A few decades ago, it was practical for a college student to choose a major in the liberal arts. If one graduated with a degree in, say, sociology, psychology, or English literature, employers were interested. You could take educatedstudents who didn't have a specific focus and put them in charge of something where they could learn and grow on the job, and predictably most could do well.
More Useless by the Minute
Today, in many universities, a degree in liberal arts can prove to be all but useless: to students, to employers, and to society at large.
Why is this so? For one, curriculums have changed. Traditionally, studying the great philosophers, ethics, or early English was intellectually stimulating. Today, liberal arts students can take courses such as the Wit and Wisdom of Taylor Swift, Lessons Learn on Gilligan's Island, The Joy of Letting Go, or Zombies in Popular Culture. Using your favorite search engine, enter “ridiculous university classes.” Or, search for college courses that probably shouldn't be taught.
Why do universities offer such courses and who attends them? University deans and department heads believe that offering a ‘diversity’ of liberal arts courses helps to broaden the minds of students. If students are exposed to different courses of study and potentially controversial topics, by graduation somehow they will be better for it.
A Leftist Cabal
Why do students enroll in such classes? In many cases, it's an easy “A.” All you have to do is agree with the professor and you're rewarded. Speak up about something that has been taught, or offer an alternative opinion, and you might find yourself battling to get a good grade.
American professors lean heavily Left. Based on donations, voting records, or professed preferences, 90% to 95% of professors automatically vote Democrat in each and every election. And, when you hear what they have to say about Republicans and conservatives, it can get really scary.
It was once nearly impossible to discern the political persuasion of those at the front of the class. Professors were not political advocates. They taught their subject matter in a straightforward manner. Today, it is the rare professor who is able to toe that line, and the rare student who survives even one year of college without such attempted indoctrination.
Rhetoric, Interrupted
The original intent of university founders has been contorted. Ivy League schools including Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Harvard, and Brown were among the first to be founded in America. In the early days of university education, students were taught philosophy, science, logic, mathematics, and even rhetoric -- students learned how to intelligently discuss complex topics. Yes, most students were white males.
As the nation progressed, and universities were established in all 50 states, women, minorities, and those who traditionally had little access to a university education joined in and rounded out the student body. Still, majoring in liberal arts from a renowned college was nearly a guarantee that some employer would be glad to have you as part of the staff.
After World War II, through various government programs universities were able broaden the base of students who were duly accepted. While seemingly a beneficial outcome, in reality many students who otherwise were not academically qualified to be in college were accepted. Gradually, lower academic standards ensued.
Less rigorous courses were offered to the point where one could graduate without the ability to proofread an English composition, but still declare oneself to be an English major.
Indoctrination, Over the Top
The protest of the 1960s essentially sealed the deal: radical professors offering radical views prevailed. Soon, nearly any form of progressivismpermeated the classroom environment. The result of Leftist indoctrination over many decades led to all the ills we witness today. The riots on campuses around the country in support of Hamas became all but predictable.
Who among us had the time, energy, and focus to monitor what was occurring in university classrooms?
So, here we are with a potential electorate that can be spoon fed by extreme Leftists and believe that such radical influencers reflect mainstream values.
Decades to Undo
What will it take to redress the situation to the point where students will have the ability to truly think for themselves? That is a question for the ages, however it won't be years in the making, it will be decades. Until then, we have to do our best to inform as many voters as possible what represents reality versus pie-in-the-sky Leftist delusions.
The nation’s largest teachers union reportedly sent its roughly 3 million members a sickening email containing a map that erased Israel “completely” and labeled it as Palestine.
The National Education Association sent the email Friday providing its members with resources for “teaching about indigenous peoples” that included the disturbing map, the North American Values Institute told the Jewish News Syndicate.
The email also linked to shocking material that defended Hamas’ depraved Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and led to another 250 being kidnapped to Palestine, according to NAVI.
A map on the NEA’s website shows Israel labeled as Palestine, with no mention of the Jewish state.
“It’s deeply troubling that the nation’s largest teachers’ union would promote materials trafficking in antisemitic tropes and attempts to rationalize the atrocities of Oct. 7, let alone elevate groups that glorify terrorism,” Steven Rosenberg, the institute’s regional director in Philadelphia, told the outlet.
“At best, this reflects an organization that failed to meet its own standards of critical review and responsibility. That’s an inexcusable lapse for any institution entrusted with shaping young minds.”
The email encouraged teachers to share the “related sources” in their classes.
Demonstrators at a rally in Sanaa, Yemen, hold rifles and shout slogans.Xinhua/Shutterstock
While the union — made up of educators, students, parents, activists, and community members — has since scrubbed the shocking material from its website, a “Native Land Digital” map on the site still labels Israel as “Palestine” and describes it as “indigenous” to the land.
A spokesperson for the NEA blamed a third-party for the offensive content on the union’s website.
“It has come to our attention that an external resource that was linked to on NEA’s website, which has been widely used by man news outlets and organizations for many years, falls well short of our standards,” the spokesperson told The Post, noting that the union has always “opposed antisemitisim.” [more]
As the Democrats in the Senate, led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, continue to keep the federal government shut down, they’re playing right into President Donald Trump’s ultimate plans to shift the U.S. economy from an income tax-based system to one funded by tariffs.
“I want you to know that despite the current Democrat-induced shutdown, we will get our service members every last penny,” Trump said during a speech celebrating the Navy’s 250th anniversary in Virginia. “Don’t worry about it.”
Paychecks for the military aren’t the only thing tariffs could cover. Government programs for the most vulnerable could also be funded through tariff revenue.
“As the government shutdown continues, the Trump Administration is redirecting revenues collected from tariffs to fund WIC – the Women, Infant, and Children’s nutrition program. U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri confirmed,” Missourinet reports.
Trump has long held the belief that the U.S. should eliminate the federal income tax and fund the government through tariffs on foreign goods. While Trump may need an appropriations bill passed by Congress to get the job done, tariff collections are deposited into the general fund of the U.S. Treasury, and some funds can be reallocated.
“We’re going to make a lot of money, and we’re going to cut taxes for the people of this country,” Trump said in April. “It’ll take a little while before we do that, but we’re going to be cutting taxes, and it’s possible we’ll do a complete tax cut, because I think the tariffs will be enough to cut all of the income tax.”
“When we were a smart country, in the 1890s,” Trump said during a 2024 campaign stop, adding that he’d like to eliminate the income tax. “This is when the country was relatively the richest it ever was. It had all tariffs. It didn’t have an income tax. Now we have income taxes, and we have people that are dying. They’re paying tax, and they don’t have the money to pay the tax.”
Half the IRS has been furloughed because Democrats won’t vote to pass a clean Continuing Resolution in the Senate.
“This memorandum is to advise you that Congress has not passed an appropriation for Fiscal Year 2026 or a Continuing Resolution; therefore, you will be furloughed beginning today, October 8, 2025,” a Treasury Department memo states. “When you are on furlough, you will be in non-pay, non-duty status. Paid leave, such as annual, sick, court, or military leave, which has been approved for this furlough period, is cancelled. Also, during the furlough, you must remain away from your workplace (if you are reporting for work at your post of duty) and you are prohibited by law from working, even on a voluntary basis.”
Once again, Schumer has lost the plot and is handing Trump assistance with one of his top, longtime goals of moving the American taxation system in a direction that unburdens taxpayers and places pressure on imports. This is only the beginning.
Reaction to newly surfaced videos this week of California Democrat gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter being an absolute horror of a human being to others is largely summed up as, “Wow, what a witch.” But there’s something deeper to consider when you put it in the context of Democrats more broadly and their extensively documented tendency to wreak havoc on innocent and unassuming people.
For the uninitiated, one of the videos featuring Porter has her in a contentious back-and-forth with a California-based TV journalist asking the loud-mouth congresswoman if she feels the need to appeal to any voters who supported President Trump in the last election. To that wildly offensive query — How dare a Democrat be questioned whether they can persuade potentially reluctant voters? — Porter threatened to walk out of the interview, scolding the journalist for giving her an “unhappy experience.” In another video, which is several years old, Porter is seen talking to a web camera with a smile — this was an apparently more happy experience — before she erupts in a volcanic rage at a woman who steps into view behind her. “Get out of my f-cking shot,” she says with the hardest f sound her two massive front teeth could muster.
This woman is a renowned monstrosity. Text messages between Porter and one of her congressional office staffers made public in 2022 showed her haranguing the poor girl over having been infected with a highly contagious, airborne virus called “Covid” and Porter blaming the staffer for spreading it. “It’s really disappointing,” the then-congresswoman said to her. The staffer profusely apologized and explained she had a lapse in following the office’s medical testing protocol due to the death of a loved one. “Well you gave me covid,” Porter replied. “In 25 months, it took you not following the rules to get me sick.”
In response to the video wherein Porter is screaming profanity at an adult woman behind her, Porter said it’s because she holds her staff to a “high standard,” and she said she was hoping to be more “intentional at demonstrating my gratitude” for the peons who do her dirty work. Independent journalist Josh Barro perfectly summarized the comment as “stereotypical therapy-speak from the sort of person who is rude because she thinks being politically progressive is a substitute for being interpersonally pleasant.”
Barro said it as if he could be talking about any random miserable person, but this is a pattern specific to Democrats: unpleasant, antisocial people who belittle and demean anyone they perceive as inferior (which, incidentally, includes anyone unlucky enough to staff their offices and anyone who can’t help them win reelection).
Everyone working on Capitol Hill or paying granular attention to politics in Washington knows this. Stories of Democrat leaders behaving toward their staffs in abhorrent ways are legion. A lot of those stories are on record and many more are casually shared among people who work in town. When I lived in Washington, a friend of mine who resided near the home of Georgia Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock told me he would see the senator dropped off each day in a car driven by what was obviously an office staffer. That staffer would get out of the driver’s seat, walk to the back to open the door for Warnock, who handed the staffer his bag. The two would then walk to the senator’s front door, with Warnock in the lead. Once Warnock was inside the doorstep, he would take his bag and the staffer would then call a ride share service to pick him up, since the car he had driven was Warnock’s.
Mind you, staffers are not paid by the members they support. They’re paid by American taxpayers, with money allocated to each congressional office. And it is simply a point of fact that you never hear these stories about Republican members. Tell me one story you’ve heard about Donald Trump or J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio or Mike Johnson or any Republican treating their official staffs this way. I’ll wait.
It’s so humiliating, you have to wonder why anyone subjects themselves to working for a Democrat. As vice president, Kamala Harris was known for this same type of conduct. As little regard I have for anonymous attacks, they were so frequently published about Harris, and in line with complaints about other Democrats, that they have to count for something. “With Kamala you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence,” read one quote from an unnamed “former staffer” in a Washington Post article in late 2021. “So you’re constantly sort of propping up a bully and it’s not really clear why.”
Recall that negative reports on Harris’ office culture were so frequent that one of her staffers was compelled to stage the gloomiest photo of himself sitting at a desk, staring blankly at his computer screen. He actually posted the picture on social media along with the grave personal allegation, “[I] absolutely love my job.” It was appropriately mocked by the internet.
Just a few days after she announced her ill-fated campaign for president in 2019, the New York Times reported that staff members of Democrat Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar had a “ritual” of saving “potentially damaging emails” from the lawmaker in the event that they were ever needed as “evidence of her conduct for their own reputational protection.” That same report said Klobuchar was “known to throw office objects in frustration, including binders and phones, in the direction of aides;” it said she required maternity leave recipients to pay back any time off should they resign from their positions; and it said “former aides said they were especially troubled by her willingness … to embarrass staff members over minor missteps or with odd requests.” Like Katie Porter, Klobuchar has excused her appalling behavior by citing her “high expectations.”
Then there’s my favorite: the late Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat who represented Texas and sported a hulking silhouette reminiscent of Shrek. Again, the stories of Jackson Lee terrorizing her staff are innumerable. By far the most shocking, though, was the 2023 publication of an audio recording in which the abusive congresswoman was heard telling a staffer who displeased her, “I want you to have a f-cking brain” and referring to another staffer as “sitting up there like a fat-ss.” She called them both “f-ck-ups.”
You simply do not hear stories like this from Republicans in Congress or the West Wing. Antisocial behavior is a Democrat thing.
Before I begin today's piece, I want to step outside the proverbial box to take a moment and pass out a public "thank you" or two.
First, to my BitsBlog following, which if I'm reading the metrics correctly, has followed me here to PJ Media. For 24 years, BitsBlog has been a labor of love. With the help of my good friend Art Smith, I've never commercially capitalized on it. That love causes me to say, it will not be going away. You will still see me posting at BitsBlog, perhaps a bit less frequently, mostly with shorter items, rather than the long form stuff I've been posting here. I do love the longer forms which allow me to more completely examine a topic... but sometimes I have a thought which while worthwhile, doesn't quite match and cannot be built into my usual long form style, and so you will see those quickies there. I must say, it is a wonderful thing to see your work appreciated, even to the point of following me over to this venue. I am grateful.
Grateful is also the word I'll use to describe my feelings for the folks here at PJ Media. Since starting again here a bit over a month ago (after an absence of many years), everyone here has been very patient and gracious in letting me feel my way through this different, and somewhat more structured environment. It's been a great pleasure working with all of you, and I'm sure you'll understand when I add that it is a particular pleasure working with my old friends from the Blogosphere. With your help and encouragement, I'm finding my way.
We now return you to today's column, which was already in progress:
=-=-=-=
It is recorded in our history books that when he looked down at the ship full of smiling, victorious faces… faces of his flyers, just having returned from Pearl Harbor, Japanese fleet Admiral Yamamoto was quiet, pensive, even apprehensive. He later wrote in his private diary,
“I fear all I have done is awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.”
It took the attack on Pearl Harbor to awaken Americans to the threat that the world faced, a bit over 82 years ago. A couple weeks ago, in my daily column, I raised what I considered at the time an unlikely but logical parallel between the 9/11 attacks and Charlie Kirk's death. I may have even used the same Yamamoto passage in that piece. But in researching today's piece over the last few days, and particularly in light of recent Antifa activity, I find the comparison more even more apt than I did then.
It is axiomatic that you always catch the most flack when you are directly over the target. That truth has never been revealed in starker relief than when Donald Trump won the presidency… both times. Violent acts in this case, are what constitutes the figurative (and too often, literal) flack. Much has been written about the recent and alarming reincarnation of Antifa. It is pretty obvious that with every success of the political right in this country, the left in general and Antifa in particular, gets more violent.
To understand how these things are linked, we must return to the 1938 writings of Mao, whence comes all things Antifa:
Every Communist must grasp the truth, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party. Yet, having guns, we can create Party organizations, as witness the powerful Party organizations which the Eighth Route Army has created in northern China. We can also create cadres, create schools, create culture, create mass movements. Everything in Yenan has been created by having guns. All things grow out of the barrel of a gun. According to the Marxist theory of the state, the army is the chief component of state power. Whoever wants to seize and retain state power must have a strong army. Some people ridicule us as advocates of the “omnipotence of war”. Yes, we are advocates of the omnipotence of revolutionary war; that is good, not bad, it is Marxist. The guns of the Russian Communist Party created socialism. We shall create a democratic republic. Experience in the class struggle in the era of imperialism teaches us that it is only by the power of the gun that the working class and the labouring masses can defeat the armed bourgeoisie and landlords; in this sense we may say that only with guns can the whole world be transformed.
This passage shows us two things: the reason why the left is so fixed on removing guns from the hands of the individual, and what passes for the reasoning behind the violent actions of Antifa. With these points in mind, declaring Antifa a terrorist organization, as Donald Trump has done (along with Hungary’s Victor Orban) makes complete sense.
From the perspective of very recent history, however, the situation becomes even more clear. I’ve been going through Antifa websites recently, reading them so you don’t have to. Trust me; such reading gives one both a massive headache, and the decided impression that some folks are more directly descended from the apes than others. I always liked the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne’s quote, which given the attachment of Antifa to our supposed institutions of "higher leaning" seems very appropriate here:
“I prefer the company of peasants as they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.”
I note that there seems to be an inverse relationship between educational credentials and what we used to refer to as common sense. Alas, that sense seems lacking in commonality in those places, these days.
One website that stands out as particularly egregious, is the Corvallis Antifascists website, which posted something they called an “After Action Report” following the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Their own words in those writings expose their fear that they have lost the ability to, without consequence, mark conservatives for death. For proof of this, they point to the huge outpouring of anger over Charlie’s death, and they point also at videos of masked Antifa mobs storming religious gatherings that were overtly Christian. Attacking women and children, they worry, will damage Antifa’s reputation.
Gee, ya think?
Andy Ngo (himself under death threats from Antifa) notes the same issues and says, in part:
The group admits these events, combined with the Kirk assassination, risk “galvanizing otherwise politically inactive conservatives.” They are desperate to prevent that.
To counter a cultural shift away from their dehumanization tactics — now deeply mainstreamed on the left — Antifa recommend dividing the right against itself. Specifically, they point to Israel as the wedge issue, noting waning support for the war and growing criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu among prominent conservative figures and popular conspiracy theorists.
I’ve seen that shift of tactics myself in the last week or so on places such as Facebook and X, from the usual suspects, who astoundingly try to place the blame for Charlie’s death on Israel. This explains the rather muted reaction from some quarters over the peace deal I wrote about just a couple days ago now. Where I was cautiously hopeful in that piece, they’ve been outright hostile. These reactions seem very much a coordinated effort. How organized? Well that varies. Consider; these people hated Charlie Kirk because they claimed he was homophobic. And yet they are quite comfortable with Hamas and other extremist Islamic groups who routinely toss homosexuals off the tops of buildings. Their arguments tend to fall apart before the echo dies.
Immediately following Charlie’s death, we saw the chants from the far left, Antifa included, calling for “unity,” and comments that the person who killed Charlie really isn’t “radical left,” and how we should tone down the right-wing rhetoric. Frankly, what I’m seeing of Antifa… and trust me, I’m seeing more of it than you want to (and have likely tripped some algorithm with my research), these are folks you really don’t even want sharing the same air, much less comity or unity.
What exactly is it we’re supposed to unify with? If we hold, and I think properly, that this is a grotesque EVIL, then of what advantage is it to America and its people to unify with it?
I don't like saying this (because I know very well it'll be taken out of context to be used as a cudgel), but here it is: I suggest that were we to unify with what they’ve been doing, which is violence for political means, that within six weeks, there would be no more leftists remaining. Remember, we’re dealing with people who argue about which bathroom to use.
No. If their desire is political power, our interests as a nation a culture, a people, are best served by preventing them from ever attaining that power.
Victoria Taft and her guest, Seamus Bruner. address some of this here.
Antifa and its ilk have created the whirlwind, and awakened the sleeping giant. Our best bet is to make them live through what they fear most… the removal of their political power and the prevention of their ever obtaining it.
First step: arrests and convictions of the group where they have committed violent acts, along with shutting off their funding.
Years ago, the deputy chair of the DNC and now Minnesota Attorney General, Keith Ellison, tweeted an interesting photo of himself holding a book.
"At @MoonPalaceBooks and I just found the book that strike fear in the heart of @realDonaldTrump," he tweeted at the time, with an image of "The Anti-Fascist Handbook" in his hand.
An odd thing to tweet, because according to today's Democrats, the group known as "Antifa" doesn't actually exist.
Or so they want you to believe, for now. When Ellison tweeted that out almost a decade ago, Antifa hadn't yet become the mainstream entity it is today. It wasn't until footage of their exploits in places like Portland and Seattle began making the rounds online that they started getting any attention. By the time the Black Lives Matter riots were in full swing, Antifa had become an undeniable presence, and not one that made the left look good.
They were behind the CHAZ/CHOP takeover in Seattle that made Democrats not just look inept, but also made the radical left look ridiculous. After that, the Democrat Party continued to support Antifa at arm's length, often making excuses for the actions they took but refusing to formally acknowledge them. When asked about it directly, Joe Biden dismissed Antifa as an "idea," more than an actual group.
Today, after multiple riots, assaults, and Charlie Kirk's murder, Antifa is now fully out in the open and largely recognized as villains in our society. Rightly so. Their radicalism made violence a feature, not a bug, and the actions they take range from despicable to atrocious.
This has caused a repositioning of the Democrat view of Antifa, which is to deny their existence entirely.
Erin Burnett did it during a segment on CNN, even going so far as to say far-right groups like the Proud Boys are far more dangerous.
Unbelievable!! CNN's Erin Burnett just parroted Antifa propaganda on air while managing to take swipes at "rightwing extremists":
"Antifa is far from a major sophisticated terror organization like Hezbollah, Hamas, or ISIS. In fact it's not even like the far-right groups like… pic.twitter.com/uEPDCVKlRQ
What you're seeing is the first stage of the Democrat stages of denial. Those stages are:
1. The thing you're talking about never happens and doesn't exist.
2. Okay, it exists, but it's not nearly as bad as you're making it out to be.
3. Okay, it is happening a lot, but it's a good thing and you're (insert accusation of social sin here) for thinking it's a bad thing.
This is going to blow up in their faces in a big way, because this wasn't like other times when the activity they were denying was relatively hidden from the public. The expenditures from USAID, for instance, had to be dug into before they could be fully exposed to the public, allowing the Democrats time to generate a base of disbelief among the populace.
Antifa has been openly active for some time. There are books about them. Ellison has one.
There is endless footage of their exploits online during riots. They have historical grounding in anti-fascist groups in Europe. Andy Ngo's book "Unmasked" ventures deep into the history, goals, and methods of Antifa.
One man literally made his way into an Antifa base of operations and gave himself an entire tour.
INSIDE ANTIFA HQ 🏴🚩
This is 100% real. They have set up camp in Ricky Hatton’s old gym in Manchester and have turned it into something like out of the film Demolition Man.
Antifa is real, and Democrats denying their existence at this stage only makes them look more ridiculous.
But more than that, this is ultimately Democrats attempting to pardon criminals and criminal organizations as they harm people and society. There is no scenario where Antifa are the good guys. They harm innocent people, burn and steal property, and yes, sometimes even murder people.
By the time the Democrats get to the third stage about Antifa, it will be hard for anyone to deny that the Democrats are the anti-American party. Antifa's aims are to bring the Western system down by any means necessary and replace it with communism. If Democrats want to defend that, they do so at their own peril, but rest assured, the Republicans are going to force them through the three stages.
Antifa has to go, and Trump looks like he's going to make that happen.
