Category: Enemies Foreign and Domestic

EU Chief Calls Nord Stream Attack “Sabotage”, Warns of “Strongest Possible Response”

Update (1910ET):

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen confirmed the Nord Stream pipeline system leaks were caused by “sabotage,” and warned of the “strongest possible response” should active European energy infrastructure be attacked.

An Open Rant Aimed at Those Who Would Repeal the Second Amendment

Talk is cheap, but persuading Americans to surrender their rights will be expensive, difficult, and time-consuming.

Editor’s Note: We are re-posting this 2015 piece by NRO editor Charles C. W. Cooke in light of retired Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens’s call to repeal the Second Amendment. 

A few hours after yesterday’s shooting hit the news, the comedian Rob Delaney penned this tweet:

The @NRA & the politicians they own must not know this T. Jefferson quote. The 2nd Amendment is a ******* BOY’S COAT. pic.twitter.com/cKR0Nk4Uwm

— rob Delaney (@robdelaney) August 26, 2015

For ease of viewing, here is that Jefferson quotation in full (it’s adapted from a July 12, 1816, letter to Samuel Kercheval):

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.

As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.

We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

We should be absolutely clear about what Delaney is arguing here: He is a) agreeing with Jefferson that “laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind,” b) contending that “progress” suggests that the individual right to keep and bear arms is now counterproductive, and c) concluding that it is time therefore to make a “change in law and constitution” — in other words, to repeal the Second Amendment. This, it is true, is not a mainstream position on the American Left — at least, it is not one that is argued openly.

But it is a reasonably popular one on social media, it has strong support   within the more leftward-leaning parts of the political commentariat, it is often implied by the casual manner in which progressives such as President Obama refer to “Australia” and other heavily regulated nations, and it enjoys indirect approval from around one quarter of the American public. When the likes of Rob Delaney and Bill Maher and Keith Ellison say that we need to get rid of the Second Amendment, they are not speaking in a vacuum but reflecting the views of a small but vocal portion of the American population. And they mean it.

That being so, here’s the million-dollar question: What the hell are they waiting for? Go on, chaps. Bloody well do it.

Seriously, try it. Start the process. Stop whining about it on Twitter, and on HBO, and at the Daily Kos. Stop playing with some Thomas Jefferson quote you found on Google. Stop jumping on the news cycle and watching the retweets and viral shares rack up. Go out there and begin the movement in earnest. Don’t fall back on excuses. Don’t play cheap motte-and-bailey games. And don’t pretend that you’re okay with the Second Amendment in theory, but you’re just appalled by the Heller decision. You’re not. Heller recognized what was obvious to the amendment’s drafters, to the people who debated it, and to the jurists of their era and beyond: That “right of the people” means “right of the people,” as it does everywhere else in both the Bill of Rights and in the common law that preceded it. A Second Amendment without the supposedly pernicious Heller “interpretation” wouldn’t be any impediment to regulation at all. It would be a dead letter. It would be an effective repeal. It would be the end of the right itself. In other words, it would be exactly what you want! Man up. Put together a plan, and take those words out of the Constitution.

It’ll be tough explaining to suburban families that their established conception of American liberty is wrong. You might even suffer at the polls because of it. But that’s what it’s going to take.

This will involve hard work, of course. You can’t just sit online and preen to those who already agree with you. No siree. Instead, you’ll have to go around the states — traveling and preaching until the soles of your shoes are thin as paper. You’ll have to lobby Congress, over and over and over again. You’ll have to make ads and shake hands and twist arms and cut deals and suffer all the slings and arrows that will be thrown in your direction.

You’ll have to tell anybody who will listen to you that they need to support you; that if they disagree, they’re childish and beholden to the “gun lobby”; that they don’t care enough about children; that their reverence for the Founders is mistaken; that they have blood on their goddamn hands; that they want to own firearms only because their penises are small and they’re not “real men.” And remember, you can’t half-ass it this time. You’re not going out there to tell these people that you want “reform” or that “enough is enough.”

You’re going there to solicit their support for removing one of the articles within the Bill of Rights. Make no mistake: It’ll be unpleasant strolling into Pittsburgh or Youngstown or Pueblo and telling blue-collar Democrat after blue-collar Democrat that he only has his guns because he’s not as well endowed as he’d like to be. It’ll be tough explaining to suburban families that their established conception of American liberty is wrong. You might even suffer at the polls because of it. But that’s what it’s going to take. So do it. Start now. Off you go.

And don’t stop there. No, no. There’ll still be a lot of work to be done. As anybody with a passing understanding of America’s constitutional system knows, repealing the Second Amendment won’t in and of itself lead to the end of gun ownership in America. Rather, it will merely free up the federal government to regulate the area, should it wish to do so. Next, you’ll need to craft the laws that bring about change — think of them as modern Volstead Acts — and you’ll need to get them past the opposition. And, if the federal government doesn’t immediately go the whole hog, you’ll need to replicate your efforts in the states, too, 45 of which have their own constitutional protections.
Maybe New Jersey and California will go quietly. Maybe. But Idaho won’t. Louisiana won’t. Kentucky won’t. Maine won’t. You’ll need to persuade those sovereignties not to sue and drag their heels, but to do what’s right as defined by you. Unfortunately, that won’t involve vague talk of holding “national conversations” and “doing something” and “fighting back against the NRA.” It’ll mean going to all sorts of groups — unions, churches, PTAs, political meetings, bowling leagues — and telling them not that you want “common-sense reforms,” but that you want their guns, as in Australia or Britain or Japan. Obviously, the Republicans aren’t going to help in this, so you’ll need to commandeer the Democratic party to do it. That means you’ll need their presidential candidates on board. That means you’ll need to make full abolition the stated policy of the Senate and House caucuses. That means you’ll need the state parties to sign pledges promising not to back away if it gets tough. And if they won’t, you’ll need to start a third party and accept all that that entails.
And when you’ve done all that and your vision is inked onto parchment, you’ll need to enforce it. No, not in the namby-pamby, eh-we-don’t-really-want-to-fund-it way that Prohibition was enforced. I mean enforce it — with force. When Australia took its decision to Do Something, the Australian citizenry owned between 2 and 3 million guns. Despite the compliance of the people and the lack of an entrenched gun culture, the government got maybe three-quarters of a million of them — somewhere between a fifth and a third of the total. That wouldn’t be good enough here, of course.
There are around 350 million privately owned guns in America, which means that if you picked up one in three, you’d only be returning the stock to where it was in 1994. Does that sound difficult? Sure! After all, this is a country of 330 million people spread out across 3.8 million square miles, and if we know one thing about the American people, it’s that they do not go quietly into the night. But the government has to have their guns. It has to. The Second Amendment has to go.

You’re going to need a plan. A state-by-state, county-by-county, street-by-street, door-to-door plan. A detailed roadmap to abolition that involves the military and the police and a whole host of informants — and, probably, a hell of a lot of blood, too. Sure, the ACLU won’t like it, especially when you start going around poorer neighborhoods. Sure, there are probably between 20 and 30 million Americans who would rather fight a civil war than let you into their houses. Sure, there is no historical precedent in America for the mass confiscation of a commonly owned item — let alone one that was until recently constitutionally protected. Sure, it’s slightly odd that you think that we can’t deport 11 million people but we can search 123 million homes. But that’s just the price we have to pay. Times have changed. It has to be done: For the children; for America; for the future. Hey hey, ho ho, the Second Amendment has to go. Let’s do this thing.

When do you get started?

Liberal Networks Avoid North Dakota Teen Killed by Man Who Dubbed Victim a ‘Republican Extremist’

The liberal media has long decried the threat of violent right-wing extremism, but when the violence allegedly targets the right, news organizations largely turn a blind eye.

Eighteen-year-old North Dakotan Cayler Ellingson was allegedly targeted and killed by drunken 41-year-old motorist Shannon Brandt following a “political argument,” according to court documents that revealed Brandt’s account of what transpired.

Brandt, who initially fled the scene after hitting the teen with his SUV, told police that Ellingson had belonged to a “Republican extremist group.” Brandt was released on $50,000 bond.

None of the five major news networks — ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC — have offered any on-air coverage to the attack on Wednesday and Thursday, according to Grabien transcripts………

North Dakota Official Says ‘No Evidence’ Supports Suspect’s Claim

A North Dakota official said that there’s “no evidence” supporting Shannon Brandt’s claim that 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson was part of a “Republican extremist group” before he allegedly used his car to hit the teenager, who later died.

Brandt, 41, is being charged with criminal vehicular homicide, as well as leaving the scene of a crash involving a death after the incident in the early Sunday morning hours. He was held in the Stutsman County Jail until Tuesday, when he posted a $50,000 bond and was released.

The incident happened after a “street dance” in McHenry, North Dakota and Brandt told state first responders’ radio that he struck the pedestrian with an SUV because the pedestrian was threatening him,” a probable-cause affidavit states. The document also states that Brandt fled the scene, but later returned and called 911.

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BLUF
Notice how frequently the characters in this melodrama employ rhetoric such as “fighting climate change on the frontlines.” They intentionally frame COVID-19 as a war. And it is – only against you, not against carbon emissions.

Join the other side, the real rebellion – the side of humanity against the technocrat overlords on the digital plantation — by enlisting in a parallel economy/society.

WEF Mafioso Threatens Climate Annihilation, Demands $2 Trillion as Protection Money

WEF transhumanist Yuval Noah Harari – who recently declared that the techno-hell he’s constructing doesn’t need “the vast majority of the population” – has returned to demand that the serfs offer more tribute to their overlords for “climate change.”

 

CNN news actor Bill Weir, who facilitates the discussion, gets things started by sycophantically slobbering all over Harari’s knob in his introduction, fawning over his supposed genius.

An eager beaver, Weir, a purportedly serious CNN—The Most Trusted Name in News™—”journalist,” gets as giddy introducing Harari as a preteen girl meeting Justin Bieber backstage. It’s very strange, and embarrassing. Weir’s wife surely shudders when he comes home and climbs into bed, with Harari’s stench lingering on his person, and probably a few pubic hairs stuck in his teeth.

In this manner, Weir offers an unintentional, powerful insight into just how influential WEF leadership actually is within the corporate media: the mere opportunity to toss Harari softball questions fills him with childlike excitement.

Weir then introduces, albeit much less enthusiastically, a special guest, the obligatory Climate Change Person of Color©—fresh-faced, barely-legal “climate activist” Vanessa Nakate, who, as Weir explains, “focuses on how the climate crisis is exacerbating gender equality.”

Climate crisis —> gender inequality: imagine connecting those dots! It certainly takes creativity, so credit where credit is due. The girl clearly has a healthy imagination.

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This leftist didn’t understand why he was just arrested for running over, killing an 18-year-old “Republican extremist.” Huh.

8-year-old Cayler Ellingson was attending a street dance in McHenry, North Dakota, when he encountered a drunken 41-year-old, Shannon Brandt. At some point, they began to argue about politics, and when the street dance was over, Ellingson started walking home.

But Brandt was waiting for him.

Ellingson’s mom said that the teen called her and asked that she come and get him because Brandt was chasing him through the small town with his SUV, but by the time she arrived, it was too late. Brandt had run down and murdered her son.

Brandt called the police himself to inform them that he had helped them stop a Republican extremist, and that they could come pick up the suspect.

Video interviews show Brandt visibly confused over why he was the one being arrested. The guy really did think he was doing a good thing killing a conservative kid.

A judge ordered Brandt held on $50,000 bail, which he objected to, saying he’s not a flight risk.

“I have a job, a life and a house and things I don’t want to see go by the wayside — family that are very important to me,” Brandt told the judge.

Brandt has so far been charged with vehicular homicide and faces a minimum of 10 years in prison because of a previous DUI on his record. The maximum is 20 years. The police are still interviewing witnesses at the street dance and have not ruled out adding further charges due to the intentional nature of the crime.

Can we really be that surprised that it has come to this?

Welp, Biden’s divisive and hateful anti-Trump and MAGA speech has had its desired effect of making Americans hate each other even more.

As a parent, my heart is heavy for Cayler Ellingson’s mother. I cannot imagine the pain she is going through.

It can’t bring back her son, but there is a GoFundMe me set up to help with his funeral expenses.

Update

Brandt posted bail, and is back on the streets. He is now in the process of scrubbing his social media.

“We’re doing things that help those of us in the anti-Trump world bond with one another and that help people in the Trump world bond with one another.”

“We’re locking in the political structures that benefit Trump…. We are in the middle of a cultural/economic/partisan/identity war between more progressive people in the metro areas and more conservative people everywhere else. To lead the right in this war, Trump doesn’t have to be honest, moral or competent; he just has to be seen taking the fight to the ‘elites.’… Trumpists tell themselves that America is being threatened by a radical left putsch that is out to take over the government and undermine the culture. The core challenge now is to show by word and deed that this is a gross exaggeration. Can Trump win again? Absolutely. I’m a DeSantis doubter…. And then once Trump is nominated, he has some chance of winning, because nobody is executing an effective strategy against him.”

David Brooks slogs along, ahead of his crowd, which is moving even more slowly, pondering the mystery, “Why Is There Still No Strategy to Defeat Donald Trump?” (NYT).

The needed “effective strategy” against Trump is “to show by word and deed” that it’s “a gross exaggeration” to think that “a radical left putsch… is out to take over the government and undermine the culture.” I’m not even persuaded that Brooks believes it’s all that much of an exaggeration to think there’s a “radical left putsch… out to take over the government and undermine the culture.” He just wants Trump defeated and hopes anti-Trumpsters execute a good strategy to take him out.

What would work on these “conservative people” who live everywhere but where everyone who needs to think up the strategy lives? Brooks doesn’t know! He doesn’t even know why all these millions of people love Trump. Does he think it’s because they haven’t yet been cajoled out of believing the “gross exaggeration”? If they haven’t abandoned this belief yet, why would it happen now or in the next 2 years?

I saw that Brooks column yesterday and passed on it, but I gave it another look this morning after Meade texted it to me, which he did because I’d posed the question, in real life here at Meadhouse, “Do you think Trump will run and win?” Meade said the column answered my question. I take it that means the answer is yes.

ADDED: The fact that Brooks talks about a “gross exaggeration” reveals that he thinks there is something true. If there weren’t something true, you’d call it a lie, not an exaggeration.

If a foreign goobermint forced this kind of education system on us, it would be considered an act of war.

Students cannot pass a basic citizenship exam: A shameful indictment of our education system.

A new semester is upon us, and as a political science professor at Suffolk Community College in New York, it’s important for me to gauge what my students already know about American government and politics.

Early on in my teaching career, I found that students came into college lacking a basic understanding of the founding of our country, the Constitution, the roles and responsibilities of our institutions, and the core American political philosophies, including concepts of liberty and freedom.

I decided the best way to measure my students’ understanding of the American government was to issue two assignments. On the first day of class, I give my students a citizenship exam asking very basic questions about our founding and our system of governance. Some of the questions include:

The overwhelming majority of students fail the exam. After twelve years of administering this exam, only 348 students have passed out of 2,176. A shameful indictment of our K-12 education system.

Even worse, the passing rate has dropped compared to when I first began giving the exam and has been stagnant over the last five years.

Sadly, this semester is no different. The pass rate for the test is 70%. Out of the approximately 175 students, only 11 of them were able to pass the exam.

For the second assignment, I provide them with Chapter 1 of the Russian Constitution, replacing Russian Federation with the United States, and Duma with Congress. It is important to note that the Russian Constitution, crafted in 1993, begins with “We the multinational people…,” and that Chapter 1 consists of 16 Articles.

Students are asked to provide a one-paragraph written response sharing their thoughts on this constitution. Realistically, their response should be one sentence: this is not the United States Constitution.

Instead, many will write how they never actually read the U.S. Constitution, which is horrifying given the number of years they have attended school prior to taking my course. Others will reference Article 7 where it explains “…guaranteed minimum wages and salaries shall be established, state support ensured to the family, maternity, paternity and childhood, to disabled persons and the elderly, the system of social services developed, state pensions, allowances and other social security guarantees shall be established,” and praise the foresight of the founding fathers.

Needless to say, when I reveal the results and my deception, the look on the students’ faces is priceless. The shock, embarrassment, and shame can be seen in their expressions. These exercises, however, have proven to be an invaluable tool to make my classes more successful, and they dramatically improve student engagement.

There are three objectives behind these assignments.

The first is to open students’ eyes to how unfamiliar they are with the country they are living. As I explain to the students, they have opinions about everything, but how can they say what the government should/should not be doing when they do not know why the government exists, the institutions within the government, and the roles and responsibilities of these institutions?

The second objective is to teach students to think critically, ask questions, be suspicious, and speak up. After I tell the students what they read, some students will respond that they found it strange that the founding fathers would be talking about minimum wage, pensions, and other 20th and 21st century issues.

My response is always the same, “Why didn’t you say anything or do a quick internet search?” Interestingly enough, they reply that since I am the professor, they trusted me, and I would know more about the subject matter than they do.

Even though they had questions, they went against their gut instincts and blindly complied with the assignment. I explain to my students the importance of questioning everything and thinking critically, regardless of who is providing them with the information.

My final objective is to get the students eager and more interested in the subject.

After the exercises, I begin to probe the students in an effort to understand how it’s gotten this bad. The overwhelming majority of students state that throughout their K-12 education, they were never required to read the U.S. Constitution. This is extremely frustrating, because by the time these students get to my course, not only should they be able to easily identify the Constitution, but it should also be seared into their minds.

The good news is that as my students progress throughout the semester, they understand the intent of government and how our system works. They gain the ability to formulate their own ideas on the issues and develop stronger arguments supported by solid evidence.

As an educator, it is not my role to indoctrinate them on what they should believe. Instead, it is my responsibility to assure they know how the American government operates, nurture their academic development, spark their intellectual curiosity, and get them to think critically about the issues.

After “The Great Shaming,” they are eager to learn.

While many criticize the younger generations, out of my nearly two-decades of experience, I am always amazed at how my students show a profound respect for one another and are much more open-minded than many would believe—far more open-minded than some of the people doing the teaching. Every semester, my students learn as much from me as I do from them, and I have little doubt the same will happen this semester.

BLUF
While this reference guide is by no means a comprehensive list of the administration’s entire gun control agenda, there is one thing that is not missing.

Nowhere in any of the Biden-Harris administration’s plans is there a single mention of how they intend to disarm criminals. Only law-abiding citizens are targeted for disarmament, not the bad guys.

That, friends, is all you need to know of their true intent.

A reference guide to Joe Biden’s war on guns
Documenting the administration’s anti-gun agenda.

The Biden-Harris administration’s war on guns is the most comprehensive and multi-faceted gun control scheme ever created.

Former Obama national security advisor Susan Rice, who has admitted meeting with gun control groups regularly at the White House, likely drafted most of the plan.

Under Rice, the administration nimbly exploits any anti-gun gain, while quickly pivoting away from pushback from the media, the public or Congress.

By design, most of their gun control agenda skirts any oversight — legislative or constitutional — and is immune from other normal checks and balances.

With their weaponized foot soldiers in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives willing to carry out any order regardless of its constitutionality, the Biden-Harris administration has become one of the biggest threats to the Second Amendment since the Bill of Rights was first written.

Because it is so vast and comprehensive, simply tracking all of the administration’s gun control initiatives has been difficult, which is why this reference guide was drafted.

What follows is a partial list of the Biden-Harris administration’s gun control agenda. It will be updated as needed.

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Well, I had never supported SloJoe for as long as I can remember, I always know him as plagiarist who was a pathological liar.
Nice to see some who used to support him seeing the light.

How Joe Biden Lost My Vote

“The new puritans, then, are best understood as a clergy for a godless age, presiding over a dreamscape of their own making, rewriting our language, history and traditions as they go along. Yet, for all their clout, there are still some among us who steadfastly refuse to praise the elegance of the emperor’s new clothes, who would rather point and laugh at the naked man in our midst. Not for the first time in human history, our way out of this madness will depend upon the heretics.” – Andrew Doyle, The New Puritans

Joe Biden emerged from his speech last week “on the continued battle for the soul of our nation” like a squalling infant birthed from the loins of blue-check Twitter, bathed in the blood-red light of militant fascism.

He was finally their guy. Gone was the empathy guy. Gone was the unity guy. Gone was the moderate guy. Be mean, Joe. Get them, Joe. Get tough, Joe. Tell them their participation in Democracy is a threat to … Democracy!

Yes, tell them, Joe. Tell the “MAGA Republicans” they’re not welcome in their own country. Tell them their participation is a threat to a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Tell them that Democracy means they have to sit down and shut up.

Tell the truck driver who travels coast to coast, working the graveyard shift, to bring freshly cut meat to supermarket shelves. Tell the police officer, the waitress, the bartender, the cable guy, the grocery store clerk, the grandmother, the garage mechanic, the veteran who served in Afghanistan who now has been kicked out of the military for not taking the vaccine, the mother of two who now must home school her children – that they are the violent extremists posing the biggest threat to the country they call home.

Tell them, Joe, that you’ve decided to throw them away like human garbage and that you’re hoping for another January 6th so you can arrest anyone who ever voted for or supported Donald Trump. Tell them that you and you alone ARE America, and any threat to your power is a threat to the State because that’s not fascism at all.

Why did Joe Biden give that speech? Who thought that was a good idea? Obviously, Joe Biden and his administration know that the “MAGA Republicans” are not a dangerous threat to the country. Otherwise, the Democrats would not have meddled in primary elections, spending upwards of $46 million pushing those very same MAGA candidates towards a win, blocking the more moderate GOP picks.

Surely the Democrats know what they’re doing, right? I mean, they’re asking for America’s vote to stay in power. Joe Biden wouldn’t lie to the people about something as serious as a threat to the Republic, right?

Wrong. Joe Biden did lie. The speechwriter lied. They would do anything, say anything, and put any community or even the country at risk just to stay in power and hold onto the past, the America under Barack Obama from 2008 to 2016.

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Lies, Damn Lies and President Joe Biden

If the old chestnut concerning “lies, damn lies and statistics” was referring to a U.S. president, it would almost certainly be current President Joe Biden (D).

That fact was proven, once again, during the president’s late-August campaign-style appearance in Pennsylvania. Speaking to an audience at Wilkes University, Biden made another one of his preposterous statements about the AR-15—a type of semi-automatic rifle that he loves to hate and wants to ban.

“Do you realize the bullet out of an AR-15 travels five times as rapidly as a bullet shot out of any other gun?” the president asked those in attendance. Apparently, he received no answer to that somewhat rhetorical question, and the White House press corps hasn’t followed up on the outright lie.

In truth, there are many rifle calibers that fire projectiles at a higher velocity than the roughly 3,000 feet per second (fps) of the .223 or 5.56 mm rounds that an AR-15 is typically chambered in, including the .220 Swift, .257 Weatherby Magnum and the .30/378 Weatherby. In fact, the average bullet out of an AR-15 moves less than three-times faster than a typical 115-grain 9 mm pistol bullet commonly used for home and self-defense. Recall, however, that the president once lied about that round, too, saying, “A 9 mm bullet blows the lung out of the body.”

Apparently not believing the president would simply lie about the easily researched speed of a rifle bullet, the dubious “fact-checking” website, Snopes, looked into the matter. In the end, however, the “fact checkers” treated the asinine statement by the president with kid gloves: “The president’s claim is incorrect, and generalizes the varying speeds of bullets fired from different kinds of guns,” Snopes reported. Rather than sticking to “fact-checking,” Snopes went on to editorialize, “However, the AR-15 is still an especially lethal weapon and has been used to murder hundreds of people in mass shootings in the United States.”

Biden also used the occasion to take yet another shot at those Americans who rightly believe that the Second Amendment was written to ensure citizens could defend themselves against a tyrannical government.

“If you want to fight against a country, you need an F-15,” Biden said sarcastically. “You need something a little more than a gun. No, I’m not joking.”

Having a leader threaten law-abiding gun owners with hi-tech jet fighters seems like something you’d be more likely to hear in an authoritarian state. Hearing Biden make the statement didn’t sit well with freedom-loving citizens.

“While we’re here, let’s also acknowledge that ‘your AR-15 is useless because the government could just carpet bomb you into submission’ isn’t an argument in favor of gun control,” said Amy Swearer, a legal fellow with the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. “It’s actually an argument for a better armed citizenry and against trusting whoever said that.”

Additionally, in the same speech the president once again made his tired, oft-repeated statement about deer and bulletproof vests—a statement so ignorant that it’s hard to believe the so-called “most powerful man in the world” would continue to repeat it.

“And by the way, how many—my dad used to love to hunt in the Poconos when we lived in Scranton,” Biden said. “How many deer or bear are wearing Kevlar vests, huh? Not a joke.”

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: The Second Amendment isn’t about hunting. Somebody should tell Biden that—or at least tell whoever keeps adding that dopey line to his speeches.

Lastly, Biden encouraged attendees to vote based on a candidate’s willingness to curtail Second Amendment rights for all Americans.

“It’s time to hold every elected official’s feet to the fire and ask them: ‘Are you for banning assault weapons? Yes or no?’ Ask them. If the answer is no, vote against them.”

Biden is correct about one thing: It is time to hold every elected official’s feet to the fire and ask them if they are for banning common AR-15-style rifles. If the answer is yes, it’s time to vote them out and replace them with someone who respects the Second Amendment.

9/11 and Biden’s Destruction of America’s Soul

When I think back to 9/11, the memories are very clear. It was the beginning of my senior year of college. It’s difficult to picture the United States responding differently than we did. A nation that was bitterly divided over a prolonged presidential election less than a year earlier united against a common enemy.

“A terrorist attack designed to tear us apart has instead bound us together as a nation,” President George W. Bush observed in his radio address days after the attack.

For a little while, anyway.

Disagreements over the Iraq War and the 2004 election quickly tore the country apart again, and they continued to worsen. Barack Obama’s presidency saw unprecedented partisan bitterness. Despite campaigning as a uniter, Obama shunned Republicans during the global recession, passing an expensive and ineffective stimulus plan and a national healthcare plan without Republican support. After losing one-party control, Obama unconstitutionally legislated via executive order instead of making any attempt to work with Republicans on any compromise legislation. He would then go on to use a weaponized government to target conservative individuals and groups and eventually spy on Donald Trump’s campaign and frame him over bogus allegations of Russian collusion. Adding insult to injury, Democrats would go on to shamelessly blame Trump for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Is national unity possible ever again? For over twenty years, I’ve held onto the hope that it could be, and that it wouldn’t take another deadly terrorist attack to do it.

But that dream is over.

In the past month, we’ve seen an unprecedented raid on Donald Trump’s home over a presidential records dispute and Joe Biden’s recent primetime speech, in which he declared half the country enemies of the Republic. Despite all the bitter division that plagued us before, that speech felt like the point of no return. Joe Biden destroyed the soul of America, and it’s impossible to see how we can ever recover from that. Where Al Qaeda failed to tear this nation apart, Joe Biden succeeded.

Related: White House: Trump Supporters Are an ‘Extreme Threat to Our Democracy’

America no longer stands united. We are two different countries repeatedly proving we can’t coexist peacefully.

On this 21st anniversary of 9/11, we remember the bravery of the first responders at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and of those who took down Flight 93 before it reached its intended target. Many will reflect on the attack on our nation and remember those we lost, and some will offer platitudes about American resolve.

When I look back on 9/11, what I remember most is the way Americans were able to put aside their differences and treat each other as neighbors and fellow citizens. And now I mourn that such national solidarity will never happen again.

San Diego teacher defines ‘fascist’ to class as ‘whites,’ ‘heterosexuals,’ and ‘Christians.’

EXCLUSIVE — A teacher from Madison High School in San Diego claimed fascists are synonymous with the “modern-day Republican Party” and “white, Christian, heterosexuals,” according to a student at the school. Speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation, the high school student detailed the teacher’s unhinged definition of a “fascist.”

The school began the 2022-23 year on Aug. 29. The alleged incident occurred at the high school last Thursday.

“Immediately, I walk in and notice on the board, it says, ‘The Republican Party is the fascist party, and it does not fit the mold of a Democratic Party,'” the student told me. “It’s the first thing I saw when I came in.”

The student took a picture of this and shared it with me. It read, “As it is currently constituted, the Republican Party is now a fascist organization that no longer fits the category of a conventional Democratic Party.”

School board at San Diego high school
Dry-erase board in San Diego high school where a teacher categorized today’s Republican Party as a fascist organization
Taken by an anonymous student

But the teacher didn’t stop there. He continued with his radical left-wing indoctrination by listing whites, Christians, and heterosexuals as groups that are “fascist.” The student took a picture during the class that shows how the teacher defined “fascist.” On the classroom’s white dry-erase board, the teacher wrote the word “fascist,” underlined it, and listed the words: Trump, heterosexual, white, Christian, and hatred of foreigners, immigrants, and minorities, among others.

“Then, he goes to this board and writes ‘fascist’ on it, and this really struck me. He immediately made the comparison of the Republican Party to the Nazi Party. And that was really offensive to me,” the student said. “He listed the Republican Party and the Nazi Party as similar. And that’s just ridiculous, and I took offense to that. So I took a picture of it.”

Then, the teacher continued to insult and denigrate different groups of people, according to the student.

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“He goes on to insult white people and Christian people, automatically putting them under … that they’re automatically fascist,” the student said.

When I asked the student if the teacher said anything specifically about insulting whites and Christians, the student expanded on what the teacher said.

School board at San Diego high school
Picture of how a teacher defined “fascist” on a dry-erase board at a San Diego high school
Picture taken by an anonymous student

“He just kind of put up that they’re fascists, and they support a fascist government,” the student said. “Immediately — he didn’t even ask the class about it. He just made the assumption right away that whites and Christians automatically support a fascist government.”

This happened in an English class at the high school. I asked the student to elaborate on what learning about fascism has to do with the class’s syllabus.

“We were supposed to be learning how to make an argument for an argumentative essay,” the student said. “And the first thing he turns to is that. Then, he just got to the definition of fascism and what he thinks. He put down the Nazi Party and the modern-day Republican Party, which is just ridiculous.”

This is the dangerous kind of indoctrination that occurs in schools today. Parents who lack alternatives to public schools must be vigilant. What happened in this classroom wasn’t education. It wasn’t teaching about the sins of our country’s past — a justification left-wingers often use to brainwash students subtly to parrot their own political beliefs. No, this was overt indoctrination through bullying high school students at a public school in California. Taxpayer money was used to teach students that fascists are akin to whites, Christians, heterosexuals, or Trump supporters.

“This completely caught me off guard,” the student said. “This is an English class. This isn’t a political class or anything. I signed up for the class to learn how to write papers and stuff,” the student said. “I didn’t sign up for the class for a teacher to be trying to shove his ideology down my throat.”

Unfortunately, this is what many teachers do today. Their priority is spreading such radical, left-wing political ideologies. They want to indoctrinate, not educate. And they feel so comfortable about it that they do it openly.

5 questions about New York’s new social media requirements for gun applicants

New gun laws in New York for those seeking a concealed carry license, including a review of social media accounts by law enforcement, was cleared to go into effect by a federal judge last week, but questions about how the state will enforce it and future legal challenges remain.

The new rules, part of the state’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act, followed a Supreme Court ruling in June that prohibits states from requiring residents seeking a gun license to prove a special need to carry a handgun outside the home.

The case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, challenged a provision of New York’s 109-year-old concealed carry law that required applicants to have “proper cause” for the permit — a special need for self-defense. Five other states had similar laws.

New York responded with a number of changes, including requiring concealed carry applicants to share “a list of former and current social media accounts” from the past three years to assess the applicant’s “character and conduct.” The rule comes in the aftermath of mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas, where the gunmen reportedly posted warnings about their violence online.

The new state laws, which also require more classroom and in-person training for concealed carry licenses and the creation of “sensitive places” where guns are not permitted, have already been met with lawsuits. Judge Glenn Suddaby declined to put the law on hold a day before it took effect, saying the New York resident and three gun rights organizations who filed lawsuits didn’t have standing to bring the legal action. But he indicated he believed some parts of the laws were unconstitutional, and legal experts expect other challenges in the future.

While written testimonies are common for gun permits across the country, requiring social media records is an added layer that has not been implemented in other places for the purposes of gun permitting.

“I refuse to surrender my right as Governor to protect New Yorkers from gun violence or any other form of harm. In New York State, we will continue leading the way forward and implementing common sense gun safety legislation,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said of the conceal carry changes in a statement last week.

The social media requirement has raised questions about privacy and what states can request in the permitting process.

Max Markham, vice president of policy and community engagement at the Center for Policing Equity, said he believes the laws as a whole are a “strong legislative package” when it comes to curbing gun violence. But he said the social media requirement is unclear in its scope and implementation, and will need to be better defined in the near future. He added that he expects conservative groups, in particular, will fight the law on constitutional grounds.

Markham said the law includes a process to appeal if a person’s application for a concealed carry permit is rejected, which he believes can help increase accountability and provide space “for individuals who may feel like they’ve been judged incorrectly.”

“I think seeing how it is enforced and ensuring that there is some degree of equity will be really key,” he said.

What is the scope of the law?

The wording of the requirement suggests applicants only need to share their public content with officials, and that the purpose of the search is to corroborate written testimony from character witnesses, according to David Greene, civil liberties director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Greene believes the social media rules are intended to look for stated intent to commit crimes with a gun. But Greene said there’s a host of information unrelated to a search for criminality that can be gleaned from accessing someone’s social media history.

“[It] can say a lot about someone’s political affiliations, about the community organizations they belong to, about religious groups they’re active in … and their familial relationships,” he said.

Greene said that context – which is hard to gather from a quick social media scan – is relevant to what people share on the platforms, and it can be difficult to get that from a profile alone .

While New York’s new gun law includes welcome changes, such as requiring more firearm training, the social media requirements are a “poor” part and have “serious” privacy concerns, said Adam Scott Wandt, an associate professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“I question whether or not that part of the law will subject the state to lawsuits that will eventually find the law unconstitutional. And I also have serious privacy concerns with the state requiring somebody to submit social media accounts for review based upon unclear criteria as to what constitutes ‘good character’ and moral and what doesn’t. It’s messy,” Wandt said.

The New York City Bar Association Committee on Technology, Privacy and Cyber, which Wandt co-chairs, did not have time to offer input or feedback on the laws, either, he said..

Hochul’s office did not answer a question from the PBS NewsHour about outside expert review on the new set of laws.

Is social media monitoring for licenses used elsewhere in government?

Social media monitoring to get an official government license is a rare official policy but at least one other agency has adopted the practice.

Greene said visa applicants have been required to share their social media accounts since 2019. The requirements, originally created under the Trump administration, have been continued by Joe Biden. Users are required to provide social media accounts used in the last five years from a list of 20 platforms. Applicants do have the option to select “none” if they have not used any of the social media sites.

According to the State Department, the collection and review of social media information is intended to “enhance the screening and vetting of applications for visas and other immigraiton benefits, so as to increase the safety and security of the American people.”

Wandt said that he is also concerned about social media reporting requirements being expanded to other professional licensing administered by the government, potentially forcing some people seeking these licenses to sacrifice privacy for their work, he said.

Wandt said there were also questions about how he social media information gleaned from firearm applications will be used or stored by law enforcement.

“Do these things go into a database when the NYPD pulls me over? Is there a database now that they’ll be able to look at and see my social media because I applied for a handgun? I think there are more questions than answers at this point,” he said.

Hochul’s office did not respond to a question from the NewsHour about what happens to the records of an applicant’s social media account after a permit is processed.

Which law enforcement agencies will conduct these searches?

Who will grant gun licenses in New York under the new law is dependent on the jurisdiction. In New York City, the NY Police Department issues gun licenses and will check social media accounts. Across the state, there may be some sheriff’s departments who conduct the checks, but in many cases, a county authority, such as a judge, issues the license. However, in those cases, responsibility for ensuring requirements for a gun license are met will still fall to the sheriffs.

“Troopers remain committed to this mission, and we are dedicated to stopping the criminals who traffic illegal guns and endanger our communities,” State Police Superintendent Kevin P. Bruen said in a statement.

NY Sheriff’s Association Executive Director Peter Kehoe said there is worry by sheriffs that the task of searching through social media accounts would be too difficult. He said there is a risk that law enforcement will miss something in the social media account of someone issued with a gun license who then goes on to commit a crime, putting that responsibility and accountability on the sheriffs.

READ MORE: Gun applicants in NY will have to hand over social media accounts

“It falls on the sheriff because he missed something when he was given an impossible task,” he said.

Kehoe adds that the definition of “character and conduct” under the new statute is too vague.

“The statute says that they have to give us social media accounts and we have to use those to determine whether or not the individual has the right temperament and judgment to be entrusted with a weapon,” Kehoe said.

“What we think shows good judgment might not be the next guy’s estimate of good judgment and it’s all gonna be based on the eyes and ears of the person who’s reviewing it,” Kehoe said.

However, Kehoe denied that political biases would play a role in vetting.

“They’re going to be looking at these accounts. And if they see something concerning, they’re gonna put that in their background report to the judge then it’s gonna be up to the judge to decide, I guess, whether or not that particular concern is disqualifying for the person to have a license.”

In a statement to the NewsHour, Hochul’s office said the law doesn’t change the nature of licensing, it simply adds a new requirement for applicants.

“Local law enforcement and licensing officials have always been responsible for evaluating information provided by prospective applicants to determine whether a permit should be issued. The law doesn’t change that,” the statement said.

“It simply requires them to consider social media activity and other new information as part of their review process for concealed carry applications.”

Is there any training being provided for those doing this vetting?

The section of the law that requires applicants to disclose their social media accounts does not detail what training is required for those doing the vetting. Kehoe said law enforcement has not been given additional funding to do training for law enforcement, or to conduct checks of social media accounts. Kehoe expects “millions” of applicants under New York’s new gun licensing rules, many of whom will have more than one social media account.

“Just on a very practical level, we don’t think we can do this.”

Applicants will only be required to provide social media accounts used in the past three years, however, Kehoe said law enforcement may be required to look farther back into those accounts.

“The statute didn’t provide any resources for us to do this and it’s just not going to be possible to get it done without additional manpower,” Kehoe said.

Markham hopes the state will provide bias training for officials combing through social media, reflecting a wider push for law enforcement agencies to minimize possible unequal treatment of minority communities.

Hochul’s office did not respond to a question about whether additional training or resources would be provided to law enforcement in support of the new requirements.

Can monitoring social media work?

The social media search may catch some people who shouldn’t have access to firearms but many more, including those who might be most dangerous and inhabit the darkest parts of the internet, will slip through the cracks, Wandt said.

“Putting all the constitutional and moral issues aside, I stand by my experience and research that shows me that the truly dangerous, disturbed people have multiple social media accounts, usually not under their real name, and I highly doubt that they will be reported on a application for a carry permit,” Wandt said.

Greene said asking whether it will work is the wrong question, since he believes such policies can be inherently harmful, especially if other government institutions, such as general law enforcement, adopt similar policies.

“I do think there’s something dangerous about institutionalizing and normalizing having people provide their social media accounts to the government,” he said.

Is Fascism Left- or Right-Wing?

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Is fascism a left or right-wing ideology?

“We know the name of the philosopher of capitalism: Adam Smith. We know the name of the philosopher of Marxism: Karl Marx. But who’s the philosopher of fascism?

“Yes—exactly. You don’t know.

“Don’t feel bad. Almost no one knows. This is not because he doesn’t exist, but because historians, most of whom are on the political left, had to erase him from history in order to avoid confronting fascism’s actual beliefs. So, let me introduce him to you. His name is Giovanni Gentile.

“Born in 1875, he was one of the world’s most influential philosophers in the first half of the twentieth century. Gentile believed that there were two “diametrically opposed” types of democracy. One is liberal democracy, such as that of the United States, which Gentile dismisses as individualistic—too centered on liberty and personal rights—and therefore selfish. The other, the one Gentile recommends, is “true democracy,” in which individuals willingly subordinate themselves to the state.

“Like his philosophical mentor, Karl Marx, Gentile wanted to create a community that resembles the family, a community where we are “all in this together.” It’s easy to see the attraction of this idea. Indeed, it remains a common rhetorical theme of the left.

“For example, at the 1984 convention of the Democratic Party, the governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, likened America to an extended family where, through the government, people all take care of each other.

“Nothing’s changed. Thirty years later, a slogan of the 2012 Democratic Party convention was, “The government is the only thing we all belong to.” They might as well have been quoting Gentile.

“Now, remember, Gentile was a man of the left. He was a committed socialist. For Gentile, fascism is a form of socialism—indeed, its most workable form. While the socialism of Marx mobilizes people on the basis of class, fascism mobilizes people by appealing to their national identity as well as their class. Fascists are socialists with a national identity. German Fascists in the 1930s were called Nazis—basically a contraction of the term “national socialist.”

“For Gentile, all private action should be oriented to serve society; there is no distinction between the private interest and the public interest. Correctly understood, the two are identical. And who is the administrative arm of the society? It’s none other than the state.

“Consequently, to submit to society is to submit to the state—not just in economic matters, but in all matters. Since everything is political, the state gets to tell everyone how to think and what to do.

“It was another Italian, Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943, who turned Gentile’s words into action. In his Dottrina del Fascismo, one of the doctrinal statements of early fascism, Mussolini wrote, “All is in the state and nothing human exists or has value outside the state.” He was merely paraphrasing Gentile.

“The Italian philosopher is now lost in obscurity, but his philosophy could not be more relevant because it closely parallels that of the modern left. Gentile’s work speaks directly to progressives who champion the centralized state.

“Here in America, the left has vastly expanded state control over the private sector, from healthcare to banking; from education to energy. This state-directed capitalism is precisely what German and Italian fascists implemented in the 1930s.

Leftists can’t acknowledge their man, Gentile, because that would undermine their attempt to bind conservatism to fascism.

“Conservatism wants small government so that individual liberty can flourish. The left, like Gentile, wants the opposite: to place the resources of the individual and industry in the service of a centralized state. To acknowledge Gentile is to acknowledge that fascism bears a deep kinship to the ideology of today’s left. So, they will keep Gentile where they’ve got him: dead, buried, and forgotten.

“But we should remember, or the ghost of fascism will continue to haunt us.”