Independence Day - Why is it so important?

by William Federer: 38-year-old King George III ruled the largest empire that planet earth had ever seen.

The Declaration of Independence, signed JULY 4, 1776, listed 27 reasons why Americans declared their independence from the King:

– He has made judges dependent on his will alone …

– He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

– He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies …

– To subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution …

– For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us …

– For imposing taxes on us without our consent …

– For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury …

– For … establishing … an arbitrary government …

– For … altering fundamentally the forms of our governments …

– He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

– He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny …

– He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.“33-year-old Thomas Jefferson’s original rough draft of the Declaration contained a line condemning slavery:"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself … in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither …

suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold.”A few delegates from southern states objected, and since the Declaration needed to pass unanimously and time was running short with the British invading New York, the line condemning slavery was unfortunately omitted.

John Hancock, the 39-year-old President of the Continental Congress, signed the Declaration first, reportedly saying “the price on my head has just doubled.”

Next to sign was Secretary, Charles Thomson, age 47.

70-year-old Benjamin Franklin said:

“We must hang together or most assuredly we shall hang separately.”

The Declaration referred to God:

“Laws of Nature and of NATURE’S GOD …”

“All Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain unalienable Rights ..”

“Appealing to the SUPREME JUDGE OF THE WORLD for the rectitude of our intentions …”

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”This was revolutionary, as kings claimed “the divine right of kings,” namely, that the Creator gives rights to the king, who dispenses them, at his discretion, to his subjects.

The Declaration of Independence bypassed the King, declaring that the Creator gives rights directly to “all men.”

Many of the 56 signers sacrificed their prosperity for their posterity.

Of the Signers:

11 had their homes destroyed;

5 were hunted and captured;

17 served in the military; and

9 died during the war.

27-year-old George Walton signed, and at the Battle of Savannah was wounded and captured.

Signers Edward Rutledge, age 27, Thomas Heyward, Jr., age 30, and Arthur Middleton, age 34, were made prisoners at the Siege of Charleston.

38-year-old signer Thomas Nelson had his home used as British headquarters during the siege of Yorktown. Nelson reportedly offered five guineas to the first man to hit his house.

Signer Carter Braxton, age 40, lost his fortune during the war.

42-year-old signer Thomas McKean wrote that he was “hunted like a fox by the enemy, compelled to remove my family five times in three month.”

46-year-old Richard Stockton signed and was dragged from his bed at night and jailed.

50-year-old signer Lewis Morris had his home taken and used as a barracks.

50-year-old signer Abraham Clark had two sons tortured and imprisoned on the British starving ship Jersey.

More Americans died on British starving ships than died in battle during the Revolution.

53-year-old signer Rev. John Witherspoon had his son, James, killed in the Battle of Germantown.

60-year-old signer Philip Livingston lost several properties to British occupation and died before the war ended.

63-year-old signer Francis Lewis found out that the British plundered his home and carried away his wife, Elizabeth, putting her in prison.

The British wanted to make an example of her, so they denied her a change of clothes, a bed, and gave her nothing but the most meager food. She was treated so harshly that she died shortly after being released.

65-year-old signer John Hart had his home looted and had to remain in hiding, dying before the war ended.41-year-old John Adams wrote to his wife of the Declaration:“I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary Festival.

It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by SOLEMN ACTS OF DEVOTION TO GOD ALMIGHTY.

It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shews, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this time forward forever more.”Gustave de Beaumont, a contemporary of Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote in Marie ou L'Esclavage aux E'tas-Unis, 1835:“I have seen a meeting of the Senate in Washington open with a prayer, and the anniversary festival of the Declaration of Independence consists, in the United States, of an entirely religious ceremony.”John Adams continued in his letter to his wife:“You will think me transported with enthusiasm but I am not.

I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States.

Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means.

And that Posterity will triumph in that Days Transaction, even although we should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.”When 54-year-old Samuel Adams signed the Declaration, he said:“We have this day restored THE SOVEREIGN to whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come.”34-year-old James Wilson signed the Declaration. He later signed the Constitution and was appointed to Supreme Court by George Washington. James Wilson stated in 1787:“After a period of 6,000 years since creation, the United States exhibit to the world THE FIRST INSTANCE of a nation … assembling voluntarily … and deciding … that system of government under which they and their posterity should live.”Senator Daniel Webster stated in 1802:“Miracles do not cluster, and what has HAPPENED ONCE IN 6,000 YEARS, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.”John Jay was President of the Continental Congress, 1778-1779, and later nominated by George Washington to be the First Chief Justice of Supreme Court. John Jay wrote in 1777:“The Americans are THE FIRST PEOPLE whom Heaven has favored with an opportunity of … choosing the forms of government under which they should live. All other constitutions have derived their existence from violence or accidental circumstances …

Your lives, your liberties, your property, will be at the disposal only of your Creator and yourselves.”Yale President Ezra Stiles, 1788:“All the forms of civil polity have been tried by mankind, except one: and that seems to have been reserved in Providence to be realized in America.”At the time of the Revolutionary War, nearly every other country on Earth was ruled by a king.

Dr. Pat Robertson wrote in America’s Dates with Destiny, 1986:
“On September 17, 1787, the day our Constitution was signed, the absolute monarch Ch'ien Lung, emperor of the Manchu (or Ch'ing) Dynasty, reigned supreme over the people of China … Revolts were put down by ruthless military force.

In Japan the shogun (warriors) of the corrupt Tokugawa chamberlain Tanuma Okitsugu exercised corrupt and totalitarian authority over the Japanese.

In India, Warren Hastings, the British Governor of Bengal, had successfully defeated the influence of the fragmented Mogul dynasties that ruled India since 1600.

Catherine II was the enlightened despot of all the Russias.

Joseph II was the emperor of Austria, Bohemia and Hungary.

For almost half a century, Frederick the Great had ruled Prussia.

Louis XVI sat uneasily on his throne in France just years away from revolution, a bloody experiment in democracy, and the new tyranny of Napoleon Bonaparte.

A kind of a constitutional government had been created in the Netherlands in 1579 by the Protestant Union of Utrecht, but that constitution was really a loose federation of the northern provinces for a defense against Catholic Spain …

What was happening in America had no real precedent, even as far back as the city-states of Greece.

The only real precedent was established thousands of years before by the tribes of Israel in the covenant with God and with each other.”Check out historical resources like America’s God and Country!

President Theodore Roosevelt stated in 1903:
“In NO other place and at NO other time has the experiment of government of the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE, been tried on so vast a scale as here in our own country.”President Calvin Coolidge stated in 1924:“The history of government on this earth has been almost entirely … rule of force held in the HANDS OF A FEW. Under our Constitution, America committed itself to power in the HANDS OF THE PEOPLE.”A King has “subjects” who are subjected to his will.

The word “citizen” is Greek, and it means a co-ruler, a co-regent, a co-king.

A republic is where the people are king, ruling through representatives.

America is a republic where THE PEOPLE get to rule themselves.

When someone protests the flag, what they are saying, is that they no longer want to be king. They protest this system where they participate in ruling themselves.They want someone else to rule their life.

Ronald Reagan opened the Ashbrook Center, Ashland, Ohio, May 9, 1983:
“From their own harsh experience with intrusive, overbearing government, the Founding Fathers made a great breakthrough in political understanding:

They understood that it is the excesses of government, the will to power of one man over another, that has been a principle source of injustice and human suffering through the ages …”

“The Founding Fathers understood that only by MAKING GOVERNMENT THE SERVANT, not the master, only by positing SOVEREIGNTY in THE PEOPLE and not the state can we hope to protect freedom and see the political commonwealth prosper.

In 1776 the source of government excess was the crown’s abuse of power and its attempt to suffocate the colonists with its overbearing demands.

In our own day, the danger of too much state power has taken a subtler but no less dangerous form.”John Adams wrote in his notes on A Dissertation on Canon & Feudal Law, 1765:
“I always consider the settlement of America … as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for … the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.”John Jay noted in 1777:“This glorious revolution … distinguished by so many marks of the Divine favor and interposition … and I may say miraculous, that when future ages shall read its history they will be tempted to consider a great part of it as fabulous …

The many remarkable … events by which our wants have been supplied and our enemies repelled … are such strong and striking proofs of the interposition of Heaven, that our having been hitherto delivered from the threatened bondage of Britain ought, like the emancipation of the Jews from Egyptian servitude.”Franklin Roosevelt stated in 1939:“Rulers … increase their power over the common men. The seamen they sent to find gold found instead the way of escape for the common man from those rulers …

What they found over the Western horizon was not the silk and jewels of Cathay … but MANKIND’S SECOND CHANCE — a chance to create a new world after he had almost spoiled an old one …

The Almighty seems purposefully to have withheld that SECOND CHANCE until the time when men would most need and appreciate liberty.”Ronald Reagan stated 1961:“In this country of ours took place THE GREATEST REVOLUTION that has ever taken place IN THE WORLD’S HISTORY — Every other revolution simply exchanged one set of rulers for another …

Here for THE FIRST TIME in all the THOUSANDS OF YEARS of man’s relation to man … the founding fathers established the idea that you and I had within ourselves the GOD-GIVEN RIGHT AND ABILITY to DETERMINE OUR OWN DESTINY.”British Edwardian writer G.K. Chesterton stated in “What is America”:“America is the ONLY NATION IN THE WORLD that is founded on creed. That creed is set forth … in the Declaration of Independence …

that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice …

It certainly does condemn … atheism, since it clearly names the CREATOR as the ultimate authority from whom these equal rights are derived.”Calvin Coolidge stated July 5, 1926:“THE PRINCIPLES … which went into the Declaration of Independence … are found in … THE SERMONS … of the early colonial clergy …

They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the Divine image.”Henry Cabot Lodge, who filled the role of the first Senate Majority Leader, warned the U.S. Senate in 1919:“The United States is the world’s best hope … Beware how you trifle with your marvelous inheritance … for if we stumble and fall, freedom and civilization everywhere will go down in ruin.”----------------------
William J. Federer (@BillFederer) is a nationally known speaker, best-selling author, and president of Amerisearch, Inc., a publishing company dedicated to researching America's noble heritage. He originally shared this article on American Minute with Bill Federer

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VP Pence: 'There Is Nothing Compassionate About Open Borders'

Vice President Mike Pence

by Samuel Smith: Vice President Mike Pence told a gathering of conservative Christian activists Saturday night that the Democratic policy goals relating to border security are “morally wrong” and would only enable the abuse and assault of migrants being trafficked to the southern border.

Speaking at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual gala dinner at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington D.C., Pence didn’t hold back in responding to a week filled with criticism of the Trump administration following unfavorable mainstream media reports of conditions facing migrant children at the southern border.

As conservative evangelicals continue to be chastised by Democrats for their support of the Trump administration and immigration agenda, Pence suggested to donors of the leading national conservative evangelical grassroots organization that securing the southern border and building a wall is the morally appropriate response.

“After spending the last six months denying there was a crisis at our southern border and doing nothing while our courageous and compassionate Customs and Border Protection personnel were overwhelmed by that crisis, now some Democrats want to lecture us about their moral concern,” Pence griped.

“There's nothing compassionate about refusing to change the laws that human traffickers use to take advantage of poor families,” he continued. “Those who would advocate open borders, free health care for illegal immigrants and making illegal immigration legal are making it easier for human traffickers to mistreat poor and vulnerable families. That is morally wrong. And that has got to stop.”

Pence shared that the U.S. is on track to have nearly 1 million migrants come across the southern border this year “to take advantage of loopholes in our laws.”

“And so the first time in history, the majority of them are families that are being enticed by human traffickers who charge them $5,000 a person by most estimates,” the 60-year-old former governor of Indiana stated. “They're enticed to pay cash to be taken on the long and dangerous journey north to our border.”

Pence stressed that the journey from Central America to the U.S. southern border is a dangerous one that is fraught with “unspeakable violence.”

“Seventy percent of illegal immigrants once they present at the border report being victims of violence along the way,” he told the crowd. “According to Doctors Without Borders, nearly one-third of young women traveling to our southern border from Central America are sexually assaulted on the journey.”

He voiced grievance over the death of Óscar and Valeria Martinez, whose bodies were featured in a viral photograph this week after they drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande.

“It shocked the conscience of the nation,” Pence said. “The truth is what we saw there on the front page of every newspaper in America is what’s been happening for months. People facing violence, sexual abuse and worse, being brought up by people who have no regard for human life enticing them to make the dangerous journey north.”

Pence declared that there is now a “broad national realization” of what he and President Donald Trump have been “saying for more than a year.”

“We have a crisis at our southern border. It’s like we have never seen before,” he said. “That's why President Trump declared a national emergency in January.”

He criticized House Democrats for previously turning down previous requests from the administration for additional resources to provide beds and humanitarian needs to care for the families detained after coming across the border.

“President Trump again stood strong and this week, our president negotiated a bipartisan bill that when he signs it on Monday will speed $4.6 billion in humanitarian aid to support the compassionate work of Health and Human Services and our Customs and Border Protection,” Pence stated. “Finally, help is on the way.”

Pence stressed that there is still “more work to do.”

“At a time when migrants down at our border are facing violence, sexual assault and worse, it really is astonishing that many of the leading Democrats running for president continue to advocate open borders and policies that would make it easier for human traffickers to entice vulnerable families to take the long and dangerous journey north,” he said. “It's true.”

Pence reminded attendees that a decade ago, President Barack Obama said that Obamacare would not apply to those in the country illegally.

“This week, every major Democrat candidate for president promised to offer free taxpayer-funded health care to illegal immigrants,” Pence said, “And many others promised to decriminalize illegal immigration altogether.”

Pence stated that the “moral” and “compassionate” thing to do is to secure the border, provide humanitarian aid, reform asylum loopholes and “send a definite message south of the border that if you want to come to the United States of America, you must come legally or not at all.”

Pence added that progress is being made on Trump’s wall at the southern border and declared that 400 miles of the wall would be built by the end of next year.

“Whatever Democrats want to do to continue to deny and obstruct our efforts to secure our border, end this crisis and reform our laws, we're gonna keep telling the story,” Pence vowed. “We're going to keep finding allies in Congress and across this country. And we're going to fix this broken immigration system.”

Earlier this week, James Dobson, a prominent evangelical leader supportive of Trump’s immigration policies and plans for a border wall, issued a lengthy statement blaming liberal policies for making the humanitarian crisis at the border worse.

“It is a well-known fact that President Obama’s administration established many of these unworkable policies, and Congress is steadfastly unwilling to change them,” Dobson asserted in his July newsletter.

“Every effort at reform has been overridden or ignored. It is set in stone. Democrats want massive numbers of immigrants who will someday become voters. Some Republicans support the policies because they want cheap labor for agricultural purposes. The border could be fixed, but there are very few in authority who seem to care.”

Fellow evangelical leader, Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, faced criticism this week from well-known conservative evangelicals after he retweeted an Associated Press report critical of the perilous conditions facing migrant children at the border and the Trump administration’s handling of the situation.

“The reports of the conditions for migrant children at the border should shock all of our consciences,” Moore tweeted. “Those created in the image of God should be treated with dignity and compassion, especially those seeking refuge from violence back home. We can do better than this.”

On Sunday, Pence put the blame on Democrats.

"Democrats in Congress refused to expand the bed space and the capacity for us to detain people at our borders," he told CNN.
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Samuel Smith is a reporter for The Christian Post.

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GLAAD Survey Finds Millennials Increasingly Uncomfortable With LGBT Movement

by Jerry Cox, Contributing Author: The radical pro-LGBT organization GLAAD recently released the results of its annual survey on Americans’ “comfort levels” with LGBT people — and the findings are a little surprising.

The survey shows that U.S. adults are increasingly uncomfortable with LGBT people and issues — with Millennials ages 18 – 34 apparently leading this shift.

According to the survey, the number of non-LGBT adults ages 18 – 34 who are uncomfortable with learning a family member is LGBT rose from 24% in 2016 to 36% in 2018.

The number of Millennials uncomfortable with the idea of their children having a lesson on LGBT history at school rose from 27% to 39% during that same time.

Strikingly, the number of Millennials that GLAAD counts as “allies” — people who are comfortable with LGBT efforts at every point — dropped from 62% in 2016 to 45% in 2018.

Needless to say, GLAAD — who recently announced they want to enshrine their radical LGBT ideals in the U.S. Constitution — is alarmed by these findings.

Their solution is to further “educate” Millennials about things like tolerance and inclusion. But as many pundits have pointed out, groups like GLAAD have been pushing the LGBT agenda on Millennials for years.

This shift among Millennials probably is the result of several factors, but one of them may be the move to force acceptance of transgender behavior in our culture. Groups like GLAAD have spent the past few years bullying and marginalizing anyone who even questions whether or not it’s appropriate to give puberty blockers to elementary school children or let men into women’s shower facilities and locker rooms. Is it any wonder that Millennials might be uncomfortable with those kinds of heavy-handed tactics?
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Jerry Cox is the founder and president of Family Council and the Education Alliance and a contributing author to the ARRA News Service.

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The Pandemic Of False Knowledge

. . . The disease eating away at our social-political order and threatening our freedom.

by Bruce Thornton: When I wrote Plagues of the Mind: The New Epidemic of False Knowledge twenty years ago, I focused on the bad ideas underlying many of our social, cultural, and political dysfunctions. I was particularly concerned with the universities, where most of these ideas had been born and nurtured. Though aware of the larger malign effects of the intellectual and political corruption of higher education, I never imagined that the “higher nonsense,” as one critic called it, produced in universities would so pervasively infect the larger culture and lead to policies, politics, and cultural mores so absurdly irrational.

At the heart of these bad ideas lay a strange hybrid of technocratic hubris and the therapeutic imperative. The former is a species of scientism founded on the category error of believing that human beings with minds, cultures, languages, and free will, can be understood and manipulated the way hard science understands and manipulates the material natural world.

The latter is the obsession with individual feelings and subjective perceptions of personal well-being and happiness, accompanied by demands that environmental, historical, or social impediments to both be corrected or eliminated with rational techniques developed by the “human sciences” like psychology, sociology, economics, and especially political science.

Moreover, this hybrid in its public guise uses the methodologies and quantification of science to give a spurious authority to its unscientific and politicized conclusions about human nature and behavior, while at the same time relying on ancient myths, cultural memes, and modern political programs. This incoherence is the essence of false knowledge. But these days, this debased Enlightenment idea joined with an equally debased Romantic one has burst out of its university nursery and become a culture-wide pandemic.

Several examples of these bad ideas I analyzed have expanded exponentially in the last two decades to surreal excess. What I called romantic environmentalism overlays ancient myths about nature and humanity’s relationship to it, with a patina of ecological science that claims proven scientific facts, not myths or politics, generate the proposed policies. In the Nineties, Al Gore, in his bestselling 1992 Earth in the Balance, was the environmentalist guru who recycled stale romantic mythemes about our lost harmony with nature, simplistic denunciations of industrial capitalism’s “Satanic mills,” and half-baked environmental science in order to frighten us into spending billions to “save the planet.” Popular culture went along, with movies like Dances with Wolves and Disney’s Pocahontas, both of which served up myth-history and nature-love clichés. Schools preached the environmental nature-cult with holy days like Earth Day, and the penance of recycling our bottles, plastic, cardboard, and cans.

But though catastrophic anthropogenic global warning (CAGW) was on the list of sins alongside the disappearing Brazilian rainforest and the widening hole in the ozone layer, I did not foresee how CAGW would become the dangerous mixture of nature worship and boondoggle–– research grants and green-energy pork totaled $359 billion in 2014–– that it is today. Despite the claims of scientific authority and “settled science,” in fact we do not as yet understand how global climate, a complex of systems and subsystems with multiple feedback-loops, works over time well enough to predict that human-caused increases in CO2, which makes up 0.04% of the atmosphere, can override the sun as the prime factor in global climate change.

Yet based on incomplete science and appeals to old romantic myths of our lost harmony with nature, CAGW dominates our popular culture, school curricula, and politics, most obviously in the draconian reductions in carbon-based energy called for in the Democrats’ proposed Green New Deal, which would cost our economy trillions of dollars and inhibit global economic growth––without appreciably lowering temperature that would bring on a global Armageddon.

The other phenomenon nurtured in universities is radical feminism. When I was reserching my book in the Nineties, fads like a “women’s way of knowing” superior to reason and science, and the fake history of a prehistoric European matriarchy that worshiped a nature-goddess and knew neither war not social injustice, were colonizing the university and making their way into popular culture and grade-school curricula alike. But more consequential for today was a scholarly trend I analyzed in the tiny discipline of Classics: the Foucauldian notion that biological sex was not natural, but a “construct” of social, economic, and political forces used to justify and propagate the oppressive power of the patriarchy and industrial capitalism.

I never imagined that this esoteric freak of literary scholarship would break out of the university and infect the larger culture in the current “transgender” phenomenon. Casting aside biological science and common sense alike, this ideology holds that “male” and “female” are politicized, reductive constructs that ignore a wider variety of “gender” identities in order to suit the ruling class’s power and privilege. Now individuals decide, based on their subjective feelings and perceptions, whether they are male or female, or some other of an ever-increasing variety of “genders.”

As a result, today we have medical professionals dispensing hormone-suppressing drugs to pre-teens, and performing “sex reassignment” surgeries that can be described only as mutilation. “Woke” corporate retailers do away with male and female designated restrooms, creating a feeding pool for sexual predators. Boys “transitioning” to females participate in girls’ sports and smash historical records, and public libraries host transvestites to educate immature children about how to become, and live as, their preferred sex.

In a sane world this all would constitute medical and pedagogical malpractice. Worse yet, as a recognized “protected class,” the “transgendered” are given Title IX legal protections against discrimination, and taxpayer money to pay for their “transition” to whatever sex they “identify as.” Yet another group has joined the conga-line of victimhood to be exploited by “activists” in order to leverage more political power.

Finally, in my book the therapeutic imperative to acknowledge, validate, and privilege the feelings of protected “victims” of prejudice and oppression was analyzed through its linguistic manifestations.

Twenty years ago the word that captured the therapeutic sensibility’s need to protect people’s feelings, and avoid discussing personal responsibility or “blaming the victim,” was “homeless.” Today this euphemism for what were once known as bums, tramps, drifters, drunks, drug addicts, and the mentally ill has become universal. It was quickly followed by a whole lexicon of euphemisms like “differently abled” for “handicapped,” and “special needs” for “retarded,” while every word ending with the suffix “-man” was shoved down the memory hole. Today the most egregious examples of this obsession with avoiding verbal offense involves race, especially in our universities. With legal segregation gone and the Ku Klux Klan a crank fringe, we now have redefined racist aggression as the product of “institutional racism” and subconscious “implicit bias” that manifests itself in “microaggressions” and “dog whistles” imperceptible to all except those who can decipher the racialist code.

This demand that politically favored minorities never be offended, what we call “political correctness,” is running rampant beyond higher education as well. Using the wrong personal pronoun for a transgendered person has become a grievous offense in need of punishment and a reeducation program. Public monuments to Civil War generals or slave-owners are pulled down, and murals depicting now proscribed historical figures like Christopher Columbus and George Washington are veiled or painted over. A theater named for silent-movie star Lillian Gish must change its name because she acted in D.W. Griffith’s 1915 racist epic Birth of a Nation. The NBA will no longer call its executives “owners” because that implies players are slaves. Yankee Stadium banished Kate Smith’s version of “God Bless America” from the seventh-inning stretch because in 1931 she recorded the satirical song “That’s Why Darkies Are Born,” even though the black communist singer Paul Robeson recorded it too. And sneaker company Nike withdraws a new model with the Betsy Ross flag on the heel because it evokes the era of slavery.

And more dangerously, progressive sensitivity commissars openly call for limiting the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech by including “hate speech” exceptions, as defined by the most sensitive, neurotic, or politically malevolent.

This is just a small sample of the “triggers” that the “woke” left condemns for being offensive. Apparently, half our country now comprises “snowflakes,” the term we use for privileged, hyper-sensitive college students who throw public tantrums when their utopian expectations aren’t met, their absurd whims mocked, or their delicate feelings are wounded.

All these symptoms of false knowledge bespeak a pandemic that threatens not just reason and truth, but our political freedom, for truth is democracy’s immune system. It is the biggest scandal of our times that the disease eating away at our social-political order that protects our rights and freedom has been incubated and spread by what once was the bastion of our collective search for truth––our universities and colleges.
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Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center and writesd for FrontPage Mag. He is a Research Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, and a Professor of Classics and Humanities at the California State University. He is the author of nine books and numerous essays on classical culture and its influence on Western Civilization. His most recent book, Democracy's Dangers and Discontents.

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A Perfect Fit . . .

. . . Nike shoe company has pulled it’s Betsy Ross flag shoe because of a washed-up ex-football felt it was racist. Maybe it’s a shoe better fitted for Antifa.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Why We Celebrate the Fourth of July

by Newt Gingrich: The Fourth of July is the most important political holiday in the world. In fact, it should be a universal holiday.

Independence Day commemorates not just an American revolution but a revolution in the relationship between people and their government.

Most of human history has been a story of the powerful controlling, dominating, and exploiting the weak.

Even today, in Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, and North Korea, the old models still exists.

In the communist dictatorship of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping is imposing 21st century totalitarianism with a level of surveillance and control which surpasses even the worst nightmares of George Orwell.

The great break in the relationship of normal people with their government came on July 4, 1776. In the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers not only declared their freedom from King George III of England, they established a framework of freedom for all people everywhere.

The Declaration of Independence was written primarily by Thomas Jefferson (which is why the Left’s new found dislike of Jefferson is so absurd). He set out to establish universal principles for all mankind. He did not describe American rights. He described human rights that were by definition also applicable to Americans.

This is the distinction that should make the Fourth of July a universal celebration. Jefferson wrote a formula that could liberate every person on the planet.

Note the universal assertion:

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness: —That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the governed; that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, & to institute new Government, laying it’s Foundation on such Principles, & organizing it’s Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety & Happiness.”

The Declaration was a statement from which all humans can seek guidance. Its adoption should be a date of remembrance for everyone everywhere who wants to reassert their right to govern themselves and not be exploited by others.

It is especially important to celebrate the Declaration of Independence now, because the great concept of self-government under the rule of law is under attack from without and within.

Obviously, the Putins, Kim Jong Uns and Castros despise this doctrine of Creator-endowed rights expressed within the rule of law.

Unfortunately, we now have enemies of freedom within our own country and in the democracies of Europe. Violent extremists like Antifa seek to destroy freedom and impose their values by intimidation and force. Many academics express contempt for the American system of self-government. The more radical elements of the Congress clearly seek to undermine and dramatically change the American system.

It is important to use the Fourth of July every year to reassert the importance of universal rights endowed by our Creator for every human being. It is important to use this holiday to remember how exceptional America is – and that everyone on the planet has the opportunity to apply this exceptionalism to their own countries and governments.

This is why Fourth of July is the most important political holiday for every human.
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Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) is a former Georgia Congressman and Speaker of the U.S. House. He co-authored and was the chief architect of the "Contract with America" and a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional elections. He is noted speaker and writer. This commentary was shared via Gingrich Productions.

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Chief Justice Wisely Gets Courts out of Redistricting Politics

Michael Barone

by Michael Barone: "Partisan gerrymandering is nothing new," writes Chief Justice John Roberts near the beginning of his opinion in Rucho v. Common Cause. "Nor is frustration with it." The question is what, if anything, federal courts ought to do about it. The answer the chief justice and the four other Republican-appointed justices have endorsed, journalists have been reporting, is nothing.

Actually, judges have a very effective weapon to limit, though not prohibit, partisan districting -- which we'll get to later. But first, let's be clear that the chief justice is right about the history of the issue. He is correct in disagreeing with Justice Kagan's suggestion in her dissent that partisan districting has gotten much more common and effective in recent years.

The word "gerrymander" is a clue. It's named after Elbridge Gerry, delegate to the Constitutional Convention and fifth vice president of the United States who, as a Jeffersonian in Massachusetts, packed heavily Federalist towns into a single salamander-shaped congressional district in 1812. That was 207 years ago.

The fact is that once you are committed to having legislators elected by districts, and once you have competitive political parties, it is going to matter how you draw district lines, and any competent partisan will struggle to draw them to its maximum advantage.

The founders, following the example of the British Parliament, quickly opted against at-large elections and proportional representation in states -- something perfectly permissible under the Constitution -- and in favor of election by geographically defined districts. And in 1842, Congress -- influenced perhaps by Britain's 1832 Reform Act, which eliminated representation for towns with no population and provided it for growing industrial cities -- required states to draw compact and contiguous districts of equal population.

In 1929, Congress repealed those last provisions, and legislatures' refusal to update districting plans in line with population changes inspired lawsuits. The Supreme Court dismissed them in the 1940s, but in 1963 and 1964 it ruled that congressional and legislative districts within each state had to be of equal population. That requirement, scarcely mentioned in Rucho, has operated quietly as a severe limit on politicians' ability to gain partisan advantage from districting, and its arithmetic standard is easily policed by courts.

As co-author of "The Almanac of American Politics" for more than 40 years, I have been closely following redistricting plans in every state every cycle since the censuses of 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010. Democrats dominated the redistricting processes in the 1970s and 1980s, with little adverse comment. Conservatives still yearned for the pre-equal population plans, which favored agrarian districts. And liberals were delighted by plans concocted by the likes of California's Rep. Phil Burton.

But liberals were suddenly shocked and appalled when Republicans dominated the redistricting process in big states like Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan in the cycles following the 2000 and 2010 censuses.

Changes in political demographics helped Republicans there and elsewhere. Democratic voters have increasingly been concentrated in central cities, a few sympathetic suburbs and university towns; Republican voters are spread more evenly around the rest of the country. Any equal-population plan tends to work against a party that wins by margins like 80-20 in a few districts and loses by margins closer to 55-45 in many more.

Justice Kagan expressed liberals' frustration and -- not too strong a word -- rage. She portrays partisan districting as fatally undermining electoral democracy. To one who has followed the fate of redistricting plans in detail over the last half-century -- and who has seen how the intentions of redistricters have been frustrated by changes in public opinion and political alignments -- these plaints seem overwrought.

Time and again, aggressive partisan redistricting plans, from those of California Democrats in the 1960s to those of Pennsylvania Republicans in the 2000s and 2010s, have boomeranged. Despite Republicans' redistricting advantages in the last two decades, Democrats won big House majorities in 2006, 2008 and 2018.

In any case, partisan redistricting will be on the wane in the 2020 census cycle. Michigan, Ohio and Colorado have joined California, Washington and Iowa in creating redistricting commissions, which are supposedly nonpartisan (but which, as Capital Research Center scholars have shown, effectively lean Democratic). A Florida referendum limits Republican redistricters there, and 2018 governor elections left fewer states with total partisan control. In partisan terms, redistricting in the 2020 cycle looks like a wash.

So it's wise to shut the courtroom door to lawsuits that risk partisanizing the federal courts by requiring judges to decide cases with "no judicially discoverable and manageable standards."
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Michael Barone is a Senior Political Analyst for the Washington Examiner and a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel  and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics Shared by Rasmussen Reports.

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Greener Pastures

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: There is climate change going on. And some of it is attributable to increasing levels of Carbon dioxide (CO2).

It is uncontroversial and quite politically convenient to say that — despite Al Gore’s infamous propaganda positing climate change dogma as An Inconvenient Truth. The worldwide “green” movement to “fight climate change” has been supported by trillions of tax dollars and the eager, lip-smacking glee of major media mavens as they trot out story after improbable story, linking every storm, warm spell, cold spell, and summer ice melt to “man-made global warming.”

But there is no real “settled science” as non-scientists like to term the case for anthropogenic global warming, because there are

1. troubles with the temperature data,
2. difficulties separating weather events from climatic trends,
3. problems identifying CO2 level variations as the cause of climate change rather than as a result,
4. a certain amount of dunderheadedness using a statistical construct of “average global temperature” to track actual trends, and

so much more. But we do know about one extremely positive effect of increasing atmospheric carbon: it makes the deserts bloom.

Or, at least, greener.

Six years ago a study of satellite data concluded that arid regions have gone greener. Increased atmospheric CO2 levels makes photosynthesis more efficient, allowing plants to use less water, thereby creating more leaves.

Earlier this year, however, Forbes reported that a NASA study had just demonstrated that expanded agriculture and silviculture in India and China were responsible for most of that greening — but if you compare the Forbes article with the original paper, the CO2 contribution persists.

Atmospheric carbon is plant food, so to speak, and without it, life on the planet would die. An awkward truth?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Paul Jacob (@Common_Sense_PJ ) is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is also President of the Liberty Initiative Fund (LIFe) as well as Citizens in Charge Foundation. Jacob is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service.

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Democrat Wants to Jail Americans Who Criticize Members of Congress

by Chris Woodward: We have to take her seriously. That’s what Fox Nation host Todd Starnes thinks about Rep.Frederica Wilson (D-FL) and her demands for the prosecution of people mocking members of Congress.

“Those people who are online making fun of members of Congress are a disgrace,” Wilson said. “We’re going to shut them down and work with whoever it is to shut them down and they should be prosecuted. You cannot intimidate members of Congress, threaten members of Congress, it is against the law and it is a shame in the United States of America.”

“Yes, I know she’s a moron, but we should take her comments seriously because she is an elected member of Congress,” said Starnes. “Anyone who writes on Twitter that Frederica Wilson looks like a reject from The Beverly Hillbillies and talks like Minnie Mouse, if you were to write that on social media under her belief system, the police would be banging down your door and throwing you into jail simply because you spoke out about an elected member of Congress.”

Starnes warned his audience that the “culture jihadists” are on the warpath.

“They’re telling us what they’re going to do,” he continued. “Barack Obama told us on the campaign trail, ‘I am going to fundamentally change this nation’ and he delivered on that promise. So I know that she’s a pinhead, a nimrod, and a blockhead, I get that, but we have to take this woman at her word.”

If the Democrats retake Congress, if they retake the White House, Starnes warned they are going to figure out some way to make it illegal to talk about members of Congress, to make fun of them.

“You’re not going to be able to call her a moron, or a blockhead or a pinhead, you’re not going to be able to do that anymore,” he explained. “This is the America they want, and this is the America that we’ve got to prevent from happening. We’ve got to take to stand, folks.”
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Chris Woodward writes for ToddStarnes.com.

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Kaepernick on Washington Crossing the Delaware

by Michael Ramirez:

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Michael Ramirez is a senior editor and the editorial cartoonist for Investor's Business Daily.

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Source of Socialism in the U.S.A.

by John Porter, Contributing Author: My dear friends and fellow patriots; I have been spending most of my time lately in research, to see if I am beating my brains out against a wall in trying, with your help, to educate as many people in the nation as I can about what was created by our founding fathers and why and how.

For the better part of 45 years I've been writing and publicly speaking on this very issue. And all the while I've witnessed the advance of Socialism in our country. Why, why, why I keep asking myself are people more and more embracing Socialism (Government control of people's lives) instead of Individual Freedom and responsibility (Constitutional Republic)?

As you know, I email to over 8,000 people who in turn forward to millions. But I am convinced that those millions are probably people who feel like you and me about America and our Constitutional Republic and Free Market system. Through my extensive research I have come to understand it is the younger generations of Americans who are preferring, accepting and advocating Socialism, and they are not seeing and reading what we write in our effort to educate them on the truth behind what The United States of America is and why it was established with a Constitution of basic fundamental laws limiting and controlling the size and reach of the Federal Government and guaranteeing the Individual rights of the people.

I have come to the belief that our educational efforts must be falling on ears of like mind and not reaching the 35 and under Americans of the Socialist mind, and they are moving into the positions of influence and national leadership. Where are they coming from?

Here are the real sources of this flood of Socialist thinking flowing across our land. The real challenge to our nation's continued existence as a Constitutional Republic, as I see it, is our K-12 public schools and colleges. The majority are almost completely taken over by Socialist Teachers, School Administrators, Local School Boards, College Professors and Boards of Regents.

There are 50,700,000 students enrolled in K-12 public schools, 5,900,000 in private schools. As of January of 2018 there were 74,600,000 students enrolled in pre-K thru college. 3,698,000 graduated college and 3,600,000 high school in 2018-2019. These millions of young people will spread out over America having been taught very little if anything about American History, the Constitution, and how, why, or who founded the nation in which they live. What they have been taught is what a great system of government Socialism is, and they believe it. They have been taught that America and it's Capitalist (Free Market) system is evil, and they believe it. We are strapped with the daunting (almost impossible) task of changing their mind instead of helping to mold it.

I truly believe if the Mississippi River of Socialism is to be prevented from breaching the levees and flooding the Constitutional Republic of America, it absolutely must be dammed and stopped in the education system for our children. I think it imperative that this war against Socializing The United States is fought there. All Socialists in The National Education Association (NEA), local public school boards and state education associations who select the books for school subjects to be taught, college professors and Boards of Regents, college Deans, and college Foundation boards, etc. must be purged and replaced with people who believe in Constitutional Republic principles and the Bill of Rights.

I have grown very skeptical that the raging flood can be controlled now unless we can find a means of reaching these people and stop the poisoning of their young minds from Kindergarten through college. Preaching to the choir will not get the job done. I really feel that is all we are doing. SOCIALISM IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE BEFORE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TODAY!! And it is quickly becoming a runaway freight train among the future leaders of America.

I end with these sobering facts of history. Vladimir Lenin once said, I quote, "Give me just one generation of youth, and I'll transform the world." He was given one generation of Russian youth and transformed that and many other countries. Adolph Hitler once said, I quote, "Give me a child when he's 7 and he's mine forever." He was given the children of Germany, and the rest is history.

Thank you, until next time.
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John Porter is an Americans first, constitutional conservatives second. His allegiance is to the Constitution. He seeks to help save America from the grips of socialism and an all powerful, intrusive government, and from the evil of Islam. He is a contributing author to the ARRA News Service.

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A Nation of Free Men or Free Things

Daniel Greenfield

by Daniel Greenfield: The 2020 Democrat primaries are underway with candidate after candidate promising a nation, not of free people, but of free things.

Free college, free health care and free everything else. Even for illegal aliens.

Of course there's a price to pay.

You get free health care by giving up the freedom to pick your own health care. You get free education, but the indoctrination is the price.

The Fourth to many is Fireworks Day. Every country has its fireworks days and this is the day that this one chooses to light up the night sky. The day means nothing to them because though they are surrounded by free things, they aren’t free.

The difference between freedom and free things has been progressively erased so that many think that the American Revolution was fought because the British weren’t providing affordable health coverage to the colonies. If only they knew about the NHS, they would vote to go back.

All that the Crown really wanted was for the colonists to pay their “fair share”, a share that was determined thousands of miles away. All that the colonists wanted was the rights of Englishmen that they believed they were entitled to. After a great deal of bloodshed, the colonists won the right to be Americans instead—an odd series of consonants and vowels having to do with an Italian explorer but meaning free and limited government.

There is a big difference between a free country and a country of free things. You can have one or the other, but you can’t have both. A free country isn’t obsessed with free riders, only a country of free things obsesses with making everyone pay their fair share for the benefit of the people who want the free things. The rugged individualism of Colonial America has given way to stifling crowds, co-dependent on each other, lined shoulder to shoulder, clutching at each other’s wallets, crying, “Take from him and give to me.”

We are a nation overflowing with the right to things paid for with other people’s money. A nation where the government gives you food, housing and education; while Walmart gives you cheap products made in China, that used to be made in America, back when people were able to afford health care, housing and food without having to pick each other’s pockets.

The fireworks that shoot up in a wonderland of blue and red, silver and gold, are a faint echo of the real thing, the gunpowder that blasted back and forth between the lines of government troops, their Hessian mercenaries and the rebel colonists who chose to ride free, rather than bend their necks to the plans of an expanding empire. The faint smell of gunpowder and the dark shapes of the barges only mime the war that was fought here.

Did so many men risk their lives just to end up with a system that made the one they escaped seem positively libertarian by comparison? If they had known that they were going to end up with the NHS, death panels that will eventually adopt some version of the Liverpool Care Pathway’s euthanasia protocol, and a co-dependent system where everyone is looted for the greater good of the looters—they might have stayed home on their farms, sadly watching the fighting from a distance.

JFK’s famous line, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” was always a hollow lie. Half the country is expected to ask what their country can do for them, while the other half is expected to ask what they can do for their country. This simmering civil war is often pegged as a class war, but it isn’t about class. There are billionaires and paupers on both sides, and the divide cuts across the Middle Class, dividing those who derive their income from private business from those who receive it from government and government-subsidized employment.

The Fourth of July is Independence Day, but every other day is Co-Dependence Day, the days we celebrate our integration, our volunteerism and our compliance with a vast system which makes everyone dependent on the government and which makes the government dependent on everyone who still works for someone other than the government—including the freest of free riders, who work for themselves. Empires function by draining every drop from their possessions to cover their costs. The British Crown tried to drain America to pay down its debt, resulting in growing protests from the population and eventually a revolution. Now the Empire of Co-Dependency is draining its independent subjects for the benefit of its dependent subjects and the dependency infrastructure that employs its numberless bureaucrats who govern it all.
The American Revolution was not a struggle for another nation, one of many, but for a free nation. It was not split off to accommodate the national strivings of an ethnic group or their historical destiny. Its guiding idea, like its national holiday, was independence, but independence means very little unless it reaches the individual.

A nation where everyone is part of one great co-dependent community, a centrally planned marketplace that can only be balanced if everyone is forced to buy what they are told to buy, is not a free nation. It will not even be independent for long. The logic of co-dependence is to expand that dependency beyond the borders and make the region and then every part the world dependent on one another to balance out the numbers.

The new Crown is not a person, it is an idea. The throne at whose foot a formerly free people kneel is the golden seat of the welfare state. While the fireworks light up the sky, a counterrevolution undid the revolution. There is a new king and his face is on every magazine cover in the land. His bounty is a jagged bear trap that turns everyone into a ward of the state at their own expense.

As the last wave of fireworks die out, the shooting stars sinking to earth and vanishing into the darkness, the light of Independence Day fades and the crowds slowly trudge away from the brief spectacle, past the lines of police barricades, through narrow streets, past government buildings, back to their co-dependent lives in a co-dependent nation where the will of the people and the rights of the individual matter less than the latest proposal to solve the problems of their independence by making the country a more dependent place.

A few hundred years ago in these streets, men and women celebrated the end of tyranny, and in its darkest hour, lines of grim men marched along the waterfront up to the highest point on the island to mount a final defense. Sometimes the older buildings still wear their shadows on their brick walls and by the golden light of the fireworks you can almost see them, shadows moving in the darkness, their footsteps taking them north, a faint song on their lips, muskets in their hands, their lives lost and gained in defense of their freedom.
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Daniel Greenfield (@Sultanknish) is Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an investigative journalist and writer focusing on radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

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President Trump’s Opportunity to School Qatar

by Ken Blackwell, Contributing Author: Less than a week after the nation celebrates its 243 birthday, President Trump has an opportunity to enhance – once again - America’s international status and improve the lives of millions of people during an upcoming meeting with the Emir of Qatar - Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

The July 9 meeting presents an opportunity for President Trump to raise significant concerns with the Emir regarding Qatar’s ongoing support of international terrorism, Qatar’s blatant disregard of fair-trade policies designed to protect American airline workers, and Qatar’s sad record of human rights abuses.

Qatar is seen internationally as a major funder of terrorist organizations like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. It was widely reported that human rights organizations have documented violent human rights abuses by the Brotherhood when its supporters were in control in Egypt in 2014, including the murder of nearly 30 Coptic Christians who were peacefully protesting the demolition of a church. The Trump administration has moved to designate the Muslim Brotherhood an international terrorist organization.

Qatar’s support of Hamas is especially disturbing. Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by the US State Department and the European Union. They routinely launch attacks on the State of Israel. The Jerusalem Post reported that a portion of the millions of dollars given to Hamas by the Qatari government, once earmarked for 5,000 needy Palestinian families, will instead go to people with direct ties to Hamas.

President Trump can also discuss Qatar’s disregard of commitments made between our two countries to help ensure fair international airline operations outlined in the Open Skies trade agreements. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates ignored those commitment for several years, subsidizing their airlines, which violated the rules and gave their airlines an unfair advantage. This put our airlines – and the many who they employ – in a dangerous position.

As he has done on many occasions, President Trump took action after the Obama administration sat back and allowed these violations to occur. The administration made clear they would not allow this to continue and reached important agreements with both nations to ensure their compliance.

Unfortunately, Qatar is once again violating those agreements after buying a large ownership stake in Air Italy. Qatar’s investment in Air Italy allows the carrier to launch multiple flights into the U.S. in direct competition with American carriers. This move fits Qatar’s pattern of directing government subsidized flight capacity at the U.S. in an effort to drive off American competition and in violation of its agreement with the United States. U.S. air carriers don’t have the luxury of receiving government funding and they need to make a profit. The Open Skies agreement was designed to stop countries like Qatar from flooding our markets with government backed airline service which ultimately threatens the very existence of the U.S. airline industry.

Qatar’s abandonment of the commitments it made in the agreement with the Trump administration had not gone unnoticed. A group of Senators led by Ted Cruz wrote to the Trump Administration expressing concern over these violations. Rep. Matt Gaetz, of Florida has also criticized Qatar’s unfair practices. Secretary Pompeo has said the administration is looking closely at the issue and is concerned about compliance with the agreements.

President Trump should also take time to discuss Qatar’s shameful record of human rights abuses – including the widespread mistreatment of migrant workers and the routine use of squalid labor camps. Amnesty International and other human rights groups condemn Qatar’s treatment of migrant workers who are unfairly paid, forced to live in filthy labor camps and are often subjected to physical and sexual abuse. Estimates suggest that 1.5 million workers, roughly 60 percent of Qatar's population, live in appalling conditions.

International observers also view Qatar's legal system as corrupt and abusive. Qatar’s constitution is based on Sharia Law which is a very strict interpretation of the teachings of Islam. Flogging and stoning are still widely accepted, legal punishments for alcohol consumption, acts of extramarital sex, blasphemy and homosexuality.

The small, oil rich nation of Qatar can no longer ignore the needs of its people and disregard fair trade policies made with other nations. President Trump has a unique opportunity to reinforce his well-deserved reputation international credentials by raising these issues with the Emir of Qatar. The Trump Administration can rightly press for social reforms that will improve and protect the lives of millions of people and call for new enforcement of trade agreements that will protect tens of thousands of American jobs.
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Ken Blackwell (@kenblackwell) is a former ambassador to the U.N., a former Domestic Policy Advisor to the Trump/Pence Presidential Transition Team, and former Ohio State Treasurer and mayor of Cincinnati who currently serves on the boards of numerous conservative policy organizations. He is an Adviser to the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. and a contributing author to the ARRA News Service

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Happy 4th of July! - Independence Day 2019

The ARRA News Service and its contributing authors Thank You for reading and sharing articles, commentaries and cartoons.

The ARRA News Service joins you in celebrating our nation's 243rd Independence Day Celebration commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. 

We beseech God's blessing on America, our modern day patriots,  members and veterans of our armed services, and President Trump and Vice President Pence.  ~ Dr. Bill Smith, Editor.

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Restaurant Owner Says It’s Okay to Ban Conservatives (That’s Why I Dine at Chick-fil-A)

by Todd Starnes: The owner of the infamous Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia stirred up a hornet’s nest the other day by suggesting there should be “new rules” when it comes to serving supporters of President Trump.

Stephanie Wilkinson, the owner of the Red Hen, became the poster child for Trump Derangement Syndrome in 2018 when she told then-White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders to leave the restaurant.

Writing in the Washington Post, Ms. Wilkinson said that in the era of the Trump Administration restaurants should impose a new set of rules on conservative diners.

“If you’re an unsavory individual – of whatever persuasion or affiliation – we have no legal or moral obligation to do business with you,” she wrote in the June 28 edition of the newspaper. “And that, too, is right.”

In essence, the policy is: no shoes, no shirt, no Democratic voter registration card, no service.

“In the meantime, the new rules apply,” Wilkinson wrote. “If you’re directly complicit in spreading hate or perpetuating suffering, maybe you should consider dining at home.”

Ms. Wilkinson singled out an incident that occurred at the Aviary, a high-end cocktail bar in Chicago. A waitress accosted Eric Trump and spit directly into his face.

Trump’s wife, Lara, addressed the attack during an interview on The Todd Starnes Show.

“Thank God I wasn’t there, Todd,” she said. “As a seven-plus months pregnant woman, if you spit in my husband’s face, I might have had a different reaction. But kudos to him for keeping his cool.”

While Wilkinson said no one in the industry “condones the physical assault of a patron,” she did seem to suggest with a wink and a nod that she sympathized with the waitress.

“If you think about it: you can’t call people your enemies by day and expect hospitality from them in the evening,” she wrote.

So, if you plan on dining at one of those caviar and foie gras joints, be sure to ask if there’s an upcharge for the political pandering.

Could you imagine the ordeal it must be to get a reservation at the Red Hen.

Hostess: Good afternoon, Red Hen reservations

Man: I’d like to reserve a table for two, please.

Hostess: Let me see what I have. Inside seating or outside?

Man: Outside.

Hostess: Is this for a special occasion?

Man: No ma’am. My wife just had a hankering for some fried chicken and they say y’all make a pretty good bird.

Hostess: And the name for the reservation?

Man: Clodknocker. Earl and Darlene Clodknocker. But I call the missus Sugar Blossom.

Hostess: Alright, Mr. Clodknocker. Just a few more questions. It would be so helpful if you could provide me with your preferred pronouns?

Man: Come again?

Hostess: Your preferred pronouns. It’s a new policy to ensure that our wait staff avoids triggering customers by simply assuming they are male or female.

Man: Well, I’m a guy so I reckon my preferred pronouns are he and him.

Hostess: And your dining companion?

Man (puts down the phone and hollers): Hey Sugar Blossom, this gal over at the Red Hen wants to know what your preferred pronoun is. (picks up the phone) Yes ma’am. The wife says she’s a she – even though she does wear the pants in the family.

Hostess: Let’s see, we already have your credit card information so I just have two more questions to ask and we’ll be ready to confirm that reservation. Are you a registered gun owner?

Man: Well, yes ma’am. I’m mighty proud to say I’m a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association. And I have a CCP so if anything goes down during suppertime I’ll have your six.

Hostess: And one final question, sir. Are you a Republican or a Democrat?

Man: Ma’am, I’m a gun-toting, Bible-clinging, Deplorable!

Hostess: (pause) Oh dear. I’m terribly sorry, sir. But we don’t serve Deplorables here. Perhaps you might be more comfortable at a Waffle House or a Walmart?

Man (puts down phone and hollers): Sugar Blossom, go get in the pickup truck. We’re eating supper down at the Chick-fil-A.
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Todd Starnes (@toddstarnes) is A Christian Conservative, the host of Fox News & Commentary and heard daily on 250+ radio stations and on his iTune podcasts.

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