Monday, December 11, 2023

ACLU Breaks Its Silence on Defending the Second Amendment, Agrees to Represent the NRA at SCOTUS


It is no secret that when it comes to the Second Amendment, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has exercised its Fifth Amendment right to remain silent on defending it. However, it seems that the ACLU has decided to break its silence in a very shocking, but pleasant turn of events. The organization has agreed to represent the National Rifle Association (NRA) in its upcoming Supreme Court case, against the New York State Department of Financial Services, in National Rifle Association v. Vullo, No. 22-842.

While technically not a pure Second Amendment defense case per se, the case involves the NRA's First Amendment rights allegedly being suppressed by the former superintendent of the Department of Financial Services (DFS), Maria Vullo, when she publicly encouraged banks and credit card companies to stop doing business with the arms company back in 2018 after the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting.    

The National Rifle Association filed suit against Vullo, both personally and in her former capacity as the Superintendent of the DFS. The case was presented before a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 2021. The NRA alleged that while acting in her official capacity as a state agent, Vullo used her regulatory power to threaten NRA business partners and coerce them into disassociating with the NRA, in violation of its First Amendment rights. 

In a thread posted to its account on X, the ACLU gave its reasoning for taking on this case, and at the same time explained how the ACLU felt about the NRA, its mission, and in my opinion, its professional and personal disdain for the Second Amendment. However, in the statement, you will see the real reason why we have the First Amendment, as well as the Second. 


In a statement to the New York Times, the ACLU's national legal director, David Cole, stated perfectly why we have the Bill of Rights, especially the First and Second Amendments. Cole also addressed growing criticism of the ACLU and its perceived ignorance of First Amendment legal issues, in favor of other, more popular legal fights about social justice issues, and other cases involving the perceived liberal agenda and ideology. He said:

It’s never easy to defend those with whom you disagree. But the A.C.L.U. has long stood for the proposition that we may disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it. 

It will be controversial, within and outside the A.C.L.U. But if it was easy, it wouldn’t mean as much.

In this hyper-polarized environment, where few are willing to cross the aisle on anything, the fact that the A.C.L.U. is defending the N.R.A. here only underscores the importance of the free speech principle at stake.

Reinforcing Cole's statement, the ACLU went further in a separate statement regarding the group's intentions in this upcoming SCOTUS case. It read:

The A.C.L.U. does not support the N.R.A. or its mission. We signed on as co-counsel because public officials shouldn’t be allowed to abuse the powers of the office to blacklist an organization just because they oppose an organization’s political views.

The NRA appealed its loss in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals after the three-judge panel unanimously sided in favor of former DFS Superintendent Maria Vollo. In their opinion, the judges wrote that the government, or an agent of the government, cannot coerce private companies or individuals into "refraining" their First Amendment rights.

The First Amendment forbids government officials from "abridging the freedom of speech." U.S. Const. amend. I ; seeZieper v. Metzinger , 474 F.3d 60, 66 (2d Cir. 2007). Government officials cannot, for example, use their regulatory powers to coerce individuals or entities into refraining from protected speech. At the same time, however, government officials have a right -- indeed, a duty -- to address issues of public concern. Here, for the reasons discussed below, we conclude that the NRA has failed to plausibly allege that Vullo "crossed the line ‘between attempts to convince and attempts to coerce.’ " Zieper , 474 F.3d at 66 (quoting Okwedy v. Molinari , 333 F.3d 339, 344 (2d Cir. 2003) (per curiam)).

Nat'l Rifle Ass'n of Am. v. Vullo, 49 F.4th 700, 706-7 (2d Cir. 2022)

I believe that the judges got that wrong, and the ACLU thinks that as well. This is also where I believe this is a Second Amendment case. In this case, and from what we have been seeing over the years by elected officials, the government has been using its authority, or the perceived threat of its authority, to force companies and or individuals into acting against other companies and or individuals from exercising their Second Amendment rights.

In California, for example, Governor Gavin Newsom and his administration were so "appalled" that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of a firearms company being able to advertise and or market products for minors, that they sent his hoplophobic Attorney General, Rob Bonta, to make sure California prevented it from happening in the state. 

The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by several gun-rights groups on behalf of Junior Sports Magazines, Inc. against California's law that prohibited any marketing or advertisements of a firearm or any part of a firearm that is designed, intended, or reasonably appears to be attractive to minors. The Court's ruling stated that "the First Amendment demands more than good intentions and wishful thinking to warrant the government's muzzling of speech." 

By defending the First Amendment rights of the NRA, the ACLU is also defending the Second Amendment rights of all Americans and the companies that are involved in the firearms industry. Usually, the saying goes the First Amendment is backed up by the Second Amendment; though in this case, it's the reverse. This case is a perfect example of why the First Amendment also backs up the Second. Gun-grabbing Democrats like Newsom and New York Governor Kathy Hochul have a very serious lesson to learn, and thankfully, the ACLU has decided to defend the Second, by defending the First.   



at

Christian Patriot News, And we Know, and more - December 11

 





at

Democrats Are Right to Be Scared of Trump’s Vengeance


I don’t understand why the supporters of the party of Hamas and failure are giving Donald Trump an in-kind campaign contribution in the form of their girlish, fussy cries of “He’s an authoritarian!” but okay. That the Trump 2.0 administration would ruthlessly use all the powers at its disposal should Trump win in 2024 to punish his enemies is about the best argument there is for giving him the Grover Cleveland nod. 

Vengeance? Oh yeah. The more brutal, the better.

Political office is all about power and using it to promote the interests of people in the politician’s coalition. The Democrats have always known that. That’s why they are prosecuting their Number 1 political opponent – shamelessly trying to frame him, really. They are persecuting his supporters, seeking to jail or bankrupt them. They are allowing the country to be flooded with future Democrat voters. They are plundering the treasury for the benefit of both their plutocrat and EBTocrat constituencies. They have the power today – in large part due to Trump’s and other Republicans’ myriad screw-ups (Hi Ronna!) – and they have no compunction about using it.

But Trump did. Trump and the Republicans came into office in 2017. They failed to use the power invested in the office to protect themselves from an unprecedented campaign designed to neuter the new president. And neuter him, they did. The Russian Collusion Hoax took up the first few years. The COVID and BLM pressure campaigns took up the next. Then the 2020 election and aftermath finished the term, ensuring there was no Trump presidency. He had the office. He just allowed them to talk him out of exercising his powers to protect himself and those who support him.

In the Russian idiocy, he allowed a corrupt FBI to continue on with a corrupt DOJ, having put it under Jeff Sessions, who was too dumb or too weak to see he was being played into a recusal and a special prosecutor trap. On BLM, he was talked out of using the military – which he allowed to be run by bemedaled clowns like Milley – to crush the rioters. No, tweeting “LAW AND ORDER” over and over is not exercising the power of the office. His DOJ was the same DOJ that failed to prosecute the rioters aggressively. And his DOJ failed to fight the coming election shenanigans in court. As for J6, thousands of Trump-voting political prisoners are having their lives ruined because Trump failed to use his power to pardon them.

You can have all the power in the world; it means nothing if you fail to use it. How could he have used it? Appoint a wingman Attorney General who would squash this nonsense. Appoint an FBI director who would muck out that toilet. Appoint some generals who cared more about winning wars than pronoun protocol. Ignore the Democrats, ignore the Regime Media, and ignore the Nikki Haley wing of the GOP and do what must be done. Investigate corrupt Dems. Shut the border. Veto spending that subsidizes communists. Would they cry? Yes! Let them.

Why did Trump fail to use his power? They convinced him not to. Remember that Trump is really an institutional guy, a guy who respects people with medals or diplomas from colleges that, it turns out, are pretty okay with genocide as long as the right people are being genocided. He selected impressive people for his administration, but impressive only in the context of their failed institutions. That’s how you got Milley and the others who let him down. “Oh, Wray/Fauci/That Exxon Guy Who Was SecState for 15 Minutes is great with great credentials and a lot of DC respect – go with him!” Um, no. Who can be surprised that these institution-approved characters were loyal to their institutions before they were loyal to an administration built on the premise that the institutions are broken?

That’s why the Regime Media has pivoted from “authoritarian” – yeah, Trump wants to, I dunno, make you eat bugs instead of meat or ruin your life for failing to pretend a man pretending to be a woman is a woman – to the “loyalty” trope. Now, Trump does demand personal loyalty from voters, which is silly – politicians owe us loyalty, not vice versa. But voters pick a candidate who forms an administration that is presumably based upon the campaign promises of the candidate, and hell yeah, the people the President hires must be loyal to the administration because that is loyalty to the people who elected it. So you're darn tootin’ that Trump should hire loyal people – loyal to the America First vision as opposed to its one-term avatar should Trump be reelected.

The Democrats and their slobbering, toe-licking Regime Media allies are just petrified that Trump will beat the drooling zombie currently desecrating the Oval Office and actually use his power to further the America First coalition’s vision. Remember, to them, anything we do is inherently illegitimate – even if we somehow win an election, we are morally foreclosed, in their hive mind, from actually pursuing our policy interests. To them, the idea that Trump might pursue his policies in office is always beyond the pale.

But they are also worried that Trump will seek revenge for what they have done to him. We should hope so. Their disgraceful behavior is a direct assault on what they lamely call Our Democracy. They decided Trump was so bad that the rules didn’t apply. Well, then, the rules don’t apply. See how that works out for you, and when you find it is painful, please be sure to cry about it. We need a laugh.

If Trump wins, the Democrats can look forward to harsh payback. This is good. Righteous retribution is essential. Allowing them to go unpunished invites more of the same behavior. We want some future Democrat who hears his/her/xir co-Deep Stater pal thinking about trying to frame a future Republican to say, “Are you nuts? Remember what happened last time?” Since when are we Republicans against punishing wrongdoers? Trump may not be an angel, but he can still be avenging.

And the Democrats should be grateful if Trump wins the nomination and the election. Trump is an old guy who grew up in a different era and still has that sliver of respect for the institutions. But Ron DeSantis does not; he would be a hundred times harsher.



at

French parliament rejects Macron's immigration bill in surprise vote

 The French parliament on Monday voted down a flagship immigration bill of President Emmanuel Macron’s government, prompting his high-profile interior minister to offer to resign over the “failure”.  

Macron rejected the offer from Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin to step down, instead ordering him to find new ways to break the deadlock and push the legislation through.

In a stunning setback for the government, the lower-house National Assembly adopted a motion to reject the controversial immigration bill without even debating it.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne was set to hold an emergency meeting involving several ministers and lawmakers on Monday evening.

After talks at the presidential Elysee Palace, Macron rejected Darmanin’s offer to resign and asked him “to submit proposals to move forward by overcoming this blockage and obtaining an effective law”, said a presidential official who asked not to be identified by name.  

Originally proposed by Macron’s centrist government with a mix of steps to expel more undocumented people and improve migrants’ integration, the text of the bill leans firmly towards enforcement after its passage through the Senate, which is controlled by the right.

Speaking at the National Assembly, Darmanin defended the bill, which further restricts the ability for migrants to bring family members into France, birthright citizenship and welfare benefits.

He urged lawmakers not to join forces to vote on the rejection motion put forward by the Greens.

Despite his pleas, the National Assembly backed the motion to reject the bill by 270 votes to 265. 


‘Failure’

The move means the interruption of the examination of the legislation’s roughly 2,600 proposed amendments.

The bill could now be sent back to the Senate, or the government could decide to withdraw the text.

“It is a failure, obviously,” Darmanin told TF1 television. “I want to give the police, the gendarmes, the prefects, the magistrates the means to fight against irregular immigration.” 


He denounced what he called an “unholy alliance” of the left and far-right to vote the legislation down.

But far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen said she was “delighted” with the result, saying it had “protected the French from a migratory tidal wave”.

“It feels like the end of the road for his law and therefore for him,” hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon said of Darmanin on X (formerly Twitter).

On Sunday, Macron said restricting the right of asylum would be a mistake as he spoke during a ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“France retains its long tradition of providing asylum for all those whose rights are threatened in their own country, and we will continue to defend this right of asylum,” he said. 


‘Bill of shame’

The bill aims to speed up asylum application procedures and regularise the status of undocumented workers in sectors with labour shortages, but also to facilitate the expulsion of foreigners deemed dangerous.

It would introduce an annual quota for the number of migrant arrivals to be set by parliament, and remove all but emergency medical coverage for undocumented people.

Earlier in the day around 200 people including undocumented workers demonstrated outside the Palais Bourbon in Paris, which houses the National Assembly.

“We have gathered to denounce this bill of shame, which calls into question the fundamental principles of our republic,” Sophie Binet, head of the hard-left CGT union, said at the rally.

She also denounced the “hypocrisy” of regularisations, saying “France could not function without undocumented workers in kitchens, cleaning and construction”. 


https://www.france24.com/en/france/20231211-french-parliament-rejects-macron-s-immigration-bill-in-surprise-vote  





at

Inauguration Day 2025: Denounce the 1967 United Nations Refugee Protocol


Chaos at the southwest border despite any single governor’s efforts reminds us that just one official has the ability to end America’s self-inflicted border crisis: the president. On Inauguration Day, 2025, the new president should start turning the tide by denouncing the 1967 United Nations Protocol on refugees.

Experts generally use two terms to describe non-citizens alleging persecution by their home countries and seeking international protection.  A “refugee” is a non-citizen outside of her home country who seeks permission to resettle lawfully in the United States or another safe country.  An “asylee” (or asylum applicant) is a non-citizen already in the United States. Today, most asylum applicants enter the United States illegally, then allege persecution in their home countries to thwart U.S. deportation proceedings.

In 1951, the United Nations adopted a refugee treaty for European victims of Nazi and Soviet persecution. A 1967 amendment to that treaty extended its protections worldwide. President Lyndon Johnson agreed to the amendment, known as the 1967 Protocol, and in 1968 the Senate consented. To implement the 1967 Protocol, Congress and President Jimmy Carter approved a 1980 statute called the Refugee Act.

Since 1980, hundreds of thousands of economic migrants have used the Refugee Act to thwart deportation from the U.S. after violating our border or overstaying after a lawful entry. The U.S. asylum process has become a powerful magnet for job-seeking migrants, who although not persecuted at home, abuse the asylum process to get a foothold here and a work permit. U.S. asylum processing has become a massive fraud scheme, built upon the so-called “non-return” doctrine.

“Non-return” (also commonly known in French as “non-refoulement”) is the centerpiece of the 1951 refugee treaty (Article 33). It binds America through the 1967 Protocol. It forbids treaty countries from returning asylum claimants to territories where their lives or safety would be threatened. By agreeing to this vague provision, America sacrificed control over its border with no effective escape clause. During the COVID-19 years, controversy over President Trump’s invocation of public health provision Title 42, Section 265 of the United States Code, to bar U.S. entry of undocumented migrants underscored our nation’s lack of options for suspending the non-return doctrine.

The non-return doctrine rewards meritless asylum claims with U.S. work permits and a long stay despite unlawful entry. No costs to the violator follow loss or abandonment of a meritless claim, or for the burden on taxpayers of litigating thousands of meritless claims every year.

Today, the Border Patrol is forbidden from immediately removing any non-citizen border or status violator—even those who have been previously deported—who claims to fear return to the home country or Mexico. Human traffickers learn fast, so claims of fear to thwart deportation are routine, no matter how implausible. With a simple claim of fear, and despite virtually no likelihood of receiving asylum, the violator will be allowed into the U.S., often with family in tow, handed a work permit, and will never leave. Madness.

How can the crisis at our border be stopped? Title 42 is inadequate, and Congress has failed to act. But treaties may outlive their usefulness, so most—including the 1967 Protocol—include a denunciation clause. In the U.S., the president has the authority to denounce a treaty. While the Senate must consent to ratification of U.S. treaties, our Constitution commits foreign affairs and treaty-making—which includes the power to “unmake” treaties—to the president.

The president’s denunciation authority reaches treaties like the 1967 Protocol for which Congress has enacted accompanying domestic legislation. In 2023, human waves violating our border illustrated the utter failure of the 1967 Protocol and U.S. asylum law. Our broken system should be dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up to reflect U.S. border security interests exclusively, with generous presidential derogation authority in addition to Title 42.

In the meantime, decoupling from the 1967 Protocol on January 20, 2025, would be a consequential first step towards recapturing our border and taxpayer resources from the criminal and non-criminal organizations in control today. Among these are federal, state, and local government agencies; private social service and religious organizations; bar associations; academics; shelters; traffickers of fentanyl, children, and women; and indirectly, U.S.-financed international bodies like the U.N. Refugee Agency and International Organization for Migration.

Presidential denunciation of the 1967 Protocol would be a watershed in post-Second World War U.S. immigration policy. Denunciation need not end refugee or asylum processing for America.  But it may provide the thorough shock apparently required to swiftly end the border emergency and induce Congress to undertake a serious effort to repair an outdated immigration system collapsing in real time.


at

Fauci Explains Why He Doesn't Need Church Anymore, and It's As Arrogant As You Would Think


Nick Arama reporting for RedState 

Dr. Anthony Fauci did an interview recently with the BBC's Katy Kay. 

During the interview, Fauci and Kay were walking down the hallway of a building. Suddenly, he pointed out to her the Catholic chapel where he was married. But then he revealed he didn't go there anymore, and that practicing was a "thing that I don't really need to do."

“A number of complicated reasons,” he said. “First of all, I think my own personal ethics on life are I think enough to keep me going on the right path.”

“And I think there are enough negative aspects about the organizational Church,” he continued. He noted that Kay was “very well aware” of these things, without naming them.

“I’m not against it,” Fauci explained. “I identify myself as a Catholic. I was raised, I was baptized, I was confirmed, I was married in the Church. My children were baptized in the Church.”

“But as far as practicing it, it seems almost like a pro forma thing that I don’t really need to do.”  

Wow, the arrogance of this guy is something else. He's not just talking about whatever the "negative aspects" are, he's saying his "own personal ethics" are "enough." So, he thinks he doesn't need the Church; it isn't something he needs "to do." Talk about the narcissism here.  

The guy who thinks he is science seems to also think he's religion as well.  Remember what he said about being the "science."

“If you are trying to get at me as a public health official and a scientist, you’re really attacking not only Dr. Anthony Fauci, you are attacking science,” Fauci told Chuck Todd back in June last year.

Fauci would go on to say much the same thing on "Face the Nation" in November.

“They’re really criticizing science because I represent the science. That’s dangerous,” he said.

As Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said, it was Fauci who was the dangerous one. 

“The absolute hubris of someone claiming THEY represent science. It’s astounding and alarming that a public health bureaucrat would even think to claim such a thing, especially one who has worked so hard to ignore the science of natural immunity,” Paul tweeted after Fauci’s Face the Nation interview.

But, now we can see how deep that hubris reaches with his remarks about religion. 

Joe Biden is the same way, although at least he still goes, while ignoring Catholic dictates on things like abortion and lying. 


at

America Can’t Let China Dictate Its Response To Pneumonia Outbreak


China has a history of covering up and delaying the sharing of crucial information about disease outbreaks.



China is reportedly experiencing an outbreak of respiratory disease. The rest of the world should be concerned because both China and the World Health Organization (WHO) have credibility issues based on their poor handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the current outbreak in China seems to hit children the hardest.

China has a history of covering up and delaying the sharing of crucial information about disease outbreaks. The two most recent examples were the Chinese government’s covering up of the 2003 SARS outbreak and the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic between late 2019 and early 2020. Yet the WHO is known to kowtow to the Chinese authorities and let Beijing dictate global health care messaging and critical decisions. For example, the WHO waited until Jan. 30, 2020, to declare the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. That declaration came after more than 200 deaths and close to 10,000 infections in China.

The Chinese government’s coverup and the WHO’s deference to China delayed other nations from taking adequate precautions. They thus missed the “golden period” of containing the spread of the coronavirus. Neither China nor the WHO have much credibility left after the Covid-19 pandemic.

China Fails to Warn the World Again

Unfortunately, neither China nor the WHO have learned their lessons. China has seen an increase in the hospitalization of children since May. Still, the Chinese authorities from the National Health Commission waited until Nov. 13 to announce an increase in the incidence of respiratory diseases. They downplayed the severity of it by claiming the surge was due to “the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions” and the circulation of “known pathogens such as influenza, mycoplasma pneumoniae (a common bacterial infection that typically affects younger children), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and SARS-CoV-2” (the virus that causes Covid-19).

China practically told the rest of the world that everything was fine and there was nothing to worry about. The WHO accepted China’s explanation without asking for additional information. Then, on Nov. 21, ProMED, an independent international disease surveillance system, alerted the world about “undiagnosed pneumonia” in China, especially among children in several northern cities. ProMED’s alert finally prompted the WHO to make a rare public request to Beijing on Nov. 22. The WHO asked for detailed clinic data from these reported clusters among children, among other information.

Two days later, WHO released a statement. It said the new data from China confirmed the Chinese authorities’ announcement that known pathogens caused the current outbreak. The WHO also said that other countries experienced a similar increase in respiratory disease after they lifted their Covid restrictions. Yet assurances from China and the WHO have failed to alleviate concerns.

Children Hit Hardest

Unlike Covid-19, which hasn’t affected children as much as it has adults, the current pneumonia outbreak has hit kids the hardest. Social media postings show images of sick children and health workers in hazmat suits disinfecting schools in China. The photos of overcrowded hospitals in some cities in northern China are reminiscent of the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to FTV News, a Taiwanese media outlet, “With the outbreak of pneumonia in China, children’s hospitals in Beijing, Liaoning, and other places were overwhelmed with sick children, and schools and classes were on the verge of suspension. Parents questioned whether the authorities were covering up the epidemic.”

The Chinese authorities attributed the surge in child hospitalizations to mycoplasma pneumoniae. Scientific America says M. pneumoniae is a bacterium that infects the lungs. “It is a common cause of ‘walking pneumonia,’ a form of the disease that is usually relatively mild and doesn’t require bed rest or hospitalization,” the paper claimed. Therefore, foreign experts found the increase in hospitalization and the pattern of infections among Chinese children “unusual.”

‘Immunity Debt’ and Antibiotic Resistance

Annie Sparrow, a practicing clinician and associate professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, pointed out in her piece in Foreign Policy that “one contributing factor to the severity of this outbreak may be ‘immunity debt.’ Around the globe, Covid-19 lockdowns and other non-pharmaceutical measures meant that children were less exposed to the usual range of pathogens.” Thus, their immune systems might have been compromised.

According to Scientific America, another contributing factor to the severity of China’s outbreak is that the pathogen in China has developed resistance to antibiotics known as macrolides. “Studies show that resistance rates of M. pneumoniae to macrolides in Beijing are between 70% and 90%. This resistance might be contributing to this year’s high levels of hospitalization from M. pneumoniae because it can hinder treatment and slow recovery from bacterial pneumonia infections.” Annie Sparrow warned, “China could be incubating an even greater threat: the cultivation of antibiotic-resistant strains of a common, and potentially deadly, bacteria.” 

What Happens in China Rarely Stays in China

We learned through the Covid-19 pandemic that what happens in China rarely stays in China. The Netherlands saw an uptick in pneumonia in children and young people since August. Denmark said mycoplasma pneumoniae infections among its youth have reached the epidemic level. Ohio has become the first state to report an increase in pediatric pneumonia in the United States.

The Chinese government returned to the same Covid-19 response tool kit, asking people to wear masks and keep their distance, though these measures were proven ineffective against the spread of Covid-19. While we have good reasons to be concerned about the current pneumonia outbreak in China, we must resist some politicians’ and health officials’ temptation to reimpose ineffective restrictions in the name of public health.

On a personal level, concerned parents should consult their children’s pediatricians about how best to prevent their children from getting M. pneumoniae or about the most effective treatment plan if their children get the disease.

On a national level, the Biden administration should learn from the preparation of the Taiwanese government. Taiwan successfully contained the spread of Covid-19 with a minimum number of infections and deaths. Recently, Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control raised health alert levels at borders. The Food and Drug Administration has increased imports of a brand-name drug and expanded domestic production of generic medications that treat M. pneumoniae.

The Biden administration would be better off adopting Taiwan’s preparation plan than waiting for China to share information or the WHO to tell us what to do.



at

Pro-Hamas Fanatics Are Now Trying to Appropriate Jesus, Here's Why That's Nonsense


Bonchie reporting for RedState 

Few things get the far-left into more of a tizzy than cultural appropriation. After all, we just had a multi-week controversy over Deadspin trying to destroy a child because he painted his face and wore a headdress at an NFL game. 

Those rules go out the window when it comes to Christianity, though. That's perfectly illustrated by the latest pro-Hamas trend of claiming Jesus Christ was "Palestinian." 

If you are confused by that claim, you have good reason to be. The name "Palestine" was given to what was then called Judea around a hundred years after Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. It was not a name of endearment for those who lived there, either. The Romans chose the name "Syria Palaestina" to punish the region for committing insurrection. The entire point was to disconnect Judea from its Jewish heritage and stamp out further resistance.

Are you starting to see the irony yet? While modern "Palestinians" and their pro-Hamas supporters claim they are the original inhabitants of the region, they do so under a name given by foreign invaders to erase the original inhabitants of the region. It is not in dispute whether ancient Israel existed as a Jewish state, and the modern "Palestinian" narrative collapses in the face of even the slightest bit of historical knowledge. 

Of course, the response will be that people like Mohamad Safa mean Jesus was "Palestinian" ancestorially despite the name being made up after his time on earth. That is also a nonsensical, ahistorical claim. Almost all modern "Palestinians" are of Arab descent, ancestrally linked to Muslim conquerors who arrived during and after the seventh century. Guess what they did to what was once Judea and Samaria? They colonized it, representing another incredible bout of irony given the modern claim that it is the Palestinians who are victims of colonization. 

Regardless, Jesus was a Jew from Judea. He was not "Palestinian" in any sense, much less the current one, and he was certainly not Muslim, another claim that has made the rounds amid Israel's latest war against Hamas. To suggest that is deeply insulting and gross appropriation, and we all know what the response would be if the shoe was on the other foot. Unfortunately, Christianity gets none of the same societal protections as other religions and cultural distinctions, though.



at

Democrats Have A Golden Opportunity To Destroy The Right


Hunter Biden has been indicted again. This time in California for spending the money he owed on taxes on hookers and blow, living a life for at least four years that would’ve put Keith Richards into the ground. He’s a medical miracle, actually, in addition to probably being a felon. He’s also the greatest potential political weapon the Democrats have – one that could destroy the Republican Party. All they have to do to use it is one of the things they seem incapable of doing: prove their case.

What kind of weapon could Hunter Biden be, aside from patient zero for a host of new social diseases? To understand that, first, you must digest the way his latest indictment story is being covered or not being covered, as the case may be.

None other than the New York Times took the indictment not as a chance to do any journalism, like report on where the millions Hunter literally shoved up his nose and into the crevices of prostitutes came from and why anyone would pay someone millions upon millions of dollars who was completely engulfed in addiction and self-destruction to the point they could barely function, but as an opportunity to deflect any criticism of the President preemptively. They wrote, “The indictment is far from helpful to the Republicans: It never mentions President Biden, not even indirectly, and provides no evidence linking the misdeeds of the son to the father.”

I’d say they simply copied and pasted it directly from the DNC press release, but the DNC doesn’t need to write press releases anymore. In the ultimate act of media consolidation, the press has cut out the middleman (or person, which they’d probably insist on being called) and is handling the job for the Democrats directly.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, however. The spin to protect the President is in overdrive.

To watch MSNBC or CNN, Republicans have really stuck their necks out far on the Biden corruption story. If I had trademarked the phrase “There is zero evidence of” anything, I could have retired off the royalties those networks would’ve had to have paid me in just the last week. It’s a sentence they belch up seemingly every 3 minutes to defend Joe from being too closely tied to his own son. Let that absurdity sink in for a second – they’re making fools of themselves to distance the President from his son.

Of course, if the President had been less of an absentee father, maybe his kid’s life wouldn’t have been filled with infidelity, sexual abuse of trafficked women (possibly minors among them), and enough drugs to wipe out a mid-sized town. 

None of that matters; all that counts is Republicans lose, and there is always a very high chance of that happening. The GOP could lose a game of “How many fingers am I holding up?” against themselves. And in the case of Joe, Hunter, and the corruption of the entire Biden family, there’s a very easy way for Democrats to humiliate and destroy Republicans completely: prove them wrong.

Yes, we have the presumption of innocence in this country, but that’s in court; it doesn’t apply in the world of politics, especially when there’s a long track record of the President making declarative statements contrary to all available evidence like he never had anything to do with anyone in his family’s businesses. 

People are suspicious, and rightly so. And Republicans are exploiting it, and rightly so, too. 

But there is a very simple way for Democrats to turn it all around and absolutely humiliate not only every Republican candidate but the entire conservative media: prove they’re innocent. 

Giant checks are flowing to Joe immediately following large influxes of money to his family members from countries hostile to the United States. They’ve claimed that money to Joe was for “loan repayments,” not his piece of the action for selling government influence. All they have to do is show any documentation of money going from Joe to them, proving the loans and all the allegations of corruption are wiped out. 

If there were actual loans, there would be easily obtainable documentation showing the flow of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the self-professed “poorest man in government” to his junkie son and degenerate brother. Not contracts – even though his brother and son have no discernable skills that would indicate an ability to repay huge loans other than trading on Joe’s name, it’s unlikely these “loans' would be finalized through actual contracts, but there would be bank records. 

Joe wouldn’t have piles of cash lying around his house like they were the classified documents he stole during his Senate career, so there would be a check or some record of a wire transfer from him to them. Simple solution, problem dissolved, and Republicans humiliated. 

Seems pretty easy, doesn’t it? It is. So, why hasn’t anyone involved done it yet? 

Of course, for something to be shown, it must exist in the first place. And therein lies the rub for the Biden family…



at