A Rebel with a Cause – Matt Gaetz Delivers Righteous Remarks to Florida GOP Assembly

Sundance reporting for Conservative Treehouse

This is, well, too full of smiles to adequately describe.   Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz delivered a resoundingly honest speech to the Republican attendees at the Florida Freedom Summit on Saturday.   It is well worth the time to watch, as prompted.

Look, I’m still on the fence with this guy, but his brutal confrontation of the GOPe is some of the funniest and best components of the BIG UGLY so far.   The guy has been put through the wringer, hit from every angle, ridiculed by both the left and right, and yet he’s standing there snarking brutal one-liners in their faces while sipping their tears.

It’s so much fun to watch him go full wolverine, and yet so brutal in its abject honesty; quite frankly, it makes him very easy to like. WATCH:

I mean, seriously.  Think about it.  He took down the Speaker of the House…. 

He’s a rebel with a cause. Give em’ hell kid!  

X22, And we Know, and more- November 5

Easy for Me to Say

Will America remain an historically exceptional haven for Jewish-Americans?

by Thaddeus G. McCotter for American Greatness

Given my past involvement with foreign affairs, many of my friends share with me their views and concerns about current events. Presently, many of my Jewish friends have told me of their outrage over the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and their grave concern for Israelis going forward. Exacerbating their anxiety is not only the overall international reaction, which is inveterately anti-Israel, but the reaction of so many in America’s legacy and social media, academia, and within the Biden administration and Congress. In sum, they are concerned by how the American Left has reacted to the terrorist attack by offering “nuanced” moral equivalencies to rationalize and, in the most egregious instances, to justify Hamas’ barbaric attack by blaming Israel for necessitating it.

Historically, dangers to the Jewish people have come from the political Right, such as the Nazi’s genocidal murder of six million Jews. Yet, since the creation of Israel and the advent of post-modern Progressivism, within a few decades Israel was despicably being libeled as a “Nazi occupier” of Palestine and oppressor of Arab peoples. This cancerous blood libel metastasized into mainstream Leftist ideology from the 1960s onward within European and American political and cultural institutions. Today, we witness its consequences; but only Jewish-Americans bear their full brunt.

In the present crisis, America’s Jewish community is rightly concerned about foreign terrorists infiltrating the country to commit mass terror attacks on synagogues and shuls and the targeted assassination attempts on prominent American Jews. Moreover, the Left’s equivocations and prevarications regarding Hamas terrorists has – for the first time in their lives – led many American Jews to fear antisemitic violence against them by progressives, especially the young. In fact, while antisemitic attacks have increased following the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, for years antisemitic incidents have been rising throughout the world, including Europe and the United States.

Yet, this attack has spurred many on the American Left to remove their masks and reveal their patent and latent – indeed, their institutionally indoctrinated and condoned – antisemitism. This is not to argue that someone must support Israel or be deemed antisemitic. But when someone cannot bring themselves to outright condemn terrorist atrocities perpetrated upon Jews without adding an “if, and, or but,” one has a problem. And such individuals constitute a problem not just for Jewish Americans, but for every American.

Throughout America’s history, while it may often have been more honored in the breach, one of the foundational governing principles of our free republic is that every American is entitled to tolerance. This is not to be confused with acceptance – and certainly not the coerced “acceptance” demanded by the Left’s ideological insanity and lust for political domination. No, true acceptance can only be voluntarily given. In fact, the Left’s continuing conflation of acceptance and tolerance, and its attempts to coerce the former have resulted in the diminishment of the latter within the populace, including both sides of the political spectrum. Bluntly, as the Left promotes one group (largely on the subjective basis of past “victimization” real or imagined) another group is often demeaned and demoted. Ultimately, citizens of the latter group become ensnared in this intersectionality sweepstakes, a vicious political crosscurrent roiling and rending asunder the entire body politic within the Left’s remorseless political vortex. To wit: the present plight of Jewish-Americans.

Tragically, the unconscionable Hamas terrorist attack upon Israel has again placed Jewish-Americans in the maelstrom of American politics. They did not seek it and, doubtless, wish it were otherwise, abetted in their pursuits of happiness by the tolerance and, hopefully, voluntary acceptance of their fellow citizens. For it would be a uniquely American tragedy that, in this nation of immigrated huddled masses, Jewish-Americans, whose forebearers arrived seeking shelter from the chaos and antisemitic violence of the Old World, would find a similar fate on in the New World at the hands of those who would violate our nation’s foundational principle of tolerance; and ignore the lesson of history that, where one person’s rights are abused, all people’s rights are endangered.

Surveying the American political landscape, my friend, the “Learned One,” dispiritedly expressed to me: “During my lifetime, our country had largely overcome its antisemitic past. I truly thought America would become the historical exception and prove a lasting sanctuary for the Jewish people. I no longer can.”

I reassured him that our nation will remain an historically exceptional haven for Jewish-Americans. That the vast majority of our fellow citizens are decent, honest, and fair people who reject antisemitism and racism. But that was easy for me to say, as my blood relations were not gassed by Nazis, nor raped and beheaded by Hamas, nor am I the target of rising antisemitic violence. Far harder will be performing the deeds required by everyone of us to fulfill America’s promise to Jewish-Americans and, indeed, all Americans.

If Biden Gets His Way, Your Next Adventure Out West Will Be Canceled

Our freedom to roam is under assault from a plan to close everything off and make us ask permission before we enjoy it.

Matt Miller reporting for The Federalist

There is a plan underway to close the great open spaces of the American West to you, me, our children, and our children’s children. The federal government — which owns most of this land — is determined to move from a “use and let use” system of accessing Western public lands to a permission-based system that will mean reservations, permits, and closures. 

Just last month, the Bureau of Land Management issued a final decision to close 317 miles of historic and popular off-road trails near Moab, Utah. For decades, these trails — which are mostly old uranium mining roads — have been enjoyed by everyone from Jeep owners to dirt bike riders to base jumpers looking for a place to land. They have evocative names like Gemini Bridges, Mashed Potatoes, and Dead Cow Trail. They appear in guidebooks. Some of them are even featured in the hugely popular Easter Jeep Safari.

The plan is already being implemented, and it threatens the freedom enjoyed by tens of millions of Americans who hike, camp, Jeep, mountain bike, ATV, fish, swim, canoe, kayak, trail run, overland, base jump, raft, and backpack the millions of acres of free space that make “the West” the West.

I have enjoyed our public lands my entire life. There is nothing like a sip of coffee as you watch the first rays of dawn begin to break on the red rocks. You don’t realize how tough your kids are until they shrug off a chilly 15-degree night in a sleeping bag. And you don’t really appreciate how unfathomably vast the West is until you spend three days exploring the backcountry without seeing another human soul.

All of these experiences — and many others — take place on public lands. There is no entrance fee. There is no permit required. You just lace up your hiking boots, or jump in your pickup, or hop on your mountain bike, and you go. Simple as that. So long you don’t litter or destroy or cause a ruckus, you are left to your own devices. It is something that unites Americans of every class, creed, color, and political persuasion.

That feeling of expansive freedom speaks to everyone who steps outside to enjoy and explore America’s public lands. It feels like our birthright to enjoy them and, for hundreds of years now, it has been just that. 

But now, that freedom to roam is under assault from a plan to close everything off and make you ask permission before you enjoy it. If nothing is done to stop it, one of the last, great, unifying forces in American public and private life will be fundamentally transformed and left unrecognizable before most people realize what is happening.

Zooming out, the aggressive rate of federal trail closures is part of the larger “30×30” plan that President Joe Biden announced shortly after taking office. The alleged intention is to “conserve at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters and 30% of U.S. ocean areas by 2030.” 

There is no evidence that users of these trails have been damaging them. Indeed, people cherish these lands. Go drive the trails and you will rarely encounter even a single piece of trash. That is why they have been in use for decades with no appreciable degradation.

Nevertheless, the federal government is now implementing a plan to close hundreds of miles of cherished trails. And that is why the BlueRibbon Coalition — the nation’s premier group dedicated to preserving motorized access to wilderness — has joined with the Colorado Offroad Trail Defenders to challenge the plan in court. They are represented by my organization, the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

What the Biden administration’s plan really means is an aggressive plan to close those lands to use by the public. Well, not to the entire public — crunchy backpackers and hikers are still beloved by the left. But the executive decision will limit access for the “wrong” kind of outdoorsy people — people who drive Jeeps and Toyotas and ride ATVs and dirt bikes, and who look like they might be having a good time without suffering under a heavy backpack.

This seems to be a great paradox to those who do not understand why people love overlanding, dispersed camping, dirt biking, ATV riding, and off-roading, but it is no mystery to those of us who actually engage in these activities. We love the wilderness, too. We love taking our children, friends, and family out there and enjoying fresh air and magnificent scenery. If we come across someone else’s trash, we pick it up. If we see someone breaking the rules (by, say, driving off-trail), we reprimand them. 

There are very, very few law enforcement personnel on these lands enforcing the rules. Instead, the motorized travel community self-enforces an ethic of respect for public lands. We teach it to our children. That is why these trails remain so attractive as a place to recreate.

The Moab closures are a bellwether case for protecting access to public lands. The closures represent a provocative challenge to an entire way of life for millions of people in the West. If the Biden administration can close these lands, it can close them anywhere. Americans have shown themselves to be responsible stewards of their public lands, and they deserve to be able to enjoy them — freely — for generations to come.

Author James Patterson Gets Blasted Online After He Posts About the Founders and Guns

Nick Arama reporting for RedState 

It never stops surprising me how many politicians or members of the media seem to have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to guns. All they know is their opinion, which is frequently based on stunning ignorance. 

We saw such a post from former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson about her AR-15 hatred, where she had no idea what she was saying, and then made it worse with a video that revealed she knew nothing about math as well. 

What's worse is the incredible preachiness from someone who is ignorant about the subject. 

But it looks like author James Patterson wants to join Carlson in horrible takes. Every sentence of his post below is awash in ignorance. 

I write about assault weapons more than I’d like to. I believe their place is in the hands of law officers and our military. I honestly don’t see why anyone else needs to have a machine gun. I’m 99.999% sure that Tom Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Washington, and the Adams boys did not foresee assault rifles in the hands of farm boys back in the 18th century, when they were writing the Second Amendment. Muskets and flintlock pistols fired a single shot in about 20 seconds.

I wonder if Patterson can even define what an assault weapon is. Most liberals can't, because there is no real definition; it's just whatever is on the hate list that looks evil to them, like the AR-15. Putting them only in the hands of "law officers" and "our military" is exactly counter to what the Founders envisioned, since they were speaking out about the rights of the people to respond to a tyrannical government. If only the government has the power, what would the people's right mean? The Founders wanted the "farm boys" to be able to respond to any threat in the future. 

Perhaps the most ignorant part of the comment was how he didn't see how "anyone else needs to have a machine gun." Machine guns are not allowed in general use, and can only be obtained through a special process. AR-15s aren't machine guns; they are only semi-automatic. No fully automatic weapons are in general use. 

Patterson got schooled by a high ratio of people. Many also pointed out how he was wrong about what the Founders envisioned in terms of guns -- that they weren't limited to muskets and flintlocks, and that there were repeating weapons at the time.  Unfortunately, ignorance doesn't seem to stop liberals from acting like they know everything when the opposite is true. 

How much is Patterson's opinion worth? Not a whole heck of a lot. Skip about two-thirds into this video for his comment defending Bill Clinton.  

CNN's John King Exposes Biden's Biggest Threat in 2024 in Latest Report

Joe Cunningham reporting for RedState 

We're in the final two months of 2023 and, God help us, we are on 2024's doorstep. Right now, we're looking at a likely 2020 rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, with each man somehow walking in with even more negatives than they had in that election.

Events could change things on the Republican side. Trump could wind up in jail. Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis could see a massive surge - or drop out - and the field could consolidate further. There are a ton of ways this could shake out. 

But the Democratic side is both simpler, yet trickier. Biden is, for all intents and purposes, the nominee. He is the incumbent. No one challenging him has the numbers, in money or support, to thwart his re-nomination. Assuming an Act of God does not interfere, he's at the top of the ballot in next year's election, and there's no reason to believe the whispers that he may just replace Kamala Harris.

And, if CNN's John King is correct in his recent analysis, dropping Harris might do even more damage to Biden in one of the Democrats' most important demographics: Black voters.

The mood a year from now will affect the president’s reelection odds more than the present mood. But would the president have a Black turnout problem if the election were today?

“Yes, he would,” Johnson told us. “He would have a big problem.”

A couple of hours with the BLOC canvassers backed up that assertion, as did interviews in both Milwaukee’s inner city and along its suburban edge.

That is a killer quote right there. But it only gets worse for Biden. The mentality of many of the black voters CNN spoke to in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, when it comes to politicians, and Biden in particular, is a gigantic red flag for the president.

“All these candidates come by and sell us these promises,” she said in an interview. “You know, say, you got to vote for me to save democracy. And then we don’t always see them again. And so, folks get more and more turned off from the political process.”

Missing from the new Biden ads is an issue raised often in the overwhelmingly Black neighborhoods on Milwaukee’s northern edge.

“People are wondering: What is he doing in terms of police accountability and criminal justice reform?” Lang said. “That is a big issue in our community.”

Also, the DNC does not seem to be doing its job.

Lang, however, told CNN on Wednesday that she “hadn’t heard much” from any Biden or DNC field organizers but that a GOP organization recently had canvassers going door to door in Black neighborhoods. 

Issues aside, Lang said it is critical the 2024 campaign gets back to basics.

“People always want to see people actually paying attention,” she said. “And sometimes that means being able to physically be here and engage. … With the pandemic, he couldn’t hold the big rallies, to have the roundtable in-person discussions. The big thing with our community, like, I think, many others, is that folks want to be heard, and I think that’s step one.”

One assumes that part of this is the Biden team's (and the DNC's) assumption that black voters are gonna be with them and that their usual fear-mongering about racism will work. But there's something else going on that the Biden team is purposefully doing that makes very little sense: He is taking credit for things people are viewing as negatives.

Take, for example, the embrace of "Bidenomics." The president wants Americans to believe that things are just great and you just don't understand how wonderful things are right now. But Americans - including black Americans - see the rising prices in grocery stores every day. They are impacted by fuel prices rapidly fluctuating up and down. They understand that things are more expensive than they were and the president is out there loudly claiming "I did that!"

Couple with how little Biden has actually done for black Americans, why would they be motivated to go out in support of him next year? This is what's hidden in the CNN report, as well as other polling data we've seen. The Democrats are seemingly chasing off minority voters, and they don't seem to understand that.

It's not very likely that the GOP is going to pick up a ton of black voters. Rather, they'll likely just stay home. And that would probably be worse for the Democrats.

Growing DNC Divisions Over Israel-Hamas War Threaten Biden's Reelection Campaign

Bob Hoge reporting for RedState 

Growing rifts among Democratic National Committee staffers over the Israel-Hamas war are threatening President Biden's 2024 presidential reelection campaign, according to a report. The DNC is expected to play an important part in the president's fundraising and campaign strategy, but forces within are creating a divide between those who stand staunchly by the Jewish state and those calling for a "cease-fire" or for Israel to stand down. 

Many feel that the president should condemn Israel's military incursion into Gaza to attack Hamas, neglecting to mention that Hamas started this thing when they launched a horrific surprise terror attack on October 7 that left over 1,400 Israelis dead.

Some staffers at the DNC feel despondent about the scale and death toll from Israel's response, and one staffer said they are considering resigning, citing Biden's resolute support for Israel.

A high-ranking DNC official who asked not to be identified told Axios: "The president centered his 2020 campaign on a 'Battle for the Soul of the Nation,' but it seems as though the administration is currently in a battle for its own soul."

"I don't know how you can see supporting the large-scale killing of Palestinian civilians as anything but immoral," the official added.

Others, however, think that Biden has shown leadership:

DNC chair Jaime Harrison told Axios in a statement that Biden "continues to display unparalleled leadership and moral clarity" — and that "Israel has a right to defend itself from terrorism and the continued threat posed by Hamas."

Harrison noted that Biden — who has called for a "humanitarian pause" in the fighting in Gaza, but not a ceasefire — has been "a strong advocate for both humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza as well as protecting civilian lives."

The head of the DNC might think Biden is doing a good job, but on Friday over 50 employees signed an open letter to their leadership calling on them to urge Biden to seek a cease-fire. They chose to remain anonymous, interestingly. The divide appears to be at least somewhat generational:

“As strategic partners to the administration… we feel it is the DNC’s moral obligation to urge President Biden to publicly call for a ceasefire,” the employees, who make up more than 15% of the party’s fundraisers and campaign organizers, wrote.

“I think a lot of us feel it’s increasingly hard to focus on our work,” said one of the signers.

The divide is mainly between young pro-Palestine progressives and older Dems who sympathize with Israel, the staffers said — echoing the internal clashes over the Vietnam War that derailed President Lyndon B. Johnson’s re-election in 1968.

The DNC is not the only area within the administration where troubles are brewing over Israel—there's been turmoil in the State Department, too, as our Becky Noble reported:

There are reports of increased frustration among State Department staff over the Biden administration's U.S. policy on Israel. They also feel as though Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his senior advisors are putting more emphasis on Israel and the fight with Hamas and not enough focus on aid to innocent Palestinians living in Gaza. Dissent among State Department staff comes in the wake of the resignation of Joshua Paul, director of congressional and public affairs for the State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. Paul cited the reason for his resignation as the U.S. sending arms and ammunition to Israel and what he perceived as “blind support for one side." But it appears now that Paul's exit may be just the beginning.

While all this division is surely giving Biden headaches (if he's paying attention), he can only blame it on himself. Surround yourself with leftists, and this is what you get.

The GOP may have its own divisions, but they're not over Israel:

Colleges Didn’t Turn Kids Into Hamas Sympathizers, They Finished What Started In Kindergarten

Students use emotional bullying tactics because those methods were meticulously woven into their thought patterns.

Jordan Boyd reporting for The Federalist

A viral video shows several anti-Israel demonstrators at Harvard University, including an alleged editor of the Harvard Law Review, accosting a presumably Jewish student during an Oct. 18 “die-in” protesting Israel’s retaliation against Hamas.

Footage of the confrontation shows the terrorist-sympathizing students surrounding the man with Keffiyehs — garb associated with the pro-Palestine movement’s desire to fight Israel — and yelling “exit” and “shame.”

In an article littered with corrections like “A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Israel had declared war on Gaza” when “In fact, Israel declared war on Hamas,” Harvard’s student-led newspaper the Harvard Crimson tried to convince readers that the man was simply “escorted out by protest organizers” after he tried to film the event.

The article concluded with a statement from the demonstration organizers at the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee who claimed they “regret” not their actions but “the presence of counter-protesters at the protest and die-in.”

It wasn’t until a week after the incident that a Harvard official, Dean of the Harvard Business School Srikant Datar, published a statement insisting “there is no place for hateful speech on our campus.” His concerns extended beyond the Jewish students targeted by the demonstrators to anyone on campus in the “Muslim and Arab community” as well.

Datar claimed reports about the viral antisemitic confrontation “have been filed with HUPD and the FBI” but so far, none of the protesters identified in the video have faced public punishment or expulsion from the school.

Scenarios like this one aren’t limited to Ivy League schools. Similar antisemitic scenes are replaying themselves at university campuses nationwide.

The government education system and the bureaucrats who run it are to blame.

Start Them Young

Parents often hear that college will radicalize their children but the path to destruction starts long before FAFSA applications are due.

The activists running the education system don’t just start cranking out intolerant, insufferable bigots — who are right on track to become the little tyrants of tomorrow — when they turn 18. They have successfully infiltrated even “the most prestigious” of high school programs.

Scenes from the National Speech and Debate Association finals in 2021 show teens relying solely on emotional bullying to “win” arguments.

Students didn’t discover tactics like those by simply scrolling on TikTok. Those methods were meticulously woven into the curricula and classrooms that dominated their time since they entered kindergarten.

Children as young as 5 years old should be learning phonics, how to read, and basic arithmetic but are instead taught for the next 13 years of their lives to hate each other, hate their country, and hate anyone who disagrees with the ruling class’s preferred narrative. Core educational classes in many states are being rapidly replaced with courses about race, radical LGBT activism, and climate alarmism.

As a result, millions of kids graduating from government education were never taught critical thinking, reasoning, or argument. Instead, they were told crying, gnashing their teeth, and rioting would get them what they wanted without consequence.

In the blink of an eye, students went from using pronouns in their LinkedIn bios to posting black squares on Instagram to demanding universal endorsement of the mutilation of gender-dysphoric children to defending terrorists.

This raucous and inexcusable behavior is not sustainable for personal mental stability or the country, but it continues because it is rewarded.

The adults cranking out little communists are the same ones who turn a blind eye when a Jewish student is surrounded by aggressive Hamas sympathizers. Their slow response, silence, and staunch refusal to punish students for flaunting antisemitic and anti-Western sentiments show that they don’t disagree with the toxicity that’s taken over education.

Pro-Hamas students calling for the end of Israel and Jews won’t be expelled or canceled by the deans and professors running their universities. They will be handed opportunities to expand their activism, fast-tracked into the nation’s top institutions, given awards, and somehow manage to keep failing upward.

If it wasn’t for people like the Accuracy in Media activists who paid a digital billboard truck to display the names and faces of Harvard students who signed a statement blaming Israel for Hamas’ brutal attack, or the University of California, Berkeley law professor who urged employers not to hire his antisemitic students and top U.S. law firms that swore they wouldn’t, some of these young adults would face no consequences for their actions at all.

For the first time, students who grew up in bubbles carefully constructed by the activists running education are facing pushback for their egregious actions. That’s not cancel culture, as some in the corporate media have claimed, that’s just accountability.