Cancel Thanksgiving, Biden's Agenda, Fighting Anti-Semitism

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer: Cancel Thanksgiving?
First they came for Easter. Just before Palm Sunday and Easter, liberal mayors and governors shut down churches while allowing big box stores, marijuana dispensaries and abortion clinics to remain open. Overwhelmingly, churches complied, although I wish they hadn't.

Now the left is coming for Thanksgiving.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is calling on residents of her city to "cancel traditional Thanksgiving plans." California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an absurd decree severely restricting Thanksgiving gatherings.

Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a similar order and suggested that if police see evidence of more than 10 people in a house, they should knock on the door and act accordingly. Some New York sheriffs are refusing to enforce the governor's order.

Joe Biden was asked yesterday what his advice for Thanksgiving was. He said that family gatherings should be limited to a "maximum [of] 10 people, socially distanced, wearing masks, and people who have quarantined."

As we approach Thanksgiving and Christmas, I hope more churches will resist these outrageous shutdown orders. There is little evidence that the shutdowns actually do much to change the course of the disease.

Beyond that, there are hidden agendas here. To tell a church which can seat 1,000 people that it cannot have more than 25 at a service is irrational. It's so irrational that it suggests there is something else at play.

The tendency of the Church to collapse in front of this pressure, because we're told it is an emergency, is setting a dangerous precedent. We have had bad flu seasons that kill 80,000 people. Will churches be asked to shut down for the flu in the future?

The next time a jihadist group threatens to attack a church or synagogue, will they be ordered to shut down because the experts say the best way to save lives is to close? And what Bible verses are people relying on for this kind of reasoning?

Christians in many parts of the world regularly go to church knowing there are huge risks involved. The church could be blown up or set on fire. They could be gunned down leaving church.

Chinese Christians go to church every Sunday knowing that facial recognition technology installed by the godless Chinese Communist Party is recording them. As a result, their children may not be able to go to college or they may be arrested in the middle of the night by state police.

It is time for American Christians to do a gut check.

If a church decides to shut down, it should send a letter to government officials at all levels saying they are doing so voluntarily in the best interest of the congregation, but that local officials have no legal authority to close the church.

As Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito recently warned, COVID restrictions are creating "previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty," especially religious liberty. But the Constitution is still the supreme law of the land, and the First Amendment still guarantees religious liberty.

Biden's Agenda
Joe Biden held a press conference yesterday, and it was very revealing. He took several questions from friendly reporters, an old tactic of the Obama White House to control the media. And the media willingly complied. Many of yesterday's questions were softballs that set up Biden to attack Donald Trump. Get used to it.

What was also evident yesterday is that anybody who thought they were electing a moderate needs to think again. For example, Biden is considering appointing one of the teachers' unions leaders as his secretary of education. If you think you're frustrated about what the public schools are doing now, just wait!

A member of Biden's transition team, and a rumored nominee to be secretary of the Treasury, is an aggressive supporter of reparations. That means you, who have never owned slaves, will give money to someone who never was a slave to atone for something that happened more than 150 years ago.

Sure, that will bring the country together!

Biden also suggested that he wants to immediately forgive student loan debt. Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer is pressuring Biden to eliminate as much as $50,000 of debt per student via executive order.

Translation: All of you who worked two jobs to pay off your student loans will be instantly turned into suckers.

And all of you who currently have student loan debt who think it won't cost you anything to have it forgiven should have taken an economics class in college. There's no such thing as "free money." You and every other taxpayer will pay for this debt in higher taxes.

Much is being made about the split in the Democrat Party between the woke socialists and the rest of the party. In my view this divide is being overblown. By now, in the heart of virtually every Democrat there is a socialist yearning to show himself.

The split is between those like AOC who want to proudly promote their socialism and those like Obama and Biden who want to camouflage it so people won't understand what is happening to them.

By the way, Biden condemned the violence in Washington, D.C., this weekend, but he did not condemn any specific organization like Antifa or Black Lives Matter. And while Biden was concerned about the violence, he was also concerned about the "displays of white supremacy" during the march.

What is he talking about? Oh, that's right, the left thinks MAGA hats are racist.

Fighting Anti-Semitism
The FBI has released its latest report on hate crimes in America, and once again Jews are the primary targets of hate crimes.

Even though Jews make up less than two percent of the population, more than 60% of religiously motivated hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2019 were anti-Semitic. Sadly, the number of anti-Semitic hate crimes has surged 56% over the past five years.

Not even making the FBI's hate crimes list is the treatment of Orthodox Jews at the hands of New York progressives, most notably Mayor Bill de Blasio and his army of bureaucrats. The Orthodox Jewish community is being treated worse than almost anyone else.

The same progressive mayor who applauds mass demonstrations in the streets has aggressively tried to prevent Orthodox Jews from attending the funerals of respected leaders. This is blatant anti-Semitism.

Orthodox Jews are in the same category as faithful Catholics in New York. They are sympathetic to conservatives on the sanctity of life and the family, and it is payback time. The Empire State government is going to be in their faces on everything it can.

Of course, anti-Semitism isn't new. This ancient evil has existed since the beginning of recorded history. But it has often been said that Jews are the canary in the coal mine, and anti-Semitism is a sign of a growing sickness in society.

Anti-Semitism is a sin, and it must be condemned whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head.
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Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer)  is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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