Words matter, and few words have mattered more in the history of the United States than those contained within the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, and other founding-era documents stewarded by the National Archives.
Protecting and celebrating the most important works in U.S. history isn’t only important because the Constitution and Bill of Rights, as well as other documents in the National Archives, are still legally binding, but also because they tell a story of who we are as a nation and what it means to be American. Today leftists, including many officials in the Biden administration, are actively working to rewrite that story, and to undermine every part of America’s exceptional past.
Trigger Warnings On the Constitution
One notable example is the National Archives’ decision to post a “Harmful Language Alert” banner above documents in its digital archives, including the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. According to the Archives’ warning, its documents include many “outdated, biased, offensive, and possibly violent views and opinions,” as well as documents that “reflect racist, sexist, ableist, misogynistic/misogynoir, and xenophobic opinions and attitudes.”<
The scientific method used to govern much of popular American thinking.
In empirical fashion scientists advised us to examine evidence and data, and then by induction come to rational hypotheses. The enemies of “science” were politics, superstition, bias, and deduction.
Yet we are now returning to our version of medieval alchemy and astrology in rejecting a millennium of the scientific method.
Take the superstitions that now surround COVID-19.
We now know from data that a prior case of COVID offers immunity as robust as vaccination—if not better.
Why then are Joe Biden’s various proposed vaccination mandates ignoring that scientific fact? Dr. Anthony Fauci, when asked, seemed at a loss for words.
Is this yet another of the scientific community’s Platonic “noble lies,” as when last year Fauci assured the public there was no need for masks? He later claimed he had lied so that medical professionals would not run out of needed supplies.
Fauci also seemed to throw out all sorts of mythical percentages needed for herd immunity, apparently in an attempt to convince the public that it will never be safe until every American is protected from COVID by vaccination only.
And why was it that hard for the scientific community to postulate a likely origin of COVID-19?
After decades of failed climate predictions, one would think the president of the United States would steer clear of making one. But this week, President Biden did just that when discussing what he claims is a global climate crisis.
While out West touring wildfire-ravaged areas, Biden tried to sell some of the climate change measures tucked into spending packages but which “appear increasingly at risk,” according to The New York Times.
“A drought or a fire doesn’t see a property line,” he said during at a stop at a federal renewable energy laboratory. “It doesn’t give a damn for which party you belong to. Disasters aren’t going to stop. That’s the nature of the climate threat. But we know what we have to do. We just need to summon the courage and the creativity to do it.”
He spoke of goals like investing in a modernized electric grid, electric busses, charging stations, and more.
“When I rejoined the Paris Climate Accord after we had been pulled out of it, the goal set when our last administration, the Obama-Biden administration, when that was set, they were set that we had more time. We don’t have the time now. The goals are different because the necessity is there. We don’t have a lot of time. We don’t have much more than 10 years for real,” he said.
President Biden on the urgency to act on climate change: "We don't have the time now. The goals are different. […] We don't have much more than 10 years. For real." pic.twitter.com/HT4zusvdM7
No matter how urgent Biden believes the “climate crisis” is, that doesn’t change the fact that such predictions and warnings have been notoriously wrong over the years.
In a 2019 column, the late Walter Williams recalled just some of them.
As reported in The New York Times (Aug. 1969) Stanford University biologist Dr. Paul Erhlich warned: “The trouble with almost all environmental problems is that by the time we have enough evidence to convince people, you’re dead. We must realize that unless we’re extremely lucky, everybody will disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years.”
In 2000, Dr. David Viner, a senior research scientist at University of East Anglia’s climate research unit, predicted that in a few years winter snowfall would become “a very rare and exciting event. Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” In 2004, the U.S. Pentagon warned President George W. Bush that major European cities would be beneath rising seas. Britain will be plunged into a Siberian climate by 2020. In 2008, Al Gore predicted that the polar ice cap would be gone in a mere 10 years. A U.S. Department of Energy study led by the U.S. Navy predicted the Arctic Ocean would experience an ice-free summer by 2016.
In May 2014, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius declared during a joint appearance with Secretary of State John Kerry that “we have 500 days to avoid climate chaos.”
Peter Gunter, professor at North Texas State University, predicted in the spring 1970 issue of The Living Wilderness: “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable […] By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions. … By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
Ecologist Kenneth Watt’s 1970 prediction was, “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000.” He added, “This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” (Townhall)
The major difference between predictions made in the past and those of today is how much more gullible Americans are now, Williams argued, meaning we’ll spend into oblivion to combat climate change. “The only result is that we’ll be much poorer and less free,” he said.
If you want a hot take on guns and gun rights that probably has no resemblance to reality, you should follow David Hogg’s Twitter feed sometime. Of course, it’s also a place with a lot of stupid that’ll probably cause you to give yourself a concussion with the constant overwhelming need to smack your forehead.
The failed state-college applicant turned Harvard man–if that phrase doesn’t tell you all you need to know about Harvard, I don’t know what will–has said some pretty dumb things, including recently claiming he thinks he’s the target of Russian bots.
But on Wednesday, he went down a rabbit hole of stupid with just one single tweet. Pretty impressive, until you see the tweet.
The second amendment was never meant to be an individual right. In fact- several states at the constitutional convention proposed amendments that would have made it a individual right- but none of those were ever ratified instead we got the well regulated militia version.
Now, Hogg isn’t a thought originator. He’s a parrot, repeating what others have told him and making himself sound important so the media will keep fawning all over him.
This ain’t original either.
A lot of people claim that the Second Amendment was never meant to be an individual right. Yet people like Hogg can never answer one simple question in response. If it’s wasn’t intended to be an individual right, then why did the writers use the phrase “the right of the people” in the first place?
In the First Amendment, it makes reference to “the right of the people” to assemble peacefully and to petition the government.
The Fourth Amendment highlight “the right of the people” to be secure in their homes and their property from unreasonable search and seizure.
The Ninth and Tenth Amendment both also reference “the people’s” rights.
How is it, in 50 percent of the amendments in the Bill of Rights, the writers refer to “the people” but it was only in the Second Amendment that they really meant the people collectively and not an individual right?
In truth, any deflection from this fact is nothing more than an attempt to muddy the waters, to make it seem less clear that our right to keep and bear arms wasn’t so the state could have guns or formally recognized militias could, but for you and me to have them.
This bizarre claim that the Second Amendment isn’t an individual right keeps cropping up, and a number of people share it. It’s almost a litmus test for where someone stands on gun control.
Regardless, though, it’s a tired argument that’s been trotted out over and over again.
I find it amusing that people who think Roe v. Wade is definitive and should be the final say on a topic like abortion are so ready to completely dismiss Heller which specifically found that the Second Amendment was an individual right and not a collective one.
The question was answered, and it’s highly unlikely to be overturned on the merits of anything. If it is, it’ll be an activist court pushing a leftist agenda. It won’t be because of anything else, as I’ve clearly shown.
But people like David Hogg will persist, no doubt, to try and insist it’s a collective right, as if that term has any actual meaning in the first place, and consider themselves smart because they believe that.
However, if David Hogg is the caliber of person who can get into Harvard and manage to stay, then we as a nation need to seriously rethink how much gravitas we give Ivy League graduates.
Sheriff Arnott’s example is bogus. Missouri Law (as well as Federal) makes firearm possession by convicted felons a felony. Of course – knowing him since he was a patrol deputy – his intellect never did impress me.
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) – Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott has been vocal throughout his 20 years with the department. He is pro-Second Amendment rights. It’s why when the Second Amendment Preservation Act was first introduced he thought it was a good thing.
“Basically the way the bill was designed or the intent of it. I totally agree with,” he says.
The intent is to protect Second Amendment rights for gun owners by stopping local law enforcement from enforcing federal gun laws.
Some local agencies say this law will prevent them from doing their jobs. Sheriff Arnott doesn’t see it quite that way, but he does see it has changed the way they work.
He gives the example:
“We stop somebody on a vehicle stop,” said Sheriff Arnott. “They have a hunting rifle in the back, you run the numbers and it’s not stolen. But that’s because [the person] just burglarized a house and they’re a convicted felon but the case hasn’t been reported yet. Nine times out of ten we would seize the weapon in the past. If things don’t add up like he doesn’t know where he got the gun, we [usually] would want to seize that gun but now we’ll send it down the road. Now we’ve probably let a stolen gun go down the road.”
And he says that can mean consequences.
“We may not recover as many stolen guns,” said Sheriff Arnott. “Somebody may get killed because, again, it was used in crime that night that we would have had on a car stop earlier. But that’s how the new statue that’s how we’ll operate.”
Republican Senator Eric Burlison sponsored the bill. He says it is designed for law-abiding citizens and has a loud and clear message to the Biden Administration.
“This is a way of reminding the president, that this is the proper role of government, is that these laws are to be handled by the state and not by the federal government,” State Senator Burlison says.
And he says the federal government will of course be able to enforce its own rules and regulations.
“The people that we pay, and that we tax, our tax dollars are going towards, we want to make sure that they’re following the laws that we are passing in this state,” he adds.
Springfield Police Chief Paul Williams says day to day, this won’t have an impact on the way officers work.
“I don’t think the street officer worries or cares about this whatsoever,” Chief Williams says. “And I’ve tried to make that clear that this is a very limited potential where it would affect them.”
But he says he has seen the criticism.
“Legislators I’ve talked to say this is preemptive. What if something happens? What if the federal government says start registering and tracking firearms? What if the federal government says we want you to go out and confiscate guns from people? We’re not going to do that,” Chief Williams says. “This helps provide that protection. I’ll say I’ve seen some comments from even some of my peers across the state, who I know haven’t read it completely and totally, to see how it’s gonna affect us and how it’s not,” he adds.
Both Sheriff Arnott and Chief Williams agree there are parts that will likely see change. Some they call “grey areas”
“There’s a couple of things in that law that is probably going to have to go to court for the court to decide what is constitutional and what is not,” Sheriff Arnott says.
Chief Williams can see some tweaks.
“I’m anticipating the legislature will hopefully come back this next session and clear some of that ambiguity up, clarify some things, and make some adjustments to any negative consequences to the public or the police.”
But both say, for now, they will follow the rules, enforce the law, and their focus remains the same keeping citizens safe in our community.
EXCLUSIVE: Former acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, who led the Pentagon from the period after the 2020 election through Inauguration Day, said that he “did not and would not ever authorize” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley to have “secret” calls with his Chinese counterpart, describing the allegations as a “disgraceful and unprecedented act of insubordination,” and calling on him to resign “immediately.”
In a statement to Fox News, Miller said that the United States Armed Forces, from its inception, has “operated under the inviolable principle of civilian control of the military.”
“The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the highest-ranking military officer whose sole role is providing military-specific advice to the president, and by law is prohibited from exercising executive authority to command forces,” Miller said. “The chain of command runs from the President to the Secretary of Defense, not through the Chairman.”
Grimes, the experimental musical artist and mother to Elon Musk’s youngest child, brought a sword “crafted from a Colt AR-15” to the Met Gala on September 13, 2021, as a fashion accessory.
USA Todayexplained that Grimes, née Claire Elise Boucher, carried “a sword accessory made of melted guns.”
The singer-producer said, “It’s from these people who are getting people’s [guns] who don’t want to have their automatic rifles anymore, and are melting them down and making them perfect replicas of medieval swords, which I think is just so cool—I think it’s a beautiful thing.”
Photos of Grimes’ outfit show an inscription on the blade of the sword, which reads: “Crafted from a Colt-AR-15A3.”
Grimes attends The 2021 Met Gala Celebrating In America: A Lexicon Of Fashion at Metropolitan Museum of Art on September 13, 2021 in New York City. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue )
Detail of previous photo.
The blade also bears the logo of MSCHF, an art collective, and its Guns2Swords project. The Guns2Swords homepage explains, “We’re destroying your guns and forging them into swords.”
The site instructs potential customers to either send the artists a description of a gun that they would like to be reshaped — or pay $5,000 for a sword that the group has already made from a gun.
The Met Gala is an annual gathering known for its over-the-top fashion from Hollywood celebrities and other elites. The 2021 event featured similarly clownish political statements, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) in a Chick-fil-A-evoking “Tax the Rich” dress and soccer activist Megan Rapinoe flaunting a clutch reading “In Gay We Trust.”
Further hypocrisy was on display during the evening, as the celebrity guests were allowed to disregard New York City’s indoor mask mandate — yet the commoners staffing the gala still had to wear masks.
Retired Army Colonel Douglas McGregor appeared with Tucker Carlson last night to talk about the bombshell information about Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley. McGregor was formerly senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense under President Donald Trump.
On top of that, as we reported, he allegedly interfered in the ability of the president to solely dictate military/nuclear action by telling senior military officials that no action should be taken without him being involved.
This all came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) spoke to Milley and other senior military leaders and demanded that he do something about President Donald Trump. She was told at the time that would amount to a military coup. We reported that back on Jan. 9.
But then, according to Woodward and Costa, Milley acted on it, basically subverting the chain of command at the behest of Pelosi, basically carrying out a coup.
McGregor detailed to Tucker Carlson how wrong this all was.
The White House abruptly cut the feed of President Biden’s briefing on wildfires with federal and state officials.
During Monday’s visit to Boise, Idaho, Biden received a briefing about the ongoing wildfires that have plagued several states out west.
While Biden spoke for much of the briefing, at one point he said he wanted to hear more from George Geissler of the National Association of State Foresters.
“Can I ask you a question?” Biden asked.
“Of course,” Geissler responded.
“One of the things that I’ve been working on with some others is —” Biden said before being cut off mid-sentence.
It's these small, seemingly insignificant events that speak volumes. Our President is essentially controlled by a group of handlers, who have absolutely 0% confidence in him. These are tough times, folks. We're in trouble.
The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.
This isn’t the first time the White House intervened in blocking Biden from being heard by the general public. Last month, the president’s audio feed was cut as he was about to respond to a reporter’s question on his administration’s military withdrawal deadline from Afghanistan.
Joe Biden is looking to add Afghan refugees to the welfare rolls. No, I’m dead serious. The welfare system that is already in need of dire financial tweaks and fraud reviews might add thousands of more…because this is what liberals do. It’s all about the feelings. These programs were meant to help Americans and it should remain that way. Also, Joe Biden left Americans stranded in Afghanistan during our fiasco of an exit. Maybe he should focus on getting them out first before expanding the welfare state. Also, maybe he should get the measles issues that are plaguing Afghan refugees right now under control as well (via NY Post):
As thousands of Afghan migrants are being processed and transferred to the United States, the White House is requesting Congress make welfare benefits available to Afghan nationals paroled into the nation.
During the chaotic US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan as the Taliban took over the nation, US troops helped evacuate more than 116,000 people from Kabul, including 6,000 Americans.
This week, the White House asked Congress for $6.4 billion in funds to help resettle the Afghan evacuees. Part of the funding would go towards authorizing Afghan evacuees who have been paroled into the United States and cleared background checks or screenings to receive welfare benefits and qualify for a driver’s license or ID card. To be eligible, all individuals must have been paroled in the US between July 30 and Sept. 30 of this year.
All who are eligible would be subject to additional background checks and screenings at any time by Homeland Security.
By being granted parole, these individuals will have a year-long grace period to apply for asylum or other visas. The language change requested would seemingly make it easier for Afghan refugees to settle in the US, by providing English training and placing them in jobs, and for the migrants to receive “entitlement programs”
Can we pump the brakes here? Can we at least get several crises under control before we start handing out government cheese to these Afghan refugees? Also, what’s the job placement? We’re going to have millions of Americans racing to find work now that supplemental unemployment benefits have expired. It was a long time coming. It should have been done months ago, but I would hope now that those who had put off finding work restart their job hunt. If they fail to get a job, that’s their fault—but I think the national attention should be getting the economy back on track, getting health job creation again, and curbing inflation—all of which seems to be non-issues with this White House. Nevertheless, these are the bigger issues, not expanding welfare benefits to Afghan refugees.
As long as the $$ is the world’s main reserve currency, the goobermint can kick this can down the road for awhile longer.
If that ever changes – and China and Russia are hard at work on it -it will quickly go from bad to worse.
And I don’t think he’s actually ‘bought it’. He’s just caught between the political rock and hard place, where he can’t dare do anything but lie.
Modern Monetary Theory has officially arrived. That theory, embraced by ignoramuses like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but by no economists, to my knowledge, holds that a government can just print money and distribute it to taxpayers Democratic Party constituencies, with no ill effects. And it will be real money, representing wealth, that will raise everyone’s standard of living.
It is hard to imagine anyone being dumb enough to fall for such nonsense (AOC and the Squad excepted), but the Chairman of the House Budget Committee has bought it hook, line and sinker:
📺WATCH📺
House Democrats argue “we can’t go bankrupt because we have the power to create as much money as we need to spend…”
One obvious question is, if the government can just print money and thereby create wealth, why do we have taxes at all? To be consistent, the Democrats should advocate abolishing the federal personal and corporate income taxes, as well as the federal estate tax.
Of course, Modern Monetary Theory is not modern at all. It has been tried by desperate governments for several centuries, and arguably back to ancient times. Just ask residents of the Weimar Republic, Argentina, Zimbabwe and Venezuela, to name only a few of the most famous instances, how Modern Monetary Theory worked out for them.
Although, to be fair, none of those countries had anything like our $28 trillion national debt. As we cruise in uncharted waters, we are passing the shipwrecked hulks of governments that embraced Modern Monetary Theory, but to a more modest degree than the Democratic Party now contemplates.
Here’s yet another story demonstrating how concerned we should be for future generations. Campus Reform’s Ophelie Jacobson recently conducted a series of short interviews with students at the University of Florida, in which she asked how they believed 9/11 should be taught in the classrooms. The answers were predictable but still disturbing.
Students suggested that 9/11 lesson plans should keep “gruesome” facts out of the teaching, while also avoiding conversations about who was responsible for carrying out the attacks. One student said the curriculum should “avoid placing blame.”
Some of the students argued that professors should not discuss American exceptionalism while teaching about the terrorist attacks. One student insisted that “we don’t need more nationalism in this country…we need more healthcare.” She continued:
“I think they should focus on America’s faults, not how amazing we are and how we need to be superior because we’re not.”
One has to wonder how this particular person would enjoy living in Afghanistan or Somalia.
Another student chimed in, echoing the point that America should not be portrayed as the greatest nation. They said:
“In terms of propagating this idea that our nation is the best no matter what…I would agree that that should be avoided.”
American exceptionalism seemed to be a significant point of contention for these individuals. One of them claimed it is “rooted in a lot of colonist and imperialist notions of how we should treat other people.”
Another asserted that “it’s a dangerous mindset to teach young people that because I think that’s the reason why a lot of people grow up to be extremists and really nationalistic.”
This is the type of tripe that is being taught to students at many American universities. It is part and parcel of a mindset that insists we should focus almost exclusively on America’s faults instead of also acknowledging its strengths.
To these people, acknowledging the evil that led to the 9/11 terrorist attacks is not as important as people who engaged in bigotry against Muslim Americans after it occurred. It is also more politically expedient to focus on bigotry, because it allows them to promote their agenda, which involves demonizing America as much as possible. In the end, this is more about politics than anything else.
A US airstrike in Kabul against a supposed Islamic State bomber actually killed an innocent man who worked for a US aid group and his family, according to newly published testimony and footage — raising the specter that the Pentagon lied to the public about the strike.
The reported case of mistaken identity also further tars President Biden for his chaotic pullout of US troops from Afghanistan, which left behind hundreds of US citizens and thousands of at-risk Afghans.
Zemari Ahmadi and nine members of his family, including seven children, were killed in the airstrike on Aug. 29, one day before the final US evacuation flights from Kabul, his brother Romal Ahmadi told the New York Times.
I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think the idea of a compulsory covid shot enjoys as much ‘broad popularity’ as the author does. Propagandism is known for trying convince people that ‘loud’ equals ‘ alot’.
There is every reason to believe that President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for COVID-19 will not survive legal scrutiny even as compulsory vaccination for the disease enjoys broad popularity among the public. As former Rep. Justin Amash (L–Mich.)—like me, a pro-vaccine, anti-mandate libertarian—has bluntly noted, “There is no authority for this. This is a legislative action that bypasses the legislative branch.”
The courts will almost certainly strike down this executive branch overreach and the sweeping new rules that wave away longstanding distinctions between public and private spheres of activity. This is what happened to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s eviction moratorium. It’s foundational to American life that the president is not a king who can subject citizens to his whims.
Yet the most important passage in Biden’s remarks reveals a governing philosophy that should give all Americans pause, especially in light of the massive and ongoing expansion of the federal government over the past several decades. After duly noting the “progress” made in terms of vaccinations, Biden pulled up short to say that we the people are just not doing what he wants when he wants:
This is not about freedom or personal choice. It’s about protecting yourself and those around you — the people you work with, the people you care about, the people you love.
My job as president is to protect all Americans. So tonight, I’m announcing that the Department of Labor is developing an emergency rule to require all employers with 100 or more employees that together employ over 80 million workers to ensure their work forces are fully vaccinated or show a negative test at least once a week.
King County (Washington) Government
Contra Biden, everything is always (or should be) about freedom and personal choice. That libertarian sentiment defines America’s ethos and can’t simply be written out of the script because it gets in the way of what this or any other president wants. There are legitimate moments when rights can be abrogated due to actual existential threats, but this is certainly not one of them.
As Jeffrey A. Singer, a surgeon and senior fellow for the Cato Institute, has noted, COVID-19 has a “0.2 percent fatality rate among people not living in institutions.” Fully 80 percent of deaths have occurred among people over 65 and just 358 children under the age of 17 had died of the disease as of July 29, 2021. We are not talking about smallpox, which affected all populations and had a fatality rate of 30 percent. COVID, argues Singer, “will not be eradicated” and will become a small-scale, endemic problem that should be minimized by targeted interventions to protect the most vulnerable. From a public health perspective, it should not become the casus belli for a radical restructuring of society and a massive expansion of presidential (or governmental) powers.
Vaccines are not only effective against getting COVID-19 in the first place, they virtually guarantee you will not die or even be hospitalized if you do contract it. Let Washington state’s King County—where the first cases of COVID presented back in early 2020—stand in for the nation as a whole. Unvaccinated people there are seven times more likely to catch COVID, 50 times more likely to be hospitalized, and 30 times as likely to die. Age-adjusted death rates show the benefits of vaccination in unmistakable terms (see chart above).
The rapid development and deployment of safe and effective vaccines—a medical miracle that could have gone months faster had the Food and Drug Administration not acted as ploddingly as a wizened old draft horse—makes possible the return to normalcy that was promised in the early days of the pandemic. We are now capable of setting and enforcing our own risk limits on what sorts of activities we want to do. The information is out there and individuals, employers, and establishments can set and are setting their own rules based on what they want. If we don’t all agree, that’s not chaos, that’s freedom in all its unregimented, varied glory. It allows comedian Patton Oswalt to cancel shows in places that won’t follow his protocols while letting other performances to take place under less-stringent conditions.
As important, the “vaccine-hesitant” are hesitant for all sorts of reasons. Poorer people tend to be less vaccinated than average, and so are blacks and Hispanics and younger people, and, weirdly, people with doctorates. A flat, imperious mandate that doesn’t speak to these groups’ differing concerns will only sharpen political and cultural divides even as Biden claims to be acting in the name of national unity. This is already happening, as individuals and groups are becoming less nuanced in their responses and simply signing up for whatever political tribe they feel bound to. Hence, a sizeable chunk of conservative Republicans are not simply anti-vaccine mandate but anti-vaccine, and the ACLU, which only a few years ago denounced most vaccine mandates, has now fully embraced them. While done in the name of protecting “all Americans,” Biden’s mandate clearly escalates ongoing culture wars.
So even as he ends the war in Afghanistan, Biden beefs up the war on COVID. It’s understandable, wanting to be a wartime president, whether the threats to the country are truly existential or mostly invented and overstated (as they certainly were in the war on terror). Being at war ushers in what the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben calls a “state of exception,” which allows the leaders of nominally limited governments to suspend restrictions on their power.
Heavily influenced by Michel Foucault, who like the public-choice economists argued that power is routinely expanded using medicalized “helper rhetoric,” Agamben was a leading critic of the global war on terror when Western powers, including and especially the United States, vastly expanded surveillance, police, and military actions in the wake of the 9/11 attacks—always in the name of defending a free society (go here for a video lecture I gave at Bard College on this). When his Italian government started one of the first and most draconian lockdowns related to COVID-19, he sounded the alarm again even as many of his leftist allies called him crazy. Yet over the past several decades, governments at all levels in the United States and elsewhere have squandered whatever trust and confidence we once accorded them. When it comes to the Covid-19 response, our official agencies can no longer claim the benefit of the doubt due to an ongoing series of “arbitrary, dubious, and ever-changing recommendations.”
Yet rather than use persuasion and dialogue to get his way, Biden is invoking a state of exception as the pretext for issuing a massive expansion of his power over more and more aspects of our daily lives (Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and other past presidents all did something similar, of course). We must push back not simply because of what his new order would actually do but because of the expansion of political power it continues and expands.
We want to live in a country and a world in which “freedom or personal choice” is growing, not constantly being swept aside as an obstacle to a leader’s plan.
Biden: “Our patience is wearing thin!”
Well, he is known for plagiarism.
So much for that ‘Big Moment™’ he was going to have before he made a bigger mess of Afghanistan. His staff puppet masters are apparently scared to death of him opening his mouth ‘off teleprompter’.
President Joe Biden will not give a live speech to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. He will instead release a prerecorded video of his remarks.
“You will hear from [Biden] in the form of a video in advance—or if that will be available that day, I should say,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday.
The president will attend events at all three 9/11 memorial sites—in New York City, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon—on Saturday, the anniversary of the attacks. Psaki said Biden’s busy schedule that day precluded him from giving a live address.
Former president Donald Trump delivered live remarks to commemorate the attacks on each of the four years of his administration, as did former president Barack Obama each year of his two terms.
Old Joe Biden’s handlers have asked Congress for $30 billion, which means that you better brace yourselves for significant tax increases in the near future. According to NBC News, $23.6 billion of this is slated to go to deal with the devastation from Hurricane Ida and other natural disasters; the other $6.4 billion, meanwhile, is to cover the expenses of resettling 94,000 Afghans in the United States. And really, now, what could possibly go wrong?
NBC explained that “the U.S. anticipates bringing 64,000 Afghans to the U.S. by the end of this month and 30,000 over the next 12 months, the official said. Of the funding for the refugees, $2.4 billion will go to pay for the Defense Department’s operations overseas where the Afghans are being held and processed. An additional $1.7 billion will go to the Department of Health and Human Services to provide funding and resources to the Afghans to help them set up a new home in the U.S.”
This U.S. taxpayer money would also “go to support transportation costs between overseas processing sites and the United States, security screenings, humanitarian assistance, public health screenings and vaccinations.
As RedState reported yesterday, Sen. Joe Manchin finally put a number on his proposed “pause” regarding the Democrat reconciliation bill. Far from being on board with $3.5 trillion in inflation-inducing spending, the West Virginia senator only wants to support as little as $1 trillion.
The next question would be how Democrats respond, and as per our usual agreement, the answer is not well.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that he and his party are moving “full speed ahead.” And over in the House, the Bernie Sanders wing, partly led by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, let it be known that $3.5 trillion is the “floor” for spending. That’s an insane contention, but that’s where we are.
Schumer rejects Manchin's 'strategic pause' on $3.5T megabill. "Full speed ahead," he says.
Bernie: “That $3.5 trillion is already the result of a major, major compromise.”https://t.co/wLAKub3KQ4
What’s not discussed in either of those responses is how exactly Democrats can move forward without 50 votes? No amount of internet tough-guying will change the actual dynamics in the Senate. Further, while less discussed, there’s a margin-busting group of Democrats in the House as well who need to show themselves as moderates prior to 2022 to have any shot at re-election. These are representatives who won House seats in districts Trump won.
The National Archives Records Administration placed a “harmful content” warning on the Constitution, labeling the governing document of the United States as “harmful or difficult to view.” The warning applies to all documents across the Archives’ cataloged website, including the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.
“NARA’s records span the history of the United States, and it is our charge to preserve and make available these historical records,” the administration said in a statement. “As a result, some of the materials presented here may reflect outdated, biased, offensive, and possibly violent views and opinions. In addition, some of the materials may relate to violent or graphic events and are preserved for their historical significance.”
The NARA, which is responsible for preserving and protecting documentation of American heritage, noted that so-called harmful historical documents could “reflect racist, sexist, ableist, misogynistic/misogynoir, and xenophobic opinions and attitudes; be discriminatory towards or exclude diverse views on sexuality, gender, religion, and more,” and “include graphic content of historical events such as violent death, medical procedures, crime, wars/terrorist acts, natural disasters and more.”
Along with committing to diversity and equity, the NARA said it would “[work] in conjunction with diverse communities, [and] seek to balance the preservation of this history with sensitivity to how these materials are presented to and perceived by users.”
This isn’t the first time the National Archives has catered to a leftist view of history. In June, the National Archives’ racism task force claimed that the Archives’ rotunda, which houses founding documents, is an example of “structural racism.” The task force also pushed to include trigger warnings around displays of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, which are all in the rotunda.
As news of the website’s warning circulated on Twitter, the NARA issued a standard response to those concerned by the “harmful” label on the Constitution.
“This alert is not connected to any specific records, but appears at the top of the page while you are using the online Catalog. To learn more about why the alert about harmful language appears in our Catalog, please go to ‘NARA’s Statement on Potentially Harmful Content,’” the tweet said.
