President Joe ‘Forrest Gump’ Biden

posted by Derek Hunter at Townhall 

Joe Biden can’t help himself, he has to make everything about himself. It’s like he was standing next to someone who said, “Man, that Barack Obama sure is a narcissist” and Joe responded with “Hold my beer.” But Biden is a famous teetotaler, which means he can’t blame any of his stupidity on being drunk of having drank too much in the past, he’s just naturally dumb, which brings us nicely to the Forrest Gump analogy – because, in his mind at least, Joe Biden is the Forrest Gump of modern American history. 

I don’t say because the President and the fictional character both have IQs below 70 (more like 50 in Biden’s case, but whatever), I say it because both weave themselves into every significant event in their lifetimes and neither were actually there. In Gump’s case it’s because he’s a fictional character, in Biden’s it’s that he’s just a straight-up liar.

After the collapse of the Frances Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Biden couldn’t just make a statement, he had to insert himself into the story. Biden said, “At about 1:30, a container ship struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which I’ve been over many, many times commuting from the state of Delaware either on a train or by car.” (Emphasis added)

There were no train tracks on the bridge, and the only way you’d drive across it on the way from Wilmington to DC is if you wanted that drive to take even longer, like a half hour longer. In other words, nothing Biden said there was remotely true. Even if it were, what would it have possibly mattered? Would grieving families feel some relief from the idea that this senile, corrupt bag of bones unable to walk up the adult steps onto Air Force One had driven over a bridge their loved ones died on? 

Of course not. But Biden can’t help himself. He has to make any story about him, even a little, or else he has no interest. The Gold Star families with which he’s met can all recount how this pile of garbage told them he understands their loss because his son, Beau, died in Iraq. Only he didn’t die anywhere near Iraq, he died in a hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.

Their loved ones died unexpectedly and suddenly, he had the ability to say goodbye to his son, who’d served a 9-month tour of duty as a JAG officer in the Green Zone of Iraq, coming away unharmed. But Joe can’t just care about other people’s loss, he has to make it about him to give the impression that he cares. 

Most politicians, and Bill Clinton comes to mind, can fake it with the best of them. Joe can’t. Compassion by fake proxy is not compassion, especially when you have to lie.

So much of Joe’s life is a lie.

To seem like a normal person, rather than a pampered wealthy kid who’s never held a real job in his life, Joe regularly tells the fake story about how he was told he rode a million miles on Amtrack by a conductor who was long dead by the time he was allegedly told this. The whole thing has been proven to be a lie, yet he repeats it all the time.

Joe lies about being involved in the Civil Rights Movement, but only when talking to black audiences. When he’s not, he admits he had nothing to do with it, even though he easily could have. He’s claimed to have grown up in the Jewish community, the black community and the Puerto Rican community, even though everyone knows those are lies. 

He’s told the story of how he was arrested trying to visit Nelson Mandela in prison, even though he only directed to exit the South African airport through a separate “whites only” door, which he did. This happened at an airport more than a thousand miles away from Mandela’s prison island, but Biden was never asked why he didn’t fly to the major city with an international airport right there. 

That’s how he’s able to get away with all of this – because the people with the jobs that are supposed to hold him to account aren’t interested in doing so; they’re his enablers, not honest brokers.

Forrest Gump was always “there,” Joe Biden never was. Gump didn’t bother talking about what he’d seen and been a part of because it was just his life, it wasn’t trying to impress anyone because he was content to be himself. Joe Biden inserts himself into everything, even tangentially, because he needs to feel important. Narcissistic frauds always lie, their egos can’t be satiated by the truth or sharing the spotlight. It’s gross, but it’s more sad. Sad that this decrepit fraud will go to his grave in a bed of lies, hoping he’d fooled everyone while knowing he failed at that as much as he failed at everything else. 

X22, Red Pill News, and more- March 28

 

‘Gender Identity’ Law Spells The End Of Religious Liberty In Minnesota

 

‘Already, at least one faith-based school is facing an employment complaint at the department of human rights because of the removal of the exemption.’

https://thefederalist.com/2024/03/28/gender-identity-law-spells-the-end-of-religious-liberty-in-minnesota/

In 2023, the Minnesota Legislature and governor added a new category of so-called human rights, “gender identity,” to the Minnesota Human Rights Act. They included no corresponding religious exemption, however, demonstrating their intent to deny religious freedom to Minnesota citizens, churches, and schools and to engage in persecuting Christians and some other religious bodies. 

If the state can tell churches and schools what they cannot say or do on “gender identity,” then it can tell churches and schools what they cannot say or do on other subjects too.

In an attempt to correct this egregious law, Rep. Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, in this current session introduced an amendment to correct this violation of First Amendment rights.

“My amendment language simply restores the religious exemption in the MHRA protecting religious organizations and faith-based schools against claims of gender identity discrimination. The exemption ensures that religious organizations and faith-based schools can, among other things, hire teachers and ministers consistent with their mission and values,” Niska said of his proposed amendment. “Already, at least one faith-based school is facing an employment complaint at the department of human rights because of the removal of the exemption.” 

However, in February and then again in March of this year, the Niska amendment was voted down in House and Senate committees, leaving the nullification of religious liberty in effect.

This leaves us with concerning questions. For instance, does this new law criminalize using truthful pronouns in speaking or writing, rather than false “gender identity” pronouns? If pastors, teachers, or any other Minnesotans speak or write in opposition to the use of wrong-sex hormones, transgender surgery, or puberty blockers for minors, can they be charged with a crime under state law? If parents try to protect their minor children from such practices, can they be charged with a crime? Can their minor children be removed from their custody if parents refuse to follow such laws? And can a transgender-identifying person be denied employment by a Christian school, church, or other Christian organization, such as counseling centers, charities, or pro-life groups? 

Minnesota government has crossed the Rubicon with this law. With similar laws in the past, the state has protected religious liberty by including an exemption clause. No more. The legislature has clarified by its actions that those days are over. Democrat legislators are now working to force the acceptance of homosexuality and other such beliefs on us the same way.

What shall we do? Christians cannot comply with this law since we are to “obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). First, we need to pray to the one true God to remove this persecution from us and to guide us to deal with it in accordance with His will.

Second, we must lobby our legislators and governor, asking them to remove this religious persecution and to follow the U.S. Constitution. That founding document, and specifically the First Amendment, protects our God-given right to practice our Christian faith as we wish. In addition, the Declaration of Independence states that the purpose of government is to secure this and other rights for all our citizens. The Minnesota Legislature still has the opportunity to adopt a religious exemption amendment before it adjourns at the end of May.

Third, if no exemption is adopted, we should then file suit against the state to repeal this unconstitutional law. Additionally, churches should formulate a unified response among not only their own members but also like-minded congregations. It is critical to, as much as possible, coordinate with and support one another in this difficult time.

Last but not least, we will put our trust in the God of heaven and earth, being confident that He will always be with us and looking forward to the day when He welcomes us into His victorious kingdom. There we will find no more pain or sadness, for the former things will have passed away. 

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Allen Quist is a former three-term Minnesota state legislator and retired professor of Political Science, Logic, and Christian Apologetics at Bethany Lutheran College (Mankato, Minnesota). He is the author of 10 books, the most recent being "Evidence That the Bible Is True: The Apologetics of Christian Reliability."

Globalism Thrives on Crisis

posted by J.B. Shurk at American Thinker 

Globalists know that nothing drives public policy so much as the fear of impending death.  Nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles may have scared the snot out of anyone living through the Cold War, but they were (and still are) the gifts that keep on giving for the military-industrial complex and national security surveillance State.  The more catastrophic the consequences of any perceived threat, the more likely that otherwise skeptical human beings will hand over their freedoms in exchange for the elusive promise of personal security.  Political systems specialize in exploiting this “Save Me!” impulse for maximum leverage.  “Looming apocalypse” is Big Government’s best salesman every year. 

Ghost stories about “global warming” work the same way.  If voters can be convinced that their economic freedom is leading to humanity’s extinction, then they will accept costly regulations and “green energy”-induced inflation.  If they can be brainwashed into believing that hydrocarbon energy is evil, then they will actively protest for a future with intermittent yet expensive electric power.  If they can be deluded into thinking that only politicians and central bankers can save the planet, then they will embrace communism in order to fight “climate change.”  Given the fact that Earth’s climate is always naturally changing — whether humans are alive to notice or not — governments’ success in conditioning gullible people to fear every change in the weather has been remarkably effective in creating voluntary slaves. 

It’s also no surprise that UN Secretary-General António Guterres and other doomsayer charlatans are now hyperventilating about “global boiling.”  Generations who were told they would die decades ago have learned to discount apocalyptic warnings.  Human experience creates a natural immunity to bullsh*t.  Conversely, totalitarianism succeeds only when society’s level of anxiety can be ratcheted up well above eleventy!  That’s why every iteration of the so-called “climate emergency” must sound more scary than the last.  It’s also why each new season of “Climate Change: the Coming Armageddon” targets children who have never seen old episodes of the boring series.  It may be the longest running television program of all time, but ignorant youths — who cannot imagine that their governments would ever lie to them — fall for the dying planet horror show every time.  

This is the kind of madness that “green” false prophets perpetrate upon unsuspecting peoples — stoking irrational fears in a misanthropic and Machiavellian quest for raw power.  Twentieth-century totalitarians also came to power by spreading madness and inflaming irrational fears.  Whereas Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao obsessed over foreign ideas, capitalist leanings, religious beliefs, and racial impurities, today’s globalists obsess over hydrocarbons, “white supremacy,” and “hate” speech.  Future generations will see no distinction.  Just like the monsters of the past, today’s Deep State agents seize power by manufacturing emergencies.  Dictators always arrive on triumphal chariots that run on lies. 

The German Deep State is similar to the American Deep State — in that both love to lecture the world about “democracy” and “freedom” while censoring conservatives’ speech, criminalizing political dissent, spewing propaganda, and manipulating elections.  Both also have a penchant for creating committees and agencies that engage in behaviors they pretend to police — disinformation boards that spread lies, humanitarian aid groups that foment war, pro-democracy coalitions that seek to ban political groups and public debate.  For the German and American Deep States, language is a weapon for deceiving the people.

In one particularly laughable example, German law mandates the operation of an Ethics Council — an independent body of “experts” — that seems dedicated to finding ways to justify the government’s unethical behaviors.  How do you convince people to accept unscientific lockdowns and experimental “vaccines”?  Tell them that a nonpartisan crew of credentialed “experts” has checked for ethical landmines and determined that everything’s hunky-dory.  A few weeks ago, the morality Star Chamber published an opinion about “Climate Justice” that lays the groundwork for a future when all German activity will be strictly monitored for carbon-rationing compliance: “On grounds of justice, it can be morally required to contribute to measures to tackle climate change.  If one’s own exercise of freedom interferes in an unjust manner with the freedom and welfare of others or of future generations, for example through consumption that is harmful to the climate, the authorities may intervene with restrictions of freedom.”

As with all Deep State initiatives that say one thing while doing its opposite, Germany’s Ethics Council promises the public that it is wholly opposed to suspending “democratic freedoms” but encourages the government to create “supportive framework conditions” — including carbon taxes, personal emissions limits, product bans, and “compensatory payments” to “ongoing neo-colonial dependencies” — that will nudge Germans to do the right thing.  Ahh, nothing says freedom like new taxes, forced redistribution of wealth, regulatory kicks to the groin, financial blackmail, and total personal surveillance!  Just because the government holds a gun to the back of your head while you make decisions doesn’t mean you are any less free — the unethical Ethics Council says so!

There’s something so spectacularly German about the morality police redefining totalitarianism as merely “supportive framework conditions.”  Who could argue against a “supportive framework”?  It’s the kind of linguistic chicanery that other Western nations will readily mimic.  Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau didn’t confiscate the bank accounts of Freedom Convoy protesters in order to quell dissent and chill free speech; he was merely creating “supportive framework conditions” for their abject submission.  Australia and New Zealand didn’t set up Stasi roadblocks, checkpoints, and involuntary detainment camps during the Great COVID Hoax; they simply constructed a “supportive framework” for a functioning police State.  Barely-there Joe Biden and his vindictive Attorney General Merrick Garland haven’t weaponized the justice system to persecute conservatives, freedom-lovers, Christians, Trump, and his voters; they have implemented “supportive framework conditions” that helpfully disarm, censor, and imprison any American who resists the Deep State.  Yes siree, governing is easy when the Ethics Council condones property confiscation, coercion, and controlled speech!

At the end of the day, globalism thrives on crisis.  It is a political philosophy in perpetual search of apocalyptic threats that can be used as expedient pretexts for justifying why a small cabal of financial titans and global elites should exercise total control over local communities.  Crisis is its brand, its currency, and its product.  For globalism to persist, no crisis can ever be solved unless a new one is on its way.

The inherently destructive nature of globalism has left the public in a permanent state of anticipatory dread.  Roughly two-thirds of Americans not only expect a third world war to break out within the next decade but also believe nuclear conflagration is inevitable.  The idea that the American Deep State will instigate some kind of “false flag” incident prior to the 2024 election is discussed as broadly among well-known public figures as it is among ordinary commenters online.  Catherine Herridge, Ron Paul, Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, and General Mike Flynn have all expressed concern that an unforeseen “Black Swan” event will occur before the end of the year.  Flynn says forthrightly that globalists will conclude, “Look, there’s no way in the world that [Biden] can win a legitimate, fair election, so let’s not have one.”  And “in order to not have one,” the Deep State will “create the conditions” to produce that “outcome.”

That nuclear war, election rigging, and “Black Swan” disasters are spoken of so matter-of-factly reflects an almost fatalistic consensus that everything will soon fall apart.  In other words, globalism has largely succeeded in cultivating a pervasive expectation of our impending social death.  That’s an astonishing indictment of the path Western leaders have forged over the last century.  As they have burned the world to the ground, their legacy is general misery.  For free and happy people to live, globalism must surely die.

SCOTUS Errs In Murthy v. Missouri By Assuming Big Tech Is Just Like Print Media

 

The government’s relationship with social media is not analogous to government interactions with print media.

https://thefederalist.com/2024/03/28/scotus-errs-in-murthy-v-missouri-by-assuming-big-tech-is-just-like-print-media/

Along with my co-plaintiffs, I was at the Supreme Court last week for oral arguments in our Murthy v. Missouri case, in which we are challenging the federal government’s alleged censorship on social media. The Supreme Court will likely rule in June whether to uphold, modify, or strike down the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ injunction against five federal agencies, in what, the district court judge wrote, “arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”

At the hearing, Justice Samuel Alito pointed out that emails between the White House and Facebook “showed constant pestering of Facebook.” He went on to comment, “I cannot imagine federal officials taking this approach to the print media. … It’s treating these platforms like subordinates.” He then asked the government’s attorney, “Would you treat The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal this way? Do you think the print media considers themselves ‘partners’ with government? I can’t imagine the federal government doing that to them.”

The government’s attorney had to admit, “The anger is unusual” — referring to White House official Rob Flaherty literally cursing at a Facebook executive and berating him for not taking action quickly enough to comply with the government’s censorship demands.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh followed up, asking, “On the anger point, do you think federal government officials regularly call up journalists and berate them?” It’s worth recalling that Kavanaugh worked as a White House attorney before he was appointed to the court, as did Justices John Roberts and Elena Kagan. No doubt there were times they dialed a journalist or editor to try to convince them to change a story, clarify a factual assertion, or even hold or quash the publication of a piece. Kavanaugh admitted, “It’s not unusual for the government to claim national security or wartime necessity to suppress a story.”

Perhaps colorful language is sometimes used in these conversations, as Kavanaugh himself hinted. Kagan concurred: “Like Justice Kavanaugh, I have had some experience encouraging the press to suppress its own speech. … This happens literally thousands of times a day in the federal government.” With a wink to the other former executive branch attorneys on the bench, Roberts quipped, “I have no experience coercing anyone,” which generated a rare chuckle from the bench and audience.

This analogy to government interactions with print media, however, does not hold in the case of the government’s relationship with social media. There are several crucial differences that profoundly change the power dynamic of those interactions in ways directly relevant to our case. These differences facilitate, in Alito’s words, the government treating the platforms like subordinates in ways that would be impossible with print media.

Behind the Scenes

First, when a government official contacts a newspaper, he is talking directly to the journalist or editor — the person whose speech he is trying to alter or curtail. The writer or editor has the freedom to say, “I see your point, so I’ll hold my story for one week to allow the CIA time to get their spies out of Afghanistan.” But the speaker also has the freedom to say, “Nice try, but I’m not persuaded I got the facts wrong on this, so I’m running the story.” The publisher here has the power, and there is little the government can do to threaten that power.

By contrast, with requests or demands for social media censorship, the government was never talking with the person whose speech was censored, but with a third party operating entirely behind the scenes. As my co-plaintiff, the eminent epidemiologist Dr. Martin Kulldorff, quipped, “I would have been happy to get a call from a government official and hear about why I should take down a post or change my views on the scientific evidence.”

Power Dynamic

Additionally, there is little the government can do to destroy the business model and cripple The New York Times or Wall Street Journal, and the journalists and editors know this. If the government pushes too hard, it will also be front page news the next day: “Government Trying to Bully The Post to Censor Our Breaking Story,” with the lede, “Naturally, we told them to go pound sand.”

But the power dynamic is entirely different with Facebook, Google, and X (formerly Twitter): The government does have a sword of Damocles to hang over the head of noncompliant social media companies if they refuse to censor — in fact, several swords, including the threat to remove Section 230 liability protections, which Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has accurately called an “existential threat” to their business, or threats to break up their monopolies. As the record in our lawsuit shows, the government explicitly made just such threats, even publicly on several occasions, in direct connection to their censorship demands.

Furthermore, unlike the major tech companies, newspapers or magazines do not have massive government contracts that might disappear if they refuse to comply. When the FBI or Department of Homeland Security calls Facebook or X with censorship demands, the corporate executives know that a weaponized agency has the power to launch frivolous but onerous investigations at any time. It thus becomes virtually impossible for social media companies to tell the government to take a hike — indeed, they may have a fiduciary duty to shareholders not to incur serious risks by resisting government pressure.

The text of the First Amendment doesn’t say the government shall not “prevent” or “forbid” free speech; it says the government shall not “abridge” free speech — i.e., shall not do anything to lesson a citizen’s ability to speak or diminish one’s potential reach. A sensible and clear injunction would simply state, “Government shall not request that social media companies remove or suppress legal speech.”

But if the justices want to distinguish between persuasion and coercion in the injunction, they need to appreciate that social media companies operate in a very different relationship with government than traditional print media. These asymmetrical power dynamics create a relationship ripe for unconstitutional government coercion.

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Aaron Kheriaty, MD, is director of the Bioethics and American Democracy Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Yes, a Terrorist Attack Is Coming to America

posted by Mark Lewis at Townhall 

Kurt Schlichter recently penned an excellent Townhall column predicting a massive terrorist attack on America.  Kurt has also written a book about it, of course, and he is spot on.  Maybe I’ll stay in Thailand a little longer.  Terrorists have no reason to attack this country.  Nothing to gain here. 

The odds of a massive terrorist attack on the United States are high, and the Left not only isn’t preparing for it, they would welcome it.  I’m not sure Republicans will be of much help in stopping one.

Rather than predicting the inevitable, let me discuss some aspects of it, including my statement above that the Left will welcome it.

First, when might this attack come?  No one can predict that, of course; if we could, we would be able to thwart it.  Plus, reading a terrorist’s mind is an utterly futile exercise.  Their mental synapses don’t connect in ordinary ways, so any guesswork on their coming actions is purely a series of coin tosses.  But permit me to talk about a timeframe anyway.

Obviously, in one sense, it would be best for them to hit during the Biden administration.  Joe Biden would have no clue how to respond, and would surely blame Donald Trump for it. Or maybe Israel. And Vladimir Putin.  Probably all three.

Weakness encourages aggression, and “weakness” and Joe Biden are synonymous terms.  Republicans need to learn that principle politically as well, but probably never will.  The problem terrorists face by attacking during Biden’s administration is that he would get the blame—and rightfully so.  This would definitely hurt him during the coming election, though 9/11 didn’t cost George W. Bush in 2004.  If I were a terrorist, I wouldn’t launch my attack this year; all of America’s enemies want a weak Biden (or any other America-hating Democrat) back on the throne next year, so doing something that might cost Democrats votes would be verboten.  At least, that is the way I would think if I were a terrorist.

But I’m not a terrorist (though Leftists might think I am), and they don’t think logically or use a lot of common sense.  If they don’t hit America this year, they risk Donald Trump becoming president, and no American enemy wants that.  They might consider that an attack could hurt him politically, but Trump can’t run for office again so politics would be a moot point.  Plus, if/when he found out who was responsible, he would obliterate them. We aren’t talking Bush’s bumbling Iraq war here or Biden’s Afghanistan. Trump would hit them where it really hurt, and he would hit them hard, and continually, until he annihilated them. They ought to know that.  But whether they do or not is anybody’s guess.

Biden, of course, is still letting them freely into the country.  But he might throw marshmallows at them after an attack.  F-16s are to be reserved for Americans.

There is little doubt that terrorist cells are already being formed around the country in preparation for the attacks.  However, these kinds of things, done well, DO take time to organize.  What cities will they hit?  Where in those cities for maximum, optimal accomplishment?  What tools will be used?  How will they finance their attacks?  No doubt the plans are being made now, and arrangements are underway—and have been for who knows how long.  So, it could happen any time, or it might be delayed for a while.  That is part of the “terror” of “terrorism.”  Wise Americans know it is coming, but nobody knows when, where, or how.  And the Left doesn’t care.

Why doesn’t the Left care?  For several reasons.  First, remember that they hate America.  Any attack on racist, homophobic, Christian-nationalist, pro-Israel America would be “deserved.”   When the attack comes, you will hear cheers in certain quarters of the country, like we are hearing cheers for Hamas right now.  It would be the same group of people.

Plus, “crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant” (James Madison).  The thinking is, and it is surely correct among masses of people, that a gigantic attack on America would send more people scurrying under the chicken wing of government.  People will demand “security” over “freedom.”  Those two concepts are not mutually exclusive, of course, except in the minds of Leftists.  A “crisis” is a great way to get more people demanding bigger government, and Leftists want nothing more than bigger government.  They might even think that, if it happens this year, it might help re-elect Biden.  Remember, every Leftist’s mind, from Biden to Pelosi to every transgender, is warped and disconnected from reality.  But, if there are enough Leftists in the country now, who knows?  Biden MIGHT get re-elected.  Terrorist attack or no terrorist attack.

Also, never forget that Leftists do not care how many people must die to further their cause.  That means in America, too.  

So, yes, the Leftist “leadership”—Biden, Pelosi, Obama, etc.—while certainly publicly decrying any terrorist attack on America, secretly may be fine with it because they believe it would further their cause:  Americans would turn more power over to them.  And, to a Leftist, that is the greatest cause of all.

Regardless of how many people must die to achieve it.

It’s going to happen, folks.  Biden is letting them in the country knowing full well it COULD happen.  And he is doing nothing to prevent it.  Because he doesn’t want to prevent it.    

Talk about Reparations? The Short-Lived Promise of ’40 Acres and a Mule’

 As the Civil War was ending, recently freed Black people were promised land to start independent lives—but Lincoln's assassination led to that plan's demise.

https://www.history.com/news/40-acres-mule-promise

“What do you want for your own people?”

That’s the question Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton suggested Union General William T. Sherman pose to 20 Black pastors in Savannah, Georgia, as the Civil War neared its end and enslaved African Americans neared freedom.

The Black leaders gathered for the January 12, 1865, meeting with the military officials in a mansion called the Green-Meldrim House. They explained that they didn’t want to live among white people, as they feared it would take years for racial prejudice to dissipate in the South. Instead, they wished to live amongst themselves on their own land. That would entail redistributing the land of Southern plantation owners.

View video at link...

“The way we can best take care of ourselves is to have land and turn it and till it by our own labor,” said the Rev. Garrison Frazier, a 67-year-old Baptist minister and spokesman for the group, which included individuals who had been enslaved and lived as free men alike. “We want to be placed on land until we are able to buy it and make it our own,” Frazier told the Union military officials.

Stanton knew that the meeting was a groundbreaking one, remarking that for the first time, government officials had asked Black Americans “what they wanted for themselves.” He gave the minutes taken at the meeting to Henry Ward Beecher, brother of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” author Harriet Beecher Stowe.

After Beecher read the notes to the congregation of his New York church, the New York Daily Tribune printed the transcript in its February 13, 1865 edition, providing a historical record that still exists today. A Black publication named the Christian Recorder printed the transcript as well.

Confederate Land Claimed for African Americans

The idea to strip Southern enslavers of their land wasn’t exclusive to the leaders who attended the Green-Meldrim House meeting. Abolitionists Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens had promoted the idea as a way to financially devastate Confederate landowners. Still, Harvard historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr. credits Savannah’s Black leaders with spearheading the events that followed.

After meeting with the 20 ministers, Sherman signed Field Order 15 on January 16, 1865. The order would reserve 400,000 acres of Confederate land for members of the formerly enslaved population. When the land near the Southeast coast was evenly redistributed, each family would have 40 acres of tillable ground.

“Union generals were attempting to divide these slave plantations into small farm settlements and make them available to the newly freed slaves,” says Valerie Grim, director of Undergraduate Studies, African American and African Diaspora Studies and professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington.

No mention of mules appeared in the order, but some of the formerly enslaved population were granted Army mules, resulting in this reparations program being widely known as “40 acres and a mule.”

The freedmen set out to begin working their new land immediately, with a group of 1,000 settling on Georgia’s Skidaway Island. In subsequent months as many as 40,000 freedmen settled on the redistributed land.

“They were able to parcel it out to some of the former slaves, but for the most part, this dream was never realized,” Grim says.

Promise Is Rescinded After Lincoln's Death

The government didn’t keep its promise. Following President Abraham Lincoln's assassination on April 15, 1865, President Andrew Johnson rescinded Field Order 15 and returned to Confederate owners the 400,000 acres of land—“a strip of coastline stretching from Charleston, South Carolina to the St. John’s River in Florida, including Georgia’s Sea Islands and the mainland 30 miles in from the coast.”

Roy L. Brooks, a distinguished professor of law at the University of San Diego School of Law, described Johnson as a segregationist “who wanted to basically return African Americans to a position of subordination.” Johnson, though, was not the only politician who opposed this form of reparations for Black Americans.

“After the Civil War, there just wasn't that appetite for Black reparations,” Brooks says. “There were other proposals made after the war for reparations for African Americans. Congress declined to go forward with reparations. So, it was not just Johnson. There was an attitude among the Congress that African Americans should simply be happy with being freed.”

African Americans Forced to Work as Sharecroppers

Without land of their own to work, the 3.9 million members of the formerly enslaved population struggled to control their own destiny after the Civil war ended. Many found themselves working white people’s land as sharecroppers or tenant farmers, a system that was only slightly better than slavery, given the meager wages and exploitation associated with it.

“You had a massive system of sharecropping evolving in the South in the aftermath of Blacks not being able to acquire the land that they thought the federal government was going to make available to them,” Grim says. “In the case of the sharecropper, you did it so that you could get a share of the crop which rarely was shared with Black people when all the cost of production had taken place.”

Some Black people defeated the odds and managed to become landowners. Most, however, had no land to pass on, which prevented them from accumulating multi-generational wealth and left them largely under the control of Southern white landowners.

The failed promise of “40 acres and a mule denied African Americans the ability to generate financial self-sufficiency, which was needed in order to resist as much as possible the Jim Crow policies of the local government in the South,” Brooks says. 

“It would have provided a very timely reparation for African Americans, which would have changed the course of racial history. It would have changed the trajectory of racial inequality in our society.”

Survey: Should Biden Admin Give in to Mexico's Extortion on Immigration?

Ward Clark reporting for RedState 

Mexico's President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, recently tried to commit an act of extortion on the United States of America, demanding the United States fork over $20 billion a year — yes, a year — or else the flow of illegal aliens across our southern border will continue. Fox News took to the streets to find out what some random Americans thought about that, and the answers were revealing — not all in a good way.

"I don't think we should pay their demands," Andy told Fox News on Music City's famous Broadway street. "It's our issue they're coming over, but it's their issue for letting them come over. It would be like we are submitting to them."

But a Nashville local, Chris, disagreed. He said the U.S. and Mexico need to work together to solve the immigration crisis.

"It helps us, too. It benefits us, too," he said. "We spend money everywhere else, so why not?"

Consider that second response for a moment. That blasé acceptance that the United States just has an endless wellspring of money to spend things on is, frankly, a horrifying notion. The nation is coming up on $34 trillion in debt. We can't just "spend money everywhere else," and we have to be more pragmatic about where we do spend money. 

Closing the southern border — really closing it — is one of those places where, yes, we should be spending some money.

$20 billion would, of course, build and maintain a lot of border wall. It would enable us to hire some more enforcement agents. We could even spend some of it to bring home our military people that we have, for some reason, still stationed in Europe, and place them along the border. After all, it's unlikely that we'll see 10,000 Soviet tanks charging through the Fulda Gap anytime soon, so much of our reason for keeping forces in Europe has, at least, greatly diminished.

Here are the details of President Obrador's demand:

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said during a "60 Minutes" interview Sunday that the surge of migrants crossing into the U.S. will continue unless President Biden and his administration comply with his demands. Obrador had called on the U.S. to send $20 billion a year to Latin American countries, lift sanctions on Venezuela, end the Cuban embargo and legalize millions of Hispanics who have worked and lived in the U.S. for at least a decade.

The proper response from the United States to this bit of proposed extortion should rightly end with the phrase, "...and the horse you rode in on."

It's unlikely that the Biden administration will respond appropriately. They are, in fact, far more likely to cave. That seems to be old Joe Biden's modus operandum when dealing with other nations unless they are Israel.

The fact is that Mexico needs us more than we need them. Much of the illegal immigration coming into the U.S. now isn't from Mexico, at least not directly. Many are coming from elsewhere in Latin America, and more are coming from everywhere else, including China, Africa, and, somewhat inexplicably, the Middle East. Illegal immigration from Mexico has dropped as a percentage of the whole because many Mexicans are finding employment in American manufacturing facilities set up to take advantage of Mexico's cheaper labor — and who are dependent on shipping those goods north of the border.

President Biden and his administration, in this case, really need to tell el Presidente Obrador where to head in. Sadly, they are far more likely to get out the checkbook.

The Long Arm of Beijing: Inquiry Hears of CCP’s ‘Extensive’ Campaign Against Falun Gong in Canada

 

Chinese Communist Party agents manipulating politicians, physical and verbal abuse of Falun Gong adherents, and the spreading of regime-instigated hate through media are some of the challenges faced by the Falun Gong community in Canada, the foreign interference inquiry heard on March 27.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/foreign-interference-inquiry-hears-of-extensive-chinese-regime-campaign-against-falun-gong-in-canada-5616207?utm_source=MB_article_paid_new&utm_campaign=MB_article_2024-03-28-ca&utm_medium=email&est=FrJpm95NIdGdQzqv4OpfZqfsQHXPSpm1e3FKjJB3Mq2SrmizetGw5KGnq6WZF+sgdy0q&utm_content=highlight2-news-1

Representatives of diaspora groups who report being targeted by a foreign power opened the new round of hearings at the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Ottawa.

The purpose of the inquiry is to hear evidence about interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, but it started with testimony from communities that are more broadly targeted by foreign actors and transnational repression.

Grace Wollensak, speaking on behalf of the Falun Gong community, detailed what she called an “extensive foreign interference and repression” campaign in Canada waged by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the past two decades.

She described Falun Gong as a meditation practice with moral teachings introduced in China in 1992. By 1999 it had gained huge popularity, which she said explains in part why the CCP started persecuting the group.

Falun Gong principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance are “incompatible with communist atheist ideology,” Ms. Wollensak said, adding that then-CCP leader Jiang Zemin, who made the decision to eradicate the group, saw its popularity as a threat to his power.

The repression campaign launched in China, which includes defamation, imprisonment, forced labour, torture, and forced organ harvesting, has extended to Canada with an array of tactics, she said. Examples include regime agents impersonating Falun Gong practitioners and sending offensive emails to politicians to try to discredit the group.

On one occasion, she was contacted by the RCMP after MPs complained about receiving emails from someone pretending to be a Falun Gong adherent.

“This is a systematic attack orchestrated by the CCP agents or the CCP themselves to try to discredit Falun Gong practitioners,” Ms. Wollensak said.

There has also been “persistent” physical and verbal assault and harassment by CCP agents against Falun Gong adherents in Canada, she said, including one practitioner being held “at gunpoint” while protesting outside the Chinese consulate in Vancouver.

In another incident, a Toronto adherent was confronted at her door and threatened with her children being taken away. She had been outspoken in asking for the release of her sister and brother-in-law who were illegally imprisoned by the CCP in China for their belief in Falun Gong.

“On another occasion, her car windows were smashed and her balcony was spread by human excretions,” she said.

Ms. Wollensak also described the CCP’s control of Chinese-language media to demonize the group and said Canadian media have sometimes been misled into using the CCP’s vocabulary to describe practitioners.

She said matters improved after protests were lodged with media outlets, although the situation remains dire when it comes to Canada’s Chinese-language media, which are often CCP-controlled.

Ms. Wollensak also recounted how municipal officials from Canada, after taking trips to China, had withdrawn their support for Falun Gong or took action to stifle their protests against the Chinese regime.

In 2006, then-Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan pursued court action to remove a long-standing Falun Gong vigil outside the Chinese consulate. “When I go to China, they treat me like an emperor,” Mr. Sullivan told the Vancouver Sun that same year.

Ms. Wollensak became emotional when recounting efforts by Ottawa city officials to lessen the footprint of a protest she organized in front of the Chinese embassy, calling it an example of Beijing influencing local authorities. After many efforts the issue was resolved, but she said the group shouldn’t have to go through such ordeals.

Beijing’s influence was also felt in 2010 when then-Ottawa mayor Larry O'Brien, after returning from a trip to China, pulled his support for a proclamation recognizing Falun Gong adherents, reportedly because of a “commitment” he had made, the Ottawa Citizen reported. City council sidestepped the mayor and unanimously approved the declaration honouring Falun Gong, which the city continued to do in subsequent years.

Ms. Wollensak referenced a comprehensive report published by the Falun Dafa Association of Canada in October 2023 which profiles the extent of CCP persecutory tactics in Canada and makes a series of recommendations.

They include publicly condemning CCP persecution of Falun Gong, sanctioning Chinese diplomats and officials involved in infiltration and persecution activities, and enacting a foreign agent registry.

‘Cost of Advocacy’

Another representative of a diaspora group targeted by Beijing who testified before the inquiry was Mehmet Tohti, director of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project.

The Uyghurs, a Turkic Muslim minority from northwestern China, have long been repressed by Beijing and are subject to mass arbitrary detention. In a 2021 motion the House of Commons declared their treatment by the CCP a genocide.

Mr. Tohti said the price to pay for advocacy is high, recounting a call he received from Chinese police telling him that his mother and two sisters were dead. The call came just weeks before a House of Commons vote on a motion calling for the resettlement of 10,000 Uyghurs. He later confirmed his mother had died in a concentration camp at age 76.

The Chinese regime was “sending that kind of message and implying that this was the cost you have to pay if you continue to advocate,” he said, adding there is also “a lack of protection in Canada.”

Representatives from the Iranian, Russian, and Sikh communities also spoke about their experiences and concerns regarding foreign interference.

Disclosure of Information

The March 27 session opened with Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue summarizing the first round of hearings that were held in January and focused on how the inquiry should deal with classified information.

Ms. Hogue said the January hearings showed that protecting certain types of information may be essential to safeguarding national security and respecting international commitments.

On the other hand, disclosing some of that information could help educate the public to recognize and respond to foreign interference attempts, she said.

The commissioner said the fact that some of the information related to foreign interference is protected and highly classified has not hampered the inquiry.

“Confidentiality imperatives have so far not prevented us from doing the work we have been tasked to do,” she said.

The inquiry was launched after political parties held negotiations over the summer to decide on terms of reference and choose a commissioner.

The Liberal government had initially resisted holding an inquiry. Amid a growing body of national security leaks reported in the press and mounting political pressure, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed former governor general David Johnston as special rapporteur on foreign interference in March 2023.

Mr. Johnston concluded in his report tabled in May 2023 that in order to protect national security information a foreign interference inquiry should not be held. He resigned in June under pressure from Opposition parties.

CSIS leaks published in the press have depicted widespread interference by Beijing in Canada’s democratic process. Some of the allegations published were addressed by Mr. Johnston in his report.

For example, he confirmed that intelligence shows there were “irregularities” in the 2019 Liberal nomination of Han Dong in the Ontario riding of Don Valley North. “There is well-grounded suspicion that the irregularities were tied to the [Chinese] Consulate in Toronto, with whom Dong maintains relationships,” the report said.

Mr. Trudeau was briefed on the irregularities but chose to leave Mr. Dong in his position.

Mr. Dong left the Liberal caucus in March 2023 and has sued Global News over its initial coverage of the intelligence, claiming it was defamatory.

The MP, who now sits as an Independent, has full standing at the public inquiry and will testify as a witness. Mr. Trudeau and other government officials are also expected to appear before the inquiry in coming days.