Democrats Still Haven't Learned Any Lessons

posted by Josh Hammer at Townhall 

On Thursday, Senate Democrats voted for the 10th time to prolong the federal government shutdown. They also voted against funding the military, thereby necessitating that the Pentagon initiate some innovative accounting in order to ensure service members are paid on time.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., defended his caucus's latest vote, opining, "It's always been unacceptable to Democrats to do the defense bill without other bills that have so many things that are important to the American people in terms of health care, in terms of housing, in terms of safety." But to most Americans, such tendentious bloviating falls on deaf ears. Most commonsense Americans understand that there is no reason paying America's warriors should be held hostage to arcane debates over housing policy.

As Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., one of three Senate Democrats who joined Republicans on Thursday in support of the defense appropriations bill, put it earlier this week: "You know, if you're thinking about winning the election, now, that's all going to come down to seven or eight states. ... And a lot of the things, the extremism that people turned their back in '24, and that's how we kind of came up short."

It's wise advice. But Fetterman is likely to pay for being such a rare voice of (relative) reason within the party with an impending bruising Senate primary contest.

Why exactly are Democrats, who control neither chamber of Congress nor the presidency, continuing to insist on a protracted shutdown battle? It's a more complex question than it ought to be. But the basic disagreement amounts to one over expiring Obamacare subsidies and the scope of Medicaid coverage -- pertaining, to no small extent, to illegal aliens.

In short, then, air traffic control operations are suffering from a potentially dangerous shortage, America's beautiful national parks are understaffed, and service members could go without pay -- all, seemingly, because Democrats think more taxpayer dollars should go toward subsidizing the health care of illegal aliens.

This is an astonishingly weak negotiating position. Minority parties completely out of power typically do not get what they want during high-profile Beltway budgetary standoffs or shutdown fights, and there is very little reason to expect Republicans to cave. As the shutdown goes on, moreover, the polling on which side is more to blame seems to be gradually shifting toward Democrats.

It is far from obvious what exactly Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., expect to accomplish as the shutdown barrels ahead toward its third week. They are not going to prevail -- and the longer it goes on, the worse political shape they will find themselves in.

Democrats seem to be unable to avoid tripping all over themselves.

On the issue of illegal immigration, the American people are overwhelmingly opposed to their agenda. A Harvard/Harris poll earlier this month revealed that 56% of registered voters support deporting all illegal aliens, and 78% support deporting criminal illegal aliens. On the question of taxpayer subsidization of the genital mutilation and chemical castration procedures often euphemistically referred to as "gender-affirming care," another culture war sticking point, another recent poll showed that 66% of Americans are in opposition. The polling on biological male participation in women's sports is even starker.

Illegal immigration and gender radicalism are perhaps the two least popular issues right now for Democrats. Yet they are arguably the two issues most at the forefront of the current Beltway standoff -- or at least the debate over the scope of taxpayer funding is.

Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military strategist, famously taught that a battle is won before it is fought by choosing the terrain on which it is fought. President Donald Trump, the decades-long branding and marketing genius, already has a keen knack for framing issues in such a way -- the art of the 80-20 issue, as this column has called it. And Democrats seem all too eager to make his job easier by choosing the side whose loss is a foregone conclusion.

What gives?

A rational political party interested in self-preservation and electoral success would certainly take a different approach. Such a party would ditch the post-2008 obsession with identity politics and wokeism and revert to the Clinton-era message of economic growth and cultural centrism.

That Democratic leadership is so woefully incapable of doing this, even following Trump's resounding triumph last November across all the major swing states, indicates that the party is not currently guided by rational calculations. Democrats today are guided not by sober empiricism but by fanciful ideology.

The biggest reason that Trump prevailed in the contentious 2016 Republican presidential primary and has won so much popular support since is that he had little use for abstract ideology. He saw the American people as they are, and he sought to serve them.

Democrats would be wise to follow suit.

Entertainment and podcast thread for Oct 17

'Let there be peace on earth.'.

How Biden and Obama Failed in the Middle East ~ VDH

posted by Victor Davis Hanson at Townhall 

The short answer to why both the Biden and Obama administrations failed to achieve peace in the Middle East is that they took actions opposite to President Donald Trump's current efforts, which have led to a ceasefire.

First, consider Iran.

Iran was flush with cash, on a trajectory toward a nuclear weapon, and arming Israel's "ring of fire" enemies: Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.

The radical Islamic world of the Middle East was convinced that Israel would be doomed eventually.

Yet both Democratic administrations let Iran profit from oil sales.

They talked of delaying, but not ending, Iran's nuclear program. And they feared that Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis were indomitable terrorist threats.

Thus, the disruptors of peace were appeased rather than deterred.

Two, both former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden pressured Israel in general and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in particular to make constant concessions.

But neither offered any plan for how Israel was to survive when Iran sought its destruction, and Tehran's terrorist triad aimed to bombard it with missiles, rockets, and drones.

Worse, once the larger Middle East saw Democratic presidents appeasing Iran and its terrorist appendages, they concluded it was unsafe to take risks by allying with a delusional United States.

Three, both Obama and Biden despised and personally insulted Netanyahu, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and the Saudi royal family.

Biden called Saudi Arabia a "pariah state" -- at least until he needed it to pump more oil to lower gas prices before the 2022 midterms.

Both presidents sought to isolate Sisi and remove him from power.

Obama had his team leak insults to Netanyahu, most infamously the "chicken sh--t" smear.

Middle Easterners have long memories.

Obama never would have thought up the Abraham Accords. Biden foolishly derailed and then pathetically tried to resurrect them.

Neither the Gulf monarchies, Egypt, nor any conservative government in Israel had any incentive to deal with Obama and Biden, whom they despised.

Yet the more Trump respected and engaged with the Gulf sheikhs, Sisi, and Netanyahu, the more their collective fortunes -- and his influence over their nations -- increased.

Four, the Obama and Biden administrations were reluctant to use force to curb terrorism in the Middle East.

Neither would ever have taken out Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and the ISIS founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, destroyed ISIS, obliterated much of Russia's Wagner group, or hit the Houthis hard.

The result was that neither the Israelis nor the Arabs trusted Obama and Biden. So they were careful not to take risks, fearing the U.S. would leave them hanging.

Five, on the global stage, both Democratic administrations had radiated a general sense of appeasement and indecision that empowered enemies and scared off friends.

The Middle East remembered the 2011 Libyan bombing misadventure and John Kerry's pathetic 2013 courting of Russian help in the Middle East.

It recalled the 2014 Russian takeover of Crimea and Donbass, the 2016 appeasement of Iran to cut a nuclear deal, and the 2021 Chinese dressing down of Biden diplomats in Anchorage.

It was shocked by the 2021 humiliating skedaddle from Afghanistan, the 2022 Russian assault on Kyiv, and the 2023 Chinese balloon fiasco.

The Middle East concluded that America was in managed decline. It could not or would not defend its own interests, much less those of its expendable friends.

Six, Obama -- and especially Biden -- were constrained by their domestic bases in a way Trump was not.

The pro-Hamas, anti-Israel left deterred Democratic presidents from taking risks. In contrast, Trump withstood MAGA fury about bombing Iran or allowing Netanyahu to destroy most of Hamas.

Seven, the Democrats talked diplomatese. They looked down on mercantilism -- and so never connected with either the Arabs or Israelis.

Trump equated a peace deal with prosperity. He promised that almost all interests would profit mutually.

For negotiations, he preferred businessmen -- himself, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff -- to diplomats.

It turned out that the Arabs and Israelis did as well.

Eight, Obama and Biden were infamous for their empty threats. Few ever believed Obama's 2012 "redlines" issued to Syria on WMD.

No one took seriously Biden's 2022 threat of "don't" when Russia was on the verge of invading Ukraine.

In contrast, Trump's threats were all too real.

Nine, past American administrations were frustrated with a duplicitous Qatar. And so they appeased it. Trump offered both carrots and sticks. After Israel bombed Qatar, the regime sought Trump's support, shaken and ready to help.

Ten, the Obama and Biden teams -- Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Susan Rice, Leon Panetta, Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken, and Lloyd Austin -- were force multipliers of their presidents' naivete and incompetence.

By contrast, Sen. Marco Rubio, Gens. Erik Kurilla and Dan Caine, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner shaped, shared, and empowered Trump's agenda.

Classical Education Holds the Keys to America’s Future

 The goal is to create not just good students but students who are good.

Kevin Roberts  |  October 16, 2025  |  Modern Age

Euclid with students, detail from Raphael, The School of Athens (Joseph Sohm/Getty Images

Ten years ago this month, I announced that Wyoming Catholic College—where I was then serving as president—had made the deliberate decision to forgo participation in federal student loan and grant programs. Our reason was simple: We believed that accepting federal dollars might compromise our mission to “immerse students in the Great Books (the Western canon), the Good Book (the Bible), and God’s First Book (nature).” In other words, we chose to reject federal funds for the sake of defending classical education.

What a difference a decade makes. Today, classical education is no longer something to simply be defended—it is ascendant, popular, and on the verge of becoming mainstream. According to multiple reports, America’s service academies are poised to announce any day now that they will begin accepting the classic learning test (CLT) this admissions cycle.

The resurgence of classical education and its renewed use in classrooms and homes across the country is excellent news, not only for the revival of a warrior ethos in America’s officer corps but for the future of every American citizen. A new Golden Age will require strong families and good schools, and classical education is essential to revitalizing both institutions.

First and foremost, classical education restores a true anthropology—a true vision of the human person. Whereas most schools today treat students like data points or “human capital”—faceless future workers to be plugged into a failing bureaucracy—classical education considers each child a gift from God, made in His image, and capable of living a good and virtuous life.

That distinct view of education’s primary subject leads naturally to a different end goal. Classical education does not aim to fill a students’ heads with contemporary information, but to form the whole person—mind, body, and soul—toward virtue by introducing them to the treasures of the Western tradition.

The goal is not merely to produce good students but to cultivate students who are good. Naturally, this means that parents can’t watch from the sidelines. John Witherspoon called family the “seminary of the state; the first school of instruction, wherein we have our tempers formed to virtue or vice.” Classical education calls parents to reclaim this sacred duty: first by filling that seminary with children, and second by becoming the primary influences in their formation.

The good news is that more and more parents are answering the call. The number of classical schools has doubled over the past ten years, and enrollment has surged since the COVID-19 pandemic. On the current trajectory, nearly 1.4 million students will be enrolled in classical schools by 2035.

One reason these schools appeal to so many families is that they not only challenge parents but also assist them in passing down their wisdom and values. By giving students the opportunity to read what the poet Matthew Arnold called “the best that has been thought and said”—instead of the latest critical race theory and Marxist-influenced fads that the College Board deems worthy—classical education makes it possible for parents and children to share a moral and intellectual life.

When students encounter the Bible, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and the American Founders, they come to see themselves not as isolated individuals but as heirs to a great tradition. Great books like these don’t glorify “finding yourself,” but they reveal the beauty of giving yourself. Confronted with the weight of this civilizational inheritance, students come to respect their elders and desire to pass down that inheritance to a new generation.

That last point is essential. For all its focus on recovering the past, the classical education movement is fundamentally about the future. As I write in Dawn’s Early Light:

We are going to reclaim the promise of our patrimony in order to secure a vibrant future for our posterity. We will remember who we are in order to manifest a bright American tomorrow, one full of children, prosperity, community, growth, faith, virtue, and liberty.

That remains our mission. And as America approaches its 250th birthday, now is the time to consolidate our momentum and go on offense—for the sake of our children and the Republic they will inherit.

Kevin Roberts is the president of the Heritage Foundation.

Wars and Rumors of Wars

American  Thinker 

The older I get, the more suspiciously I look at the causes of war.  This is natural.  Young people — especially young men — are incapable of properly evaluating risk.  Though they are rebellious, they also follow orders from authority figures.  There is a reason why eighteen-year-olds are sent over embankments to cross open fields on the frontlines: They can be convinced to pursue success and ignore mortality.  Courageous young men look right past danger.  Only years later do they ask themselves, “Why the hell did I do that?”

There is no question that we are being psychologically prepped for a great and terrible war.  Whether you are a civilian, veteran, or active service member, you surely have heard over the last ten years at least one commanding officer describe publicly the likelihood of a U.S.-China war or wider WWIII in the near future.  

European politicians have been instructing their citizens to prepare for a full-on military conflict with Russian forces since the current war in Ukraine began.  Such civilian war preparations have not been limited to the Baltic states, Finland, or Poland.  France and the United Kingdom have spent the last several years conditioning citizens to expect bloodshed with the Russian Federation.

During the half-century Cold War, violence operated mainly in the shadows and through “proxies” so that the United States and the Soviet Union could at least pretend they were not directly fighting one another.  Such was the shared fear of nuclear weapons — and of mutually assured destruction — that even bitter enemies did what they could to limit runaway escalation.  The Moscow-Washington hotline — or what Hollywood mythologized as the doom-averting “red phone” — was established because both sides understood the stakes of WWIII.  

Cold War warriors generally took to heart a quote attributed to Albert Einstein: “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”  With this warning lingering in the minds of men who could unleash global annihilation with the pressing of a few buttons, humanity has somehow avoided destroying itself in the eighty years since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In my estimation, the mood has radically changed over the last fifteen years.  A more cavalier attitude toward the use of nuclear weapons has replaced decades-long angst and circumspection.  Senators, generals, and even diplomats publicly make the case for the use of terrible weapons that could easily lead to mass slaughter on a scale never before witnessed.  Gone are the days of worrying about the end of life as we know it.  In their place, a new generation of military and political leaders seem to be not so quietly echoing a spine-chilling refrain: How will nuclear weapons deter our enemies if we are habitually afraid to use them?

Five years after mass hysteria concerning COVID convinced much of the world to shut down for no good reason, more people are familiar with the concept of “mass formation psychosis.”  Simply stated, this phenomenon exists when large numbers of people believe in something detached from reality.  I put COVID in the same category as man-made “climate change.”  I believe that a large percentage of the global population has been manipulated to believe that both are much more dangerous than they really are.  

For hundreds of years, academic studies have shown how political leaders exploit the “madness of crowds” to their advantage.  In the early twentieth century, “propaganda” even had a positive connotation, as the “elites” of the day argued that “educated” people have a moral duty to corral the masses.  In Public Opinion, writer Walter Lippmann argues explicitly that “experts” should use a combination of propaganda and censorship to “manufacture” the consent of the “bewildered herd.”  If the “educated” class finds it useful to scare the dickens out of humanity with regard to coronaviruses and carbon dioxide, it will do so.

With this in mind, it is entirely possible that I am serving as a useful idiot when it comes to worries over WWIII.  Perhaps I am doing exactly what Lippmann’s disciples wish me to do by professing my genuine concerns regarding the devastating global conflict heading our way.  It still feels like yesterday, however, when I was reading of the likelihood of Islamic terror attacks on U.S. soil years before the murder of 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001.  Now I read and hear similar predictions for a great war ahead, and I cannot help but be filled with terrible dread.  

As with all matters involving mass communication and public opinion, the whole thing devolves into a “chicken or the egg” quandary rather fast.  Am I writing about WWIII because so many signs indicate that it will arrive within the decade?  Or am I inadvertently pushing what I wish to avoid by helping to convince society that it is imminent?  Putting the dilemma of causality aside, I will say that I learned long ago that the war machine first prepares the public for conflict in the information space before officially firing weapons on the battlefield.  

As distasteful as it sounds, the military considers civilian minds part of the overall battlespace during war.  Before every conflict begins, the social consciousness is shaped to accept, expect, and engage in battle.  It feels as if we are being directed toward global war today.

Such an assertion might appear strange coming in the same week that President Trump is brokering peace in the Middle East.  Even casual students of war would expect that region of the world to be fully enflamed during any true global conflict.  Yet there are over fifty other conflicts raging around the world today, and over ninety countries are involved in battles beyond their territorial borders.  Although some Western societies can be hypnotized into believing that the world is enjoying relative peace, war is spreading faster today than it has since WWII.  Even with so much bloodshed, though, we have seen nothing that approaches the level of violence that will unfold should the Russia-Ukraine war transform into a U.S.-Russia war or simmering tensions between China and Taiwan transform into a direct showdown between the U.S. and China.

For the last decade, military academics have been predicting a global war by 2030.  Suspiciously, that is the date that the World Economic Forum, United Nations, and other globalist institutions have been highlighting as a universal “pivot” for humanity.  Artificial intelligence is evolving quickly.  Plans for mandatory digital identifications are taking hold across Europe.  Central banks are designing government-controlled digital currencies.  The European Union wants access to all private communications.  As president, Joe Biden constructed a “disinformation board” to filter public information and censor dissent.  The walls of a grand surveillance prison are being built all around us, while the same powers that be are preparing the public for economic hardship and prolonged war.  

We may not like it.  We may not want it.  But it appears our “betters” expect us to take it in stride.

There is another option.  It is at least possible that billions of humans on this planet learn to push back.  Rather than permitting a handful of “elites” to dictate “public opinion,” the public might discover that it has some control over its opinions, too.  If enough people refuse to engage in senseless slaughter, perhaps the globalists who wish to lead us to war will discover that no-one is much interested in following.  Nothing so perfectly epitomizes the “madness of crowds,” after all, than millions of young people rushing carelessly into the madness of war.

For the sake of those who will otherwise lose their lives in the coming fights, I pray that wiser stewards of peace chart the course ahead.

🎭 𝐖𝟑𝐏 𝓓𝓐𝓘𝓛𝓨 𝓗𝓾𝓶𝓸𝓻, 𝓜𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, 𝓞𝓟𝓔𝓝 𝓣𝓗𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓓

 

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Dems Make A Mockery Of The Word ‘Temporary’ By Pushing For Extension Of Biden Covid Credits

The political hill that Democrats are dying on would lock in expanded Obamacare subsidies, costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

The  Federalist 

As Milton Friedman warned us more than 40 years ago, “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” Imagine what the late, great free market economist would think of the tyranny of the left’s latest political gambit — shutting down the federal government to extend the massive expansion of Obamacare subsidies sold as pandemic relief. 

The political hill that Democrats are daily dying on as the shutdown molders into a third week is the preservation of the debt-busting Biden Covid credits, costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars more and once again making a mockery of temporary.

‘Supersizing Taxpayer Payments’

In March 2021, then-President Joe Biden signed the so-called America Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the nearly $2 trillion money suck identifying as a “stimulus” package ostensibly to save America from the pandemic. Among many bigger big government initiatives, the boondoggle vastly expanded subsidies in the failed socialist experiment known as Obamacare. The expansion was extended in the ill-named Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, “supersizing taxpayer payments to insurers,” writes the Foundation for Government Accountability’s Trevor Carlsen and Brian Blase in a pointed policy paper urging Congress to call the time of death on the insanely expensive Biden Covid credits. 

How expensive? Taxpayers will be on the hook for an estimated $450 billion if Republicans give in to the Democrats’ hostage demands: reopening the government in exchange for extending the Covid credits beyond its expiration date of Dec. 31. 

“The expansion occurred under the argument that we needed to do this because we were in the midst of a pandemic,” Carlsen, Senior Research Fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) and former policy adviser in the U.S. Department of Labor, said in an interview with The Federalist. By the time ARPA passed, many of the state lockdowns were coming down and so-called non-essential businesses were up and running again. By 2022, when majority Democrats voted to extend the Biden Covid credits, the health emergency was well over. 

‘We’ve Got to Get Back to Normal’

Carlsen said the higher healthcare subsidies that were sold as necessary during the pandemic are hard to justify years removed from the “health emergency.”  

“The American people rightfully are saying that, at a certain point, we’ve got to get back to normal,” the policy expert said. 

That point is long past due. Particularly, as Americans learn more about just how generous the expanded Obamacare benefits have been. As the policy paper notes, the Democrats’ subsidy enhancements that have been hanging on for four-plus years made two fundamental changes to “the nature of the ObamaCare subsidies.” 

Households with incomes above 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), were included, “subsidizing even affluent households’ health insurance,” note Carlsen and Blase, the Foundation for Government Accountability’s Visiting Fellow and former Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy at the White House National Economic Council. 

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid, 7 percent of households enrolled in the heavily subsidized health insurance exchanges in 2024 and 2025 reported income greater than 400 percent of the federal poverty level. That number was 8 percent in 2022 and 2023. That’s annual earnings of $62,600 or more, according to the Department of Health and Human Services poverty guidelines.  

The Covid credits also expanded subsidies across all income categories. 

“The extra subsidies were meant to prevent health insurance coverage rates from declining during the pandemic. But the public health emergency ended nearly two and a half years ago.”

Taxpayers are on the hook for more than two-thirds of the plan’s premium for average enrollees with earnings between 200 and 250 percent of the poverty level, the policy paper states. 

What’s Another $1.5 Trillion?

A wide majority of Americans say it’s time for the expanded Obamacare subsidies to expire. 

A new poll from the Center for Excellence in Polling finds 65 percent of likely voters support ending federal health care payments for higher income individuals while returning to pre-Covid rates for lower-income Americans. 

“Support for returning to pre-COVID marketplace rates comes from voters across the political spectrum, including two in three Democrats (67%), Independents (66%), and Trump voters (67%),” the pollster reports in a press release.

But even if Republicans hold their ground for a clean Continuing Resolution without the Biden Covid credits, taxpayers will still be stuck with a dysfunctional Obamacare system. The 15-year-old health insurance law with its big government mandates and pricing rules has raised insurance prices and diminished quality of care, all while boosting the bottom lines of the “greedy” insurance companies they love to hate, the FGA report argues. 

As Carlsen and Blase note, even without the generous Covid credits, Obamacare’s original subsidies will cost taxpayers nearly $1 trillion over the next decade. If Democrats get what they want in the shutdown saga, the expanded subsidies would hike the cost by more than 40 percent, the policy paper asserts. 

Feeding the Beast

To top it all off, the Biden Covid credits have led to an explosion of fraud. The system is littered with “phantom enrollees,” Obamacare consumers who unknowingly signed up or are double-covered in the insurance marketplace, the FGA report notes. Health and Human Services found that there are 1.6 million or more individuals with double coverage — through Medicaid and a subsidized exchange plan. The FGA report notes 40 percent of enrollees in plans fully covered by taxpayers didn’t have a single claim in 2024. 

“In 2024 alone, taxpayers sent at least $35 billion to insurers for people who paid no premiums and never used their plan,” the policy paper states. 

Carlsen and Blase argue that the Democrats’ “temporary” Obamacare subsidy expansion would “reduce employer coverage, prop up insurer profits, and entrench a dysfunctional regulatory structure that significantly increased premiums, lowered the quality of individual market plans, and reduced Americans’ options for health coverage.” 

Of course, turning the temporary welfare program into a permanent payout is the ultimate goal of the Democratic Party. And, as we know, permanency in government comes with a hefty price. 

“Americans are concerned with government that is too large,” Carlsen told The Federalist. “The government that can give you everything can also take away everything.” 

Wisconsin Democratic Party Kicked Out of Family Market Over Vile Trump Murder Merchandise

RedState 

Here we go again, we have another disgusting example of the Democrat Party being fine with calling for the murder of President Donald Trump.

It happened in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, at the Oshkosh Farmers' Market when the 8-year-old child of Katy Neubauer was given a bracelet from the WI Democratic Party's booth. The message on the bracelet read "Is He Dead Yet," referring to Trump.

Speaking to Fox News' Harris Faulkner on Thursday, Neubauer said it wasn't just the one bracelet but tons of other merchandise, which she said included memorabilia with "(Expletive) Trump" on display, including "8647," a reference to murdering President Trump.

"We were down at the farmer's market having a conversation, my sister-in-law next to their booth, and they had free children's books out and bubbles blowing in the wind, and the kids were having a great time, and we didn't think much of it and continued our conversation," Neubauer said. "And out of the corner of my eye, I see the man leaning over and giving one of our children a bracelet, and I kinda waited for it."

"I thought, oh, this is going to be fun, you know, whatever. But the child runs over, hands it to us and we both look down and my sister-in-law says I don't really know what it says and I said it says, 'Is he dead yet?' and we both kind of look at each other in shock and I walk back over to the table and hand it back to him and I had said we don't wear hate speech here," she added. "And I had to walk away because I was seething."

"I went and continued and bought a few more items, and then I decided to confront them a second time. So, at that point, I started going through the bracelets and found others that contained not-so-nice language, including 8647, which I'm sure you've heard that one before."

Neubauer said when she brought it to the market's attention, they admitted they had heard several other complaints about the booth and decided to pull the Dems' booth for the rest of the 2025 season.

I have run the public relations department of a non-profit, and I know what it takes to get an event put together and all the hoops one has to go through to order secure merchandise for your event. The inclusion of that merchandise went through many people, getting acceptance, apparently, all the way along, before it was ever included in the booth. 

This isn't a one-off. As my RedState colleague Bob Hoge reported, this seems to keep happening from the Democratic Party. 

In his recent report, the Democrat Party in Ashland County, Ohio, got in trouble and was tossed out of the county fair for "displaying hateful, bloodthirsty buttons and paraphernalia at an event that is supposed to be 'family friendly." 

Hoge wrote:

Look at these cutesy items they had for sale as families presumably strolled by enjoying corn dogs, carnival games, tractor pulls, "beef exhibitions," and more:

The report included a Facebook post about what happened when it was brought to the attention of the fair.

The Ashland County Fair posted on Facebook around 8 p.m. on Thursday that it had been "made aware of offensive buttons in the Democrat booth." 

"We are a family-friendly fair and do not condone this from any vendor/merchant. We apologize for those who saw the display. The democrat (sic) party has been asked to pack their booth up for this year so they not be here (for the remainder) of our fair week. This is not political; we just can't have this at our county fair," reads the post. 

All this, after Charlie Kirk's assassination and two attempts at Trump's life, is just too much. When will it be called out by the leaders in their party and end?

Democrats And The Media Turned ‘Racism’ Into A Joke. Now They’re Mad People Privately Mock It

The  Federalist 

Of all the matters that are urgent to the average person right now, “Young Republicans” making racist jokes in private must rank somewhere between, “What would be good for breakfast two weeks from now?” and, “Does Taylor Swift fart in front of Travis?” And those things are still about 280 notches below “Was the dress blue and black or white and gold?”

Politico blew the lid off a real scandal on Tuesday when it published a trove of text messages between Young Republicans group members in multiple states. The missives included various slurs referring to blacks, gays, and Democrats. “They referred to Black people as monkeys and ‘the watermelon people’ and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers,” the article read. “They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.”

To get a true sense of how deadly serious this is, consider the names associated with this story include “Bobby Walker,” “Peter Giunta” and “Anne KayKaty.” If those don’t ring any bells, what about, “Joe Maligno” or “Rachel Hope?”

No? Weird. What about “William Hendrix?” Nothing?

Yeah, nobody knows these people. These aren’t congressmen, governors, or Senate-confirmed cabinet members. They’re not White House officials. They’re nobodies who entertained themselves in private with banter they’d never exhibit publicly. Because the same way you might laugh at an explicitly racist line at a stand-up comedy show, but not in the middle of a grocery store, things take on a different meaning in a different context. That doesn’t make it all swell to say crude things in private among friends. But doing so isn’t going to move markets or lower insurance premiums either.

If there’s a wonder, though, what might drive some random individuals to clown about racism and other bigotries, maybe, just maybe, it’s because those same individuals are routinely, baselessly called racists and bigots by the very same people who are faking outrage over this silly story.

It used to be a shocking claim that a person was a racist, because real racism is abhorrent. Now, to call someone a racist conjures up images of that obviously unwell man on an airplane screaming the n-word while wearing a Burger King crown. The whole concept has been reduced to a stupid meme thanks to — you guessed it — Democrats and the grotesque news media. It turns out that after years of hysterically accusing their opposition of “white supremacy,” it’s become a joke in itself.

Gavin Newsom Caught Lying Again — This Time About JD Vance and the Marine Corps

Townhall 

California Governor Gavin Newsom lies, and lies frequently. He lies about Prop. 50, the ballot measure to abolish CA's independent redistricting commission. He lies about free speech. He lies about crime.

So it's no surprise Newsom is also lying about Vice President JD Vance, accusing the VP of shutting down California's I-5 so Vance can celebrate the Marine Corps' 250th Anniversary at Camp Pendleton.

The story started with a fake news post from Meidas Touch:

Here's more:

Sources tell MeidasTouch the White House will shut down portions of the I-5 for Vice President JD Vance’s Marine Corps spectacle during No Kings Protests, triggering chaos, gridlock, and outrage amid the government shutdown.

MeidasTouch has learned from several sources that the White House has plans to close major sections of Interstate 5 for this Friday and Saturday.

"Sources tell" is the media's go-to for "we're going to make this up."

But that didn't stop the Governor Newsom Press Office account from running with the narrative, and throwing in a mention of the Schumer Shutdown, too.

This is not a "show of force," of course. It's a celebration of the Marines, and we'll get to the part about paying the troops in a moment.

Governor Newsom doubled down.

It takes quite a bit of nerve for Gavin Newsom to talk about vanity. This is the man who celebrated at The French Laundry while he kept other California businesses closed, arrested people at the beach, and shut down schools.

For all of Newsom's faux concern about the troops, we don't doubt he'll ignore the Marine Corps debunking his lies, of course. 

The statement reads (emphasis added):

I Marine Expeditionary Force will host a live-fire Amphibious Capabilities Demonstration at Red Beach, Camp Pendleton, followed by a community Beach Bash at Del Mar Beach on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025, to mark the Marine Corps’ 250th birthday and America’s Semiquincentennial.

The force training activities planned ensure our readiness to defend the Homeland and protect our Nation’s interests abroad against emergent and unprecedented challenges today and in the years ahead. The capabilities demonstration will feature integrated Navy and Marine Corps operations across air, land, and sea.

All training events will occur on approved training ranges and comport with established safety protocols. No public highways or transportation routes will be closed.

In advance of the training event and demonstration, we conducted a detailed risk assessment. All participants will be briefed, medical, fire, and emergency assets will be on site, and multiple rehearsals will be conducted. All air, surface, and ground movements are scripted and rehearsed in accordance with standard operating procedures and established safety techniques.

Following the demonstration, Marines, Sailors and families will gather at Del Mar Beach for the Beach Bash, a celebration that recognizes the people who form the foundation of the Marine Corps’ strength – our families and the community – as we share in the celebration of 250 years of service. The event will include food vendors, music, static displays and family activities.

The White House Production Office will capture the Amphibious Capabilities Demonstration for inclusion in a national primetime broadcast on Nov. 9, ensuring Marine Corps contributions to America’s 250th birthday are highlighted for audiences across the nation.

Communications Director to the Vice President, William Martin, also debunked Gavin Newsom's lies about the Vice President.

President Trump issued a directive to keep paying the brave men and women of our armed forces while the Democrats continue prolonging the Schumer Shutdown. That meant our troops received a paycheck yesterday and will continue to do so despite the Democrats' objections.

The Vice President's Press Secretary, Taylor Van Kirk, also issued a statement and said, "Governor Newsom is spreading Fake News to Californians to fearmonger and score cheap political points. Vice President Vance is eager to be in California on Saturday, celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Corps alongside United States Marines who, despite the Democrats' shutdown, will continue to receive pay thanks to President Trump's hard work."