Social Media Do's and Don'ts. Learn Them, Know Them, Live Them

posted by Ward Clark at RedState 

Social media is something of a necessary evil, at least if you (like me) make a good part of your living on the internet. We all know about it, even if we don’t all use it; while some sites are state-sponsored crap (TikTok), and some are privately owned (Twitter/X), all of them have one thing in common: A horrible noise-to-signal ratio. That can be changed, of course; there is a lot we as individuals can do to make our own little corners of social media a little more sane.

 It should come as a surprise to no one that I have some ideas to help social media users make that noise-to-signal ratio a little better. Here, then, are some do’s and don’ts to make your social media experience – and everyone else’s – social media experience a little more pleasant.

Do:

• Present your source. If you’re referring to a news story or piece of commentary, link to the original source. Don’t make people dig back from Facebook through a blog post, through a tweet, or through something else to find the original article. If you can’t find a source, don’t post.
• Add some of your own thoughts. Don’t just present a piece of news; tell people what you think of it. And tell people why you think that.
• And as to that; don’t tell people how you feel.  Tell people what you think. If you don’t know the difference, well, you need more help than I can give you in a simple article.
• Point and laugh. Stupid people should be conspicuous; feel free to point out stupidity wherever you find it. And, sadly, there’s plenty of it to go around.
• Honesty matters. Tell the truth. Always. My grandmother used to say that "being honest is like being pregnant, you either are or you're not." She was right.
• Before pulling the trigger on a post, think for a few moments about counterarguments someone might make. Address them in advance, or at least, have a response ready in your quiver.
• Use emojis sparingly, if at all. Unless you don’t mind looking like a 12-year-old girl texting her friends.
• Use proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation. It’s not about being a spelling or grammar Nazi; it’s about not looking like a moron.

Don’t:

• Make stuff up. Seriously, it’s bad that this even needs to be mentioned, but it happens all too often that people just make crap up out of whole cloth. People on all sides of the political landscape do it, and it makes all of them look like idiots. I could list a dozen examples, but that's a topic for another story.
• And as to that; if you’re suspicious of something you see, investigate it a little bit before posting it. If you can’t verify that X actually said Y, don’t post it. If you post something that’s easily disproven, again, it just makes you look like you don't know what you're talking about.
• Post a hundred memes a day. Occasionally, sure (I do), but if all you are posting is memes, you really need to re-think your online presence.
• Add “Like and re-post if you agree!” to every post. It’s annoying.
• Overlook stupidity in favor of The Side. People whom you would otherwise agree with, who are posting stupidity, should be called out, perhaps even more than people in opposition; they hurt, not help, your causes.
• Repost everything in your feed. It just clogs up the feed of anyone who is following you.
• Announce when you’re muting/blocking someone. It doesn’t help anything and looks petty. I make very sparing use of those functions and do not believe I have ever mentioned doing so, even back as far as Usenet.
• Belabor the obvious. Especially one-sentence posts stating something that everyone on the planet already knows. It’s just useless clutter.

Social media is the reality now. It’s here whether we like it or not, so if one is going to indulge, one may as well try to post commentary in a manner that will prompt people to take you seriously. The tips here will help.

X22, Red Pill News, and more- November 18

 

Ahead of the US-China Summit in San Francisco, China Creates Rift in NATO

Prague deepening relations with PRC at Taiwan's peril

by Bart Marcois for American Greatness

As Biden meets Xi in San Francisco, mischief is afoot in NATO as the Czech Republic, close friend of Taiwan, initiates high level intelligence contacts with China. Czech National Security Advisor invokes Jake Sullivan’s name when confronted about the trip.

Pity the poor Biden Administration. Their idea of preparing for a summit with China is to clean out the homeless camps, drug markets, and sex workers. China’s summit prep includes exposing a secret high-level intelligence contact from one of our NATO allies. Biden and his national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, are on the back foot before the summit begins.

In early November, the national security advisor of the Czech Republic made a secret trip to China to meet with the Chinese Foreign Minister, among others. Tomas Pojar’s trip was kept secret until the Chinese government published details of the trip. Chinese media included a photo of Pojar accompanied by Director Vladimir Posolda of the Czech Foreign Intelligence Service (UZSI).

When news of the visit reached the Czech Republic, government officials were surprised and angry. To date, no high-ranking official has claimed credit for sending the delegation. More ominous, however, than the refusal of Pojar to divulge any information about the visit, is his implication that he went at the behest of Jake Sullivan, the American national security advisor.

When asked why he went to China, Pojar responded that he went to discuss trade relations, and to open a direct bilateral channel of communications. He also said that he had been in Washington just a few days earlier, meeting with Jake Sullivan. He told Lidovky, a Czech newspaper, “I was there for four days in total, so there were quite a few meetings, even with several congressmen. I had a total of three meetings at the National Security Council, with Sullivan and two other people, his deputies,” a few days before his China travel.

Pojar said initially that his discussions with Foreign Minister Wang were focused on restoring direct air connections and expanding bilateral trade. But when confronted with Chinese statements that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was the main foreign policy topic, he admitted that Ukraine came up.

“We talked about it, or rather I explained our positions and how we approach the conflict. The Chinese side explained its positions and, of course, there were also questions about support for both Ukraine and Russia from various countries of the world – including the Czech Republic and China.”

Czechia is considered one of Taiwan’s strongest friends in Europe. This outreach to China is certain to alarm the Taiwanese. Pojar did not admit to speaking about Taiwan. In full diplo-speak mode, he admitted only to talking about “the war zones of the world.”

The presence of the foreign intelligence director at the meetings is a sign that the countries discussed intelligence cooperation. This usually means either joint operations or intelligence sharing. The close relationship between Taiwan and the Czech Republic furnishes the Czechs with information that the PRC would be pleased to have. So also does the Czech access to sensitive U.S. technologies such as the F35 aircraft and CV90 combat vehicles that the Czechs will operate in the near future.

American national security officials should be asking exactly what intelligence cooperation the Czechs offered China in exchange for economic access. I asked the UZSI about their mutual policy objectives with PRC intelligence community. They responded only that they do not comment on intelligence matters.

The question remains why the Chinese leaked the meeting in the first place. And why especially did they disclose that the director of Foreign Intelligence also attended? That is a serious breach of normal international practice. The travels of intelligence directors are generally considered highly confidential matters.

I believe China made a deliberate choice. They decided that the price of breaching diplomatic confidentiality was worth paying, in exchange for the propaganda value they received for the leak. Xi used the Czech visit to demonstrate that Biden has no control over America’s greatest alliance. This is also Chinese boasting, rubbing Taiwan’s nose in Czechia’s eagerness to “establish direct bilateral communications” with Beijing.

I reached out to Prague’s national security advisor for comment, but received no answer. I asked the NSC and the State Department whether Pojar was sent to China by Sullivan, and whether Sullivan even knew that the visit was about to take place. A bright young duty officer at State was courteous enough to call during a federal holiday to say they had no comment, and to refer me to the NSC. Neither the NSC nor the White House press office had any comment.

This intelligence cooperation seems like a rogue maneuver by Pojar and Posolda, in light of the pro-Western and staunchly pro-Taiwan policy of Czech President Petr Pavel. The respected Czech counterintelligence (BIS) has issued several public warnings about growing Chinese espionage activity. So what gave rise to the secret trip?

There may be an explanation in recent history. The previous Czech president, Milos Zeman, was an admirer of Xi. He reached out to China, and frequently boasted about billions of dollars of putative PRC investment into the Czech economy. Those Chinese investments never materialized. But both Pojar and Posolda had close ties to Zeman and his inner circle of businessmen and diplomats.

The current Prime Minister, Petr Fiala, inherited Zeman’s cadre of senior officials. He has little understanding or control of their operations and relationships. Just as in Washington, the senior bureaucrats in Prague sometimes continue the policies of former leaders. It is likely that Pojar and Posolda are continuing the Zeman legacy of deepening the relationship with the PRC.

This troubling matter illustrates that America is no longer feared or respected. It is not customary for a NATO ally to take a secret trip to China to establish bilateral intelligence cooperation without consulting first with the U.S. It is also not customary for intelligence officials to reveal the nature of their meetings in Washington, once their trip became public. This is a serious sign of weakness in NATO, and lack of leadership by the Biden Administration.

And it is a terrible way to start off a summit.

After Hamas Pogrom, Qatar Must Finally Pay For Its Sponsor of Terrorism

posted by Josh Hammer at Townhall 

In a now-infamous recent podcast recording on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, former President Barack Obama lectured: "You have to admit that nobody's hands are clean, that all of us are complicit to some degree."

Ironically, for such a narcissist, Obama is painfully lacking in self-awareness. It is Obama himself who doggedly pursued a grand strategic "realignment" in the Middle East, away from Israel and America's traditional Sunni Arab allies and toward the terrorist Iranian and the Muslim Brotherhood (for which Hamas is the Palestinian-Arab offshoot). The Biden administration, reliably acting as a third Obama term, has stayed the course -- evinced by a brand-new alleged U.S. sanctions waiver that would enrich the Tehran mullahcracy to the tune of $10 billion.

The Iranian regime is the "head of the snake," as Israeli intelligence is known to refer to it, when it comes to state-funded Islamism and jihadism across the Middle East. But often absent from the discussion is Iran's chief Sunni ally, a fabulously wealthy tiny emirate that funds and houses Hamas and disseminates Muslim Brotherhood-style Islamism throughout the region via its state-owned network, Al Jazeera: Qatar.

In the aftermath of the single largest slaughter of Jews since the defeat of Nazi Germany, as well as the single biggest American hostage crisis since Tehran in 1979, Qatar cannot be allowed to get away with its duplicity any longer.

Along with Iran, Qatar is one of the primary state bankrollers of Hamas. It is also the physical home of Hamas' organizational leaders, who live lavishly in five-star luxury hotels in Doha, far removed from the mayhem in Gaza. The Qatari regime has provided material aid and comfort to myriad other Islamist outfits, once even offering banking services for the branch of ISIS responsible for the brutal on-camera beheading of American journalist Steven Sotloff in 2014.

Qatar, via both diplomatic support and Al Jazeera's fanning of the flames of Islamism, was also the tip of the spear of the tumultuous Arab Spring uprisings a decade ago. Today, Qatar's state-sponsored Islamism makes it a convenient ally of Iran -- although the emirate's non-Islamist Gulf Cooperation Council neighbors, such as Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, view it with skepticism, if not outright disdain.

Qatar manages to evade Western scrutiny for its sundry malign activities via a multifaceted strategy, centered around Al Udeid Air Base, strategic Western investments, and a sprawling, deeply sophisticated information operation.

Al Udeid Air Base is the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East, and Qatar looks the other way when the U.S. launches strategic operations, such as the January 2020 assassination of Iranian arch-terrorist Qasem Soleimani, from the base. The fact that Al Udeid is shockingly close to the Doha penthouses where Hamas leadership physically lives seems not to bother top U.S. military brass. On the contrary, Qatar's cynical loaning of Al Udeid has been so successful in duping Americans that the emirate is on "our side" that the Biden administration even formally designated Qatar a "major non-NATO ally of the United States" in March 2022. The administration is also currently indulging the farce of Qatar "mediating" hostage negotiations with Hamas in Gaza -- the equivalent of enlisting the arsonist to put out the fire.

Qatar, which sits on the world's third-largest natural gas reserve and is one of the wealthiest per-capita countries in the world, also attempts to indoctrinate and strategically buy out gullible, venal Westerners. The Qatar Investment Authority, the emirate's sovereign wealth fund, invests in many key assets, such as the Empire State Building in New York City and Heathrow Airport in London. Qatar has also been the single largest foreign state investor in American universities since 9/11, investing considerable sums in such prestigious institutions as Cornell, Georgetown, Northwestern, and Carnegie Mellon -- many of which now have branches in Doha.

Qatar invests heavily to promote its image as sleek and "forward-looking." It quite literally bribed its way to hosting the World Cup last year, and state-owned Qatar Airways is one of the most visible and ubiquitous sponsors of Formula 1 racing across the world. Al Jazeera's English-language outlet, AJ+, is also overtly progressive in its political slant.

Unfortunately, the Qatari information operation is multilayered, complex, and quite effective. It has duped successfully many Western elites in both North America and Europe. But no matter how much money Qatar sinks into its global P.R. campaign, and no matter how much the U.S. benefits from Al Udeid, the emirate cannot escape the fact that it is one of the leading sponsors of Islamism and jihad the world over.

The U.S. State Department currently only lists four State Sponsors of Terrorism: Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and Syria. Qatar should be added to the list, but stripping it of its ludicrous "major non-NATO ally" status would be a fine place to start.

To Pedal Harder You Need To Pedal Faster

 Sunlit7 op

After having watched as I drove around the construction alongside the highway here this past summer, I took the above picture of the guy on a bike trying to get his groceries home. This is evidently the future they have planned for the next few generations as they slowly progress towards a time and space where owning a vehicle will be so prohibitive in cost that the majority won't be able to afford one.

This is some serious stuff, you don't invest in this kind of infrastructure in a state that has basically three, maybe four months out of the year of good weather unless you mean business that the future holds no chance of the majority of people owning cars. Each side of the freeway there is alternating one way streets. On this one way street they left one lane for traffic, put in a barrier and left space for a bike lane that can run both directions.

If you had to ask me where the funding is coming from my guess it's from the piles being handed out to "rebuild communities of color". I think if they said to people this is your kids and grand children's future we're investing in with your tax dollars there would be a huge outcry. Not that there wasn't a huge outcry in local social media blogs calling the newly installed lanes along the highway a big waste of taxpayers' money. Speaking of such I found it rather odd one morning showing at the bus stop with my grandkids one morning there was a group of young elementary age kids in the parking lot on bikes. This is seven o'clock in the morning, so I am assuming it's a ride your bike to school day and not a show up at seven a.m. to ride your bike around the retailers parking lot they assembled at. If you put the entire green energy agenda into perspective it would take years to build the infrastructure needed to transition to bikes, rails or buses to get to school or work. These youngsters are more than likely in the "indoctrination phase" of that future transition. They were onto some serious business here complete with a county sheriff to make sure they would be alright. I didn't stick around to see if he led them down the road with flashers blazing a safe passage or not, but it would be hard for me to think of another reasonable explanation why they'd all be there at seven a.m. I guess there could be one, I just can't think of what it would be.

Every single street, plus some that aren't, going under construction are being revamped to include bike lanes but nothing as intensive as the one alongside the highway. It looks as though they are dead serious you will pedal harder faster to get to work. They just took it upon themselves that the people living alongside the highway who have to park in the street wouldn't mind having to tunnel themselves through snow another ten, fifteen feet to get to their cars in the morning. I am one hundred percent sure the city will go through the expense of hiring additional personnel to keep those bike lanes open, but I highly doubt they'll be shoveling pathways for the homeowners inconvenienced here.

With the inflation reduction act they got a lot of funding to go toward their 2030 climate agenda. Once that was accomplished they moved onto the next phase after all of a sudden making claims it wasn't as urgent and could move their goals to 2050. Well, you are looking at the beginning of 2050. It's going to take years upon years to finish the entire length of the highway system. Not to mention to decide upon where these rail systems are going to go into place and the funding for them. Right now the talk is of a rail system that will get you all the way to the lake shore. I really wouldn't be counting on being able to drive yourself to the beach someday. Not that you'll be able to just freely hope aboard for a fun leisure day at the beach, chances are you'll need to have done a hundred pushups a day, have a good credit score, and a good social credit score of having just loved living in your new fifteen-minute city. Oh, excuse me, your new "walkable community".

I guess there's an upside to all this extensive reconstruction along the highway, at least they a have barrier keeping them out of the flow of traffic. I mean once they get around to riding down them, right now it's less than a ninety-nine-point nine percent chance you'll even see anyone riding in them. I was telling my son probably around the time he reaches middle age chances are cars will be so expensive you won't be able to afford one and as far out as you work you'll have to take a rail out to work since buses don't go out there, get dropped at a corner and have to walk the rest of the way like the buses do in the city. I said look how extensive this is and for what, do you actually see anyone riding a bike. This is the future I told him, just like you see all those empty store fronts being built below apartments that have been sitting empty for the last four, five years. I told him investors don't leave places empty while heating, keeping the lights on, and insuring them unless there's a bigger agenda involved. Instead, they'd just stop building them, which they aren't, or they'd convert them to much needed housing, but they don't. Speaking of much needed housing spaces....where is that justice for communities of color?

Imagine If Donald Trump Rolled Out The Red Carpet For Putin The Way Democrats Did For Xi

Tristan Justice reporting for The Federalist 

If Donald Trump were the covert Kremlin agent Democrats made him out to be, he might have given President Vladimir Putin the same kind of red-carpet treatment that Democrats gave Chinese communist dictator Xi Jinping this week.

On Wednesday, President Xi was greeted in the hastily sanitized streets of San Francisco with all the fanfare of a communist parade, complete with waving red banners, to welcome the head of Red China.

Days before Xi touched down on the West Coast, state and local Democrats scrambled to scrub the San Francisco streets, which for years have been a national embarrassment emblematic of American decline.

Democrats in San Francisco were eager to greet the Chinese president with a welcome parade, ostensibly designed to ease tensions with the East Asian nuclear power. Business leaders increasingly anxious about their corporate interests under Xi’s regime similarly gave the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) a standing ovation at a summit dinner with Indo-Pacific leaders Wednesday night. Reducing the risk of global war might be one motivation behind their applause for the Chinese dictator, who is overseeing the active genocide of Uyghurs in Western China, but protecting a $750 billion trade opportunity is likely far higher in their calculus.

On one hand, it’s odd that a major American city would give VIP treatment to the nation’s top adversary. On the other, San Francisco is also the heart of West Coast liberalism, and therefore American communism.

One can easily imagine how the press might react had President Trump given Russian President Vladimir Putin the same grand entrance at Mar-a-Lago. President Joe Biden is to China what Democrats claimed Trump was to Russia: that is, compromised by complex financial ties that raise significant conflicts of interest and warrant a congressional impeachment inquiry. What if the streets of Palm Beach, Florida were draped in Russian flags to greet President Putin after Donald Trump Jr. had accepted $3.5 million from an ex-Moscow mayor’s wife? Actually, the recipient of those millions was Hunter Biden, who also received an $80,000 diamond from a Chinese energy tycoon, sought to funnel millions from Chinese communist leaders directly into family bank accounts, and secured six-figure shopping sprees from Chinese businessmen.

Will the same people who raised a circus over ridiculous “pee tape” rumors about Trump and Russian prostitutes wonder if the Chinese have any more illicit films of Hunter Biden indulging in crack cocaine and hookers? We never found those pee tapes but there’s plenty of graphic porn online starring the first son.

But even beyond the Bidens’ entanglement in influence-peddling schemes involving prominent Chinese leaders, there’s good reason why Democrats might want to leave a good impression on the world’s leading civil rights offender. A Federalist analysis of federal campaign donations found that companies credibly accused of harnessing Chinese slave labor overwhelmingly donated to Democrats. Of the nearly $40 million that went to congressional candidates between the two major parties in 2020, Democrats took home more than 85 percent while Republicans received less than 15.

[Is The Entire Democratic Party Compromised By China?]

The NSA is Indoctrinating Employees with Radical Gender Ideology, Anti-White Racism, and America Hatred

The National Security Agency (NSA) created an entire glossary of woke words and concepts for NSA employees.

Evita Duffy-Alfonso reporting for The Federalist

The National Security Agency (NSA) created an entire glossary of woke words and concepts for employees, such as “anti-racist” and neopronouns like“ze” and “zir,” according to an exclusive report from Daily Wire journalist Spencer Lindquist. The NSA’s 35-page Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Glossary was released to employees on May 6th, 2022, but was recently made available to the public after a leak.

The glossary’s stated purpose is to “provide a starting point for engaging in open and honest conversation, and is a tool meant to build a shared language of understanding.” In other words, the NSA, in addition to collecting data on American citizens, is brainwashing its employees with radical leftist ideology and facilitating woke struggle sessions during work hours.

Included in the glossary are terms like “genderqueer,” “Gender binary,” “transmisogyny,” “two spirit,” “AFAB/AMAB: Assigned Female At Birth, Assigned Male At Birth,” and “Latinx.”

The terms “demigender,” “demiboy,” and “demigirl,” the National Security Agency informs us, are when an individual has “a partial connection to one or more genders.” However, a “demisexual” is “[a] person who does not experience sexual attraction to someone until a greater, often emotional, bond is formed.”

Meanwhile, “[p]ansexual” is a term that “derives its origin from the transgender movement” and refers “to the potential for sexual attractions or romantic love toward people of all gender identities and biological sexes.”

According to the NSA, there are “levels of privilege” based on how well transgender people are “recognized as their correct gender.” The NSA describes an individual’s delusions of identifying in opposition to biological reality as living with his or her “correct gender.”

The NSA also schools readers on sensitivity and frequently flags “problematic” language. For example, “sex change” is “an outdated and often offensive term,” and “homosexual … is not a preferred term” because “Homosexual males typically prefer the term gay and homosexual females typically prefer the term lesbian.”

The NSA does not explain how any of this is relevant to national security.

Anti-White Racism

Aside from bizarre sex and gender verbiage, the glossary promotes racist rhetoric, such as the term “white fragility,” which the NSA uses to condemn white individuals who do not apologize for their skin tone and readily admit their lack of melanin makes them bad, racist people.

To define “white fragility,” the NSA cites pseudo-social scientist Robin DiAngelo, an unapologetic anti-white racist and author of the infamous book White Fragility. According to DiAngelo, whites should not be judged by the content of their character but by the color of their skin. Regardless of one’s heart or their lived experiences, DiAngelo claims all white people are inherently privileged and racist.

The NSA becomes even more explicit about its anti-white racism when it defines “whiteness” as “A broad social construction” that “reaps material political, economic, and structural benefits for those socially deemed white.” Apparently, the NSA believes that a general lack of melanin automatically grants people the status of oppressor.

If you work for the NSA, don’t ever claim to be “color-blind.” Color-blindness is the “disregard of racial characteristics” and “the belief in treating everyone ‘equally’ by treating everyone the same.” Treating people equally irrespective of skin color is “problematic,” warns the NSA, because it “allows those in power to disregard or ignore the history of oppression and how it is experienced today.”

Anti-American

Not only is the NSA’s DEI glossary racist against white people, it is also anti-American. According to the NSA, “settler colonialism” is when “colonizing powers create permanent or long-term settlement on land owned and/or occupied by other peoples, often by force.” The NSA adds that “white European occupations of land in what is now the United States” is an example of “oppressive” settler colonialism for its “dismantling [of] indigenous cultural forms” and enforcement of “codes of superiority (such as white supremacy).”

“Decolonization,” the NSA says, is the “recognition of systems of oppression” perpetuated by the aforementioned “white Europeans.” Nowhere does the document explain that people of all races and creeds have occupied and oppressed people of all races and creeds, and “colonization” is not an intrinsically “white” or “European” practice.

The glossary also condemns the “historic oppressiveness of Eurocentric tendencies in U.S. and European society.” The glossary does not, however, criticize African countries for being “Afrocentric” or Arab countries for being “Arab-centric.”

Explicitly Marxist

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are at the core of cultural Marxism. Equity, as defined by the NSA, is “recognizing that we do not all start from the same place and must acknowledge and make adjustments to imbalances.” Unlike equality, which “means providing the same to all,” equity requires “us to identify and overcome intentional and unintentional barriers arising from bias or systemic structures.”

For cultural Marxists, the solution to supposed “inequity” is a massive redistribution of wealth through reparations, the destruction of “oppressive” Western values and traditions, and an institutionalization of real prejudice against those deemed “privileged.” This ideology is antithetical to liberalism and Christianity — two things America was founded on.

According to the NSA’s website, anti-American “diversity and inclusion strategies inform our daily operations,” as the agency strives to be a “model for diversity and equitable practices and outcomes throughout the Federal Government.”

Mission Creep

The NSA is a subagency under the purview of the Department of Defense and is tasked with monitoring foreign and domestic threats. But the NSA isn’t famous for protecting Americans. It is infamous for spying on them via the illegal collection of personal phone data. The NSA likely even spied on Tucker Carlson, considered by many to be a thought leader of the conservative movement, by surveilling emails between him and his sources.

Thanks to Missouri v. Biden, we now know that multiple federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, Bureau of Investigation, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, targeted conservative Americans via tech censorship. The leaked glossary suggests that the NSA, already known for violating American rights, may also be targeting conservatives in its own capacity.

Indeed, the glossary, struggle sessions, and DEI hiring practices indicate there is diversity of everything other than thought at the NSA, which should be viewed as a real and serious threat to Americans’ privacy and liberty.

Ted Cruz Spills the Tea on Democrats' True Motivation for Blocking Aid to Israel

Jeff Charles reporting for RedState 

The Israel-Hamas war continues to rage on while members of Congress are squabbling over sending aid to help in Israel’s effort to eliminate the terrorist organization. Despite lawmakers from both parties expressing solidarity with the Jewish state, they have failed to come to an agreement on the matter.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) gave a behind-the-scenes look at the debate over sending aid to Israel and gave some insights as to why Democrats continue blocking legislation that would assist America’s ally. During an episode of his podcast, “The Verdict,” the lawmaker expressed frustration over the Democrats blocking aid to Israel, especially considering the bipartisan support it had received in the House.

He accused the Biden administration of essentially trying to use Israel to advance other left-wing agenda items as well. "Not only does the Biden administration want to tie critical aid for Israel to Ukraine, but also more broadly to their efforts to increase illegal immigration,” Cruz said.

Cruz noted that the vote on the funding came down to a straight party-line vote:

“And the amazing thing is it was a straight party-line vote, which means every single one of those Democrats I named was the deciding vote. Literally, if one Democrat had voted were with us, this was a 50-vote threshold, so one Democrat could have passed this. But every Democrat voted no. And it was a moment of clarity. And I think a moment of clarity that will come down to the election next year, where the Democrats have made clear that partisan politics matters more to them than standing with Israel right now.”

Cruz also lashed out at Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who prevented a vote on emergency military aid to Jerusalem. "[Schumer] was single-handedly preventing a vote on emergency military aid to Israel,” Cruz said, also noting that Schumer was "not willing to give up the funding for the army of 87,000 IRS agents."

Cruz said Schumer “values harassing political enemies of the White House more than military aid for Israel.”

It appears Cruz might be right. On the other side of the coin, Democrats have expressed objections to cutting funding for the IRS, which they argued as a politically motivated “poison pill.” They also insisted that aid to Israel should be tied to a package sending aid to Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Democrats objected, stressing the importance of providing aid to Ukraine as well as Israel, in addition to humanitarian aid, border security funding and money to push back against China in the Indo-Pacific that was in a $106 billion funding request President Joe Biden sent to Congress last month.

They also accused House Republicans of playing politics with the crisis in Israel, delaying aid for the Jewish State by tying support to cutting funding for the Internal Revenue Service, a favorite target for Republicans, rather than writing a bipartisan bill.

The House bill would provide $14.3 billion for Israel as it responds to a deadly Oct. 7 attack by Islamist Hamas militants, but also cut the same amount of money from the IRS. The funds would include $4 billion for procurement of Israel's Iron Dome and David's Sling defense systems to counter short-range rocket threats as well as some transfers of equipment from U.S. stocks.

While this might be the objection of most Democrats in Congress, it is also worth remembering that many left-wing lawmakers are opposing aid simply because they oppose Israel. The anti-Israel faction in the Democratic Party is smaller but louder. "Democrats are getting blasted by the anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, radical antisemitic left — the Squad — and so they're all nervous,” Sen. Cruz said on his podcast.

Of course, as Cruz also noted, the Democrats will take very little heat in the media for this vote. “Many of the corrupt corporate media are openly cheering for Hamas. And so, Democrats can cast spectacularly foolish votes and know their constituents will never know about it.” 

The question is: Will the parties manage to hammer out a deal? For Republicans, sending aid to Israel should be a non-negotiable aspect of U.S. foreign policy. Conversely, Democrats seem to view the matter through the lens of broader policy objectives, namely, bolstering the IRS while ensuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky still gets his cut.

Disillusioned Black Voters Come Home To The GOP

For Democrats, family disruption and government dependency were the objectives from the beginning.

Kendall Qualls reporting for The Federalist

Democrats are finally facing their day of reckoning with black voters, and their waning support for President Joe Biden is only half the story. A recent New York Times/Sienna poll reveals that Biden barely leads among nonwhite voters under 45 in a 2024 election matchup against former President Donald Trump. The same nonwhite voters reported backing Biden by almost 40 points in the 2020 election. 

The hidden story is that Trump is capturing more than 22 percent support among black voters. The NYT article said a Republican winning over so many black voters “would be unprecedented in the post-Civil Rights Act era.” 

Why Are Blacks Finally Breaking Ranks?

Black Americans are beginning to understand that the years of promises of better days have resulted in decades of broken promises. A recent Wall Street Journal article tells the story of Michelle Smith, who lives in North Philadelphia. She works two jobs as a black single mother with three teenage boys. She describes her disappointment in Biden, whom she supported strongly in 2020. Despite efforts by the Democrats to spend more money on advertising, voter canvassing, and educating voters in black communities, Smith said the Democrats might not be able to convince her to vote. “I think I’m not going to vote, period,” she said.

Smith is not alone. There is a growing recognition that Democrats have duped black Americans. And as they increasingly realize it, Democrats will be left saying, “Katy, bar the door,” because their party will begin to implode. 

Ironically, the modern-day Democrat Party has essentially achieved the same objectives as the Civil War-era Democrat Party. It has unfortunately taken 60 years for black Americans to realize what has happened to them and their culture. It’s hard to keep blaming Republicans when Democrats run major cities, school systems, and police departments. In many cases, black Democrats run these institutions. 

Black Decline After Civil Rights

The status of black Americans today in Democrat-controlled cities and states is essentially the worst it has been since before the Civil Rights era. For example, during slavery, Democrats restricted access to opportunities that allowed slaves to obtain an education. Today, in nearly every major city controlled by Democrats, literacy rates are abysmal. Local and national Democrat Party leaders have severely restricted access to private or charter schools.

Proponents of apartheid used segregation as a cruel psychological tool. Democrats, however, are bringing segregation back in style. In Democrat Party strongholds, such as American universities, the country is witnessing the practice of segregated dorms and graduation ceremonies. 

One of the most devastating changes that the Democrat Party facilitated involves the destruction of the nuclear family in black communities. During the era of slavery, masters would break up families after wives bore children. After the Civil War and for 100 years afterward, most black children grew up in traditional two-parent families. 

It wasn’t until Democrats introduced and heavily marketed social welfare programs to black Americans in the 1960s that two-parent families began to erode drastically. Those programs ushered in a cultural transformation. Over 50 years, black families fell from having two parents in 80 percent of homes. Today, approximately 80 percent of black children grow up in fatherless homes.

Democrats Harm Black Americans

For the Democrats, family disruption and government dependency were the objectives from the beginning. If that wasn’t their intention, then why hasn’t there been one national initiative to reverse the trend?

In 1957, Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson, D-Texas, then the pro-segregationist Senate majority leader, knew blacks would eventually get the right to vote. When speaking to then-Sen. Richard Russell Jr., D-Ga., regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1957, Johnson said, “These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.”

Democrat Party leaders and their left-wing friends in academia and the media convinced blacks (and the general public) that Republicans were the racists. They were, according to the effective narrative, indifferent to poor people. They wanted to keep blacks as second-class citizens. Ironically, Republicans voted to support the Civil Rights Act in greater numbers than Democrats.

Their goal was to have black Americans switch their votes from Republicans to Democrats.

Black Americans Coming Home to the GOP

As we look forward to the 2024 election season, the NYT/Sienna poll is not the only one raising the alarm. A recent Fox News poll revealed that 26 percent of black Americans support Trump for president in 2024 over Biden. In the past 12 months, black elected officials switched from the Democrat Party to the Republican Party in southern states such as Georgia and Texas. For the first time in 140 years, Alabama voters elected a black man to the state House of Representatives as a Republican. 

In statewide elections, voters in Virginia and North Carolina elected black Americans to the No. 2 leadership position as lieutenant governors. Although Daniel Cameron did not win his bid for Kentucky governor, we should expect to see more black Republicans running for statewide and federal offices. 

Even the legacy media won’t be able to spin and hide this major political shift.