of Republicans” are scheming behind the scenes to potentially change Senate rules and effectively neuter Tuberville’s protest. The maneuver would purportedly “allow the Senate to move military promotions in a group through the end of 2024.” At least 60 votes would be needed to override a potential filibuster, meaning Democrats would need Republican support to change the rules.