Is America “Gone With the Wind?”

by RBF: “Racism is not dead. But it is on life-support, kept alive mainly by the people who use it for an excuse or to keep minority communities fearful or resentful enough to turn out as a voting bloc on Election Day.” So said Thomas Sowell, senior Hoover Institute fellow, and among the most significant living social-political theorists. Dr. Sowell happens to be black.

In the face of reams of empirical data to the contrary, how have race hucksters, with media complicity, so successfully merchandised the canard that America remains a country of systemic racism? Not a hypothesis for a national debate, but assumed ipso facto. When propaganda overrides facts, brainwashing occurs. This hypnosis impairs not the capability to reason, but rather a refusal to use the brain to consider ideas which might disrupt false narratives. Fully functioning intelligent liberals exhibit extreme agitation over the proposition of differing perspectives. If they preach loud enough, maybe it becomes real.

Leftists put forth a panoply of medicines to treat our diseased country.
Virginia governor Ralph “blackface” Northam righteously promised removal of Robert E. Lee and four other noxious Confederate statues polluting Richmond Virginia. CNN’s Angela Rye imperiously points to Washington D.C.’s Washington and Jefferson monuments as insidious replicas of slave owners rather than, respectively, the father of our country and author of one of the most transformative American documents. NASCAR nobly did their part, banning Confederate flags. Senate Republicans in the armed services committee agreed to reformat numerous military bases commemorating Confederate generals. This thesis subscribes that removing all above mentioned carefully orchestrated concatenation of Confederate symbols surely concludes in newfound racial harmony.

Nationwide, anarchists deface or obliterate monuments remembering Christopher Columbus. Black Lives Matter Boulevard debuted in Washington D.C. Advertisers boycott Fox News host Tucker Carlson for statements critical of Black Lives Matter; disagreement defaults to racism. Incorruptible T-Mobile, Disney, and Papa Johns have honorably withdrawn support. Mike Lindell, the founder of “My Pillow,” contributes a brave whiff of integrity and will continue endorsing Carlson, and adds “all lives matter.”

Advertisers that unabashedly cave in, signal not the moral superiority they crave, but ethical cowardice manifest to anyone courageous enough to pull back the curtain exposing decades-long narratives of orchestrated media prevarications.

While room for a civil debate on the fate of iconic structures can be valid, rewriting or revising history is in the interest of no one. Our past is what it is, and society must look the good and the bad squarely in the eyes and learn from mistakes. America’s warts are no more pronounced than most nations, and ad hoc media-driven proclamations of our inherent evil do nothing towards advancing the dialogue of reconciliation.

The media offered a healing gesture with HBO MAX’s decision to remove that perennial archetype of bigotry, “Gone with the Wind.” Not to be outshined, A&E Network eliminated thirty plus years leviathan “Live PD,” in homage of deprecating all things police.

CORPORATE AMERICA’S HONORABLE RESPONSE
Estee Lauder is a paradigm for truckling behavior of corporations that, when confronted with the mildest of criticism, grovel to appease and show obeisance to the gods of structural racism.

A hundred Estee Lauder employees delivered a letter to executive chairman William Lauder commanding resignation of Trump supporter and company director, uncle Ronald Lauder. Additional stipulations of $5 million spent on “social, economic and racial justice” plus similarly high-minded rebukes rounded out this revolt.

Remarkable that an organization of 48,000 genuflects to a mere hundred employees. Why not expeditiously annunciate to these recalcitrants a genuine appreciation and respect for their misguided opinions simultaneously, including a resignation form for those unwilling to labor for a business that tolerates the diversity of beliefs. In a gesture of virtue, Estee Lauder pledged $10 million to the NAACP.

Many companies try to run ahead of the sure to come corporate shakedowns. Bank America quickly announced a four year billion-dollar initiative for its culpability in social injustice. Happily, Pepsi put up $400 million to annihilate the scourge, concurrently gaining enormous corporate self-esteem. CEO Rodney McMullen penned a sycophantic trope flagellating Kroger’s corporate culture, begging mercy for a litany of sins; likewise, Walmart, McDonald’s, Amazon, and dozens of others followed suit. And in a gesture of Platonic purity, Wells Fargo tethered executive pay with the high-minded goal of doubling black employees.

To avoid persecution, Jews during the fifteenth century Spanish Inquisition renounced their beliefs and embraced Catholicism. More than a few of these so-called “Conversos” were rightly suspected of continued secret adherence to Hebrew rituals. Jealousy over their financial success combined with suspect religious beliefs, the Papal sanction of a formal Inquisition sought to exorcise this inherent tumor preventing further metastasis; property confiscation, torture, and burning apostates and the final indignity of official Baptism.

Corporations will remain under minute scrutiny as inquisitors seek to root out twenty-first century “Conversos” to ensure fulfillment or not of lofty corporate mission statements. Ultimately in Spain, Grand Inquisitor Torquemada expelled thousands of Jews. Those that remained became subject to new “purity of blood” laws codifying Jewish prejudice axiomatically circumscribing opportunities. Henceforth, nothing could be done to expunge Jewishness.

Will modern-day social justice warriors consolidate enough power to extirpate companies not suitably compliant to the unbending “Catholic” (i.e., anti-Trump) ideology?

Since Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s, the U.S. government has spent many trillions on countless welfare programs to improve the circumstance of black society. Instead of a look inward and accepting a modicum of responsibility for rampant teen pregnancy, broken fatherless homes, low literacy rates, high crime, and an ethos of non-assimilation, liberals methodically fabricated the marketing hoax of “Systemic Racism.”

As putative data annually announced the hundreds of billions in government outlays to blacks in food stamps, Section 8 housing subsidies, Medicaid, weren’t yielding desired results, the deception of racism and white supremacy fills the void of a horribly failed culture.

This vast apparatus depends on the integral cog of white guilt. Elites preach evermore government spending, generating endless new programs that will unlock the shackles of poverty and cycles of crime and recidivism. Beneath outward speech of grand equality, the subtext patronizes blacks as incapable dolts forever dependent on government largesse. Ironic this addiction to intrusive government perpetuates more public reliance ergo discouraging self-reliance. All the tax dollars and programs are a ball and chain, a modern form of the same slavery that many black people hold as 150-year-old evidence of continued white supremacy.

New Leftist demands seek to guarantee blacks absolute “population-based” quantitative representation in industry and all professions.
What more do these reactionaries want? For decades blacks have received preferential admissions to the finest universities.

Corporations do back-flips to hire people of color. Everyone winks and nods that they may not be the most qualified, so it has become an unspoken act of charity.

These newly enshrined numerical assurances seem devoid of qualitative requirements? Performance and capability get omitted from the manifesto of doctrinaire radicals. Is America prepared for Progressive’s envisioned defenestration of our meritocracy, the bedrock of this country’s exceptionalism?

Perhaps Silicon Valley has trouble hiring 13.2 percent population quota of black engineers because the best and the brightest are often Asians from Stanford and Berkeley. The standard script loudly promulgates a premeditated racist plot, anything but an acknowledgment that maybe there aren’t enough qualified black engineers.

While black poverty and attendant miseries are the focus, little hype goes toward the rising black middle class and that 8 percent of American millionaires are black.

In another contradiction of sorts, the percentage of black homeownership is highest in southern states, including Texas, almost all of which are Republican. Leftist progressive strongholds California, New York, and occupied Seattle report among the lowest rates.

I wonder how the many bright, accomplished black men and women that fought honestly to climb the ladder react to new mandates effectively demeaning their achievements? Do they lump themselves with members of their race pushed through the system solely because of their color? The current zeitgeist debases the black intellect. The top-down approach, advancing people through skin color, never can accomplish a bottom-up course of action. But changing mindsets and ethics, building new black societies with cohesive families with education paramount would be difficult, time-consuming, and with no guarantee of desired results. Once again, take note of the stunning hypocrisy of the Left’s universal carping regarding discrimination based on skin color.

POLICE VIOLENCE
Evidence of organized collusive police violence against blacks fails even cursory statistical analysis.

Black Lives Matter use violence and intimidation filled campaigns, tacitly goaded in lockstep complicity from media and academia who inculcate their venom appealing solely to passions. A police officer is more than 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black American than for a law enforcement officer to kill an unarmed black person. The police fatally shot nine unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed whites in 2019, according to a Washington Post database.

In 2018, there were 7,407 black homicides, with 93 percent committed by other blacks. Just over 1/10 of one percent of black men died at the hands of police. The so frequent they have become mundane daily murders in Chicago where innocents barricade inside residences to avoid errant bullets, merits barely a mention. It’s an environment conducive to learning for young children.

According to Heather McDonald, “In 2019 police officers fatally shot 1,004 people, most of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous.
African-Americans accounted for 235 or less than a quarter of the total. That share of black victims is less than what the black crime rate would predict since police shootings are a function of how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects. In 2018, African-Americans made up 53% of known homicide offenders and committed about 60% of robberies, though they are 13% of the population.” With 375 million annual civilian police encounters, more than 99.999 percent of law enforcement encounters are non-deadly.

A bad cop tragically murdered George Floyd. Then an apotheosis of this repetitive felon with multiple prison stints was as swift as it was incredible. A career criminal high on fentanyl passing counterfeit currency gets instantaneously transmuted to a gentle giant relocated from Houston to Minneapolis to start a new life.

Prejudice exists in America and every society worldwide. It always will. It’s endemic to humans that people tend to covey up with like-kind. There are plenty of black bigots as well as white ones. Listening to all news outlets might lead one to conclude that black people alone are uniquely subjected to discrimination. Yet, anti-Semitism stands at near-record levels, and lots of people describe all Muslims are terrorists.

CONCLUSION
Media propaganda constructs a society paralyzed with fear. Differing from liberal dogma earns an all-encompassing indictment of racism often corroborated by editing, and then broadcasting innocent comments taken out of context. The sophists of the Left contrive a world with a harsh doctrinaire fiction, disparaging facts, and replacing them with frenzied emotion conjuring white guilt and systemic racism, overwhelming those gullible enough to forfeit their reason.

George Floyd was brutally and unjustly murdered. Any unjust killing is one too many. Sadly, the recent shootings by a black man of Baton Rouge, La police officers pass unnoticed. Likewise, slain black officer David Dorn, bravely trying to stem ANTIFA and BLM hooligans. Place a value on these law-abiding lives?

The George Floyd Memorial Fund has pocketed over $14 million. Floyd’s gold casket and eponymous street names make lovely trappings for his ongoing rehabilitation. Logic dictates the Left choose this scoundrel as their martyr, their sordid icon, representing America’s perdition. I hear some calling for commissioning of George Floyd statues, perhaps where those of Lee once stood.

FYI, all the crazy ideologies seeking to restructure society with new norms or standards with the intent to eradicate a structural racism that mostly doesn’t exist to begin with, only begets bitterness, resentments, and bigotry where often none existed.

Anger becomes more exacerbated by irrational notions that competence requirements become ancillary to an absolute number of hires. The Liberal media claims a desire for racial harmony, but actions speak louder than words.
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While the identity of RBF remains a mystery , the quality of his/her writing surely has grabbed my attention.  McIntosh Enterprises

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This Equality's All an Act

by Tony Perkins: After Monday's wildly off-base decision, most liberals should have been out celebrating. But despite being handed a judicial gift -- an LGBT victory they'd have never managed democratically -- Democrats didn't stop to party. They were already back on the Senate floor, demanding more. Now that they've got the Supreme Court taking a match to religious liberty, they're apparently hoping Congress will finish the job.

They're the Party of Never Satisfied. Democrats, who couldn't get Congress to go where SCOTUS did, isn't even stopping to savor the moment. Like Obergefell, they're already on to phase two: turning what's left of Americans' freedom to a pile of smoldering ash. As far as they're concerned, it wasn't enough that six justices magically redefined human biology. Or that faith-loving Americans are about to be legally tormented like never before. After Monday their goal is bigger: using the court's decision to bash through whatever religious barriers to their agenda still exist. And the "Equality" Act is the way they plan to try.

There's just one problem -- Americans were never on board with these changes in the first place. And if they wanted Congress to act, it certainly wouldn't be to make things worse. But this is about tolerance, the Left will say. Americans want to end discrimination, they'll argue. Well, of course they do. We all do. But not when "ending discrimination" means a drag queen in every library, a man in every girls' restroom, or an atheist teacher in every Christian school. As most conservative senators argued yesterday, the only "equal" thing about this idea is how much damage it does to every facet of American life.

Senate Democrats, who apparently believe six people's opinion makes a national consensus, tried on Thursday to fast-track their bill to wipe religious freedom off the map. It was a bold move, considering that most Americans were still in shock over the fact that the court bypassed Congress to elevate "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" in the first place. That will already, FRC's Travis Weber pointed out on "Washington Watch," spark years of litigation. But liberals want to eat their cake and force you to bake it too.

Fortunately, under the Senate's rules, you can't hotline a bill if even one Senator objects. And Senators Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and James Lankford (R-Okla.) dutifully pushed on the brakes. In stirring speeches that spelled out the scope of this devastation, they looked at their colleagues across the aisle and asked what happened to civil disagreement? What happened to coexistence? Why, Senator Lankford asked, are you pushing a piece of legislation that decides the rights of one side matter more than the rights of the other? "We in America have tried to be able to find those spots, where the rights collide of the two individuals and to be able to work it out among each other." That's impossible, he points out, when you take religious freedom off the table.

And protecting religious freedom, Hawley points out, wasn't just conservatives' idea. "[The Religious Freedom Protection Act] was sponsored in the House by then-Representative Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and it was sponsored in this chamber by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and signed by President Bill Clinton into law... It was bipartisan is my point. To put it mildly..." Now, he shakes his head, Democrats are the ones who want to "steamroll" it as part of this process. Why, he wanted to know? So that liberals can force taxpayers to pay for abortions and gender reassignments against their will? So that doctors and nurses will have to participate against theirs?

What about adoption agencies, Hawley pressed on, "some of which had been helping birth mothers find a safe and loving and permanent home for more than 100 years? It would force them out of business. It would coerce those who don't want to speak or who hold different beliefs into adopting this set of practices and principles and beliefs at work... These doctors, these nurses, these faith-based agencies, I submit to you that this is not the way to find consensus in America. This shunting aside of the constitutional rights of sincere, well-meaning people of faith is not the way to proceed."

"We, in America," Senator Lankford insisted, "have tried to work together in all of our differences... to accommodate one another. The Equality Act does not do that. I wish it did. It changes everything dramatically." And Americans are no more ready for that than they were for a handful of unelected judges to change the course of history. This lawlessness has to stop, and it's Congress's job to try.

For more on the SCOTUS fallout, check out my Washington Times op-ed, "Justice Gorsuch Botched Bostock v. Clayton County Ruling on Homosexual and Transgender 'Rights.'" Also, get the real facts about H.R. 5 in FRC's "The Inequality Act."
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Tony Perkins (@tperkins) is President of the Family Research Council . Article on Tony Perkins' Washington Update and written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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Attacking America, Why DACA Matters, Bolton's Betrayal, Attacking The First Amendment, CUFI Virtual Summit

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Attacking America
I know many well-meaning people, including conservatives, who have considered the view that statues and other monuments to Civil War figures should come down or be renamed in order to further racial reconciliation in our country. And who doesn't want to further racial reconciliation?

By the way, a new ABC News poll finds that 56% of Americans oppose renaming our military bases.

But it is worth noting that the America-hating left has already moved on.

Fresh from toppling statues of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, the mobs are now going after Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Another Washington statue was destroyed by a mob in Portland, Oregon, last night. As we have noted before, the radicals are also going after Christopher Columbus and even Abraham Lincoln!

Major media, corporate America and too many politicians are silent or even encouraging the attacks. But can anyone find a case where appeasing the mob makes the mob go away? When you give in to the mob, you only whet its appetite.

Reality check: To the socialist, anarchist left, the problem isn't the existence of statues. The problem, as they see it, is the existence of the American Republic.

Lest you think that's hyperbole on my part, check out this video from an old acquaintance of mine, documentary filmmaker Ami Horowitz, who recently braved the streets of CHAZ.

Why DACA Matters
I want to revisit the Supreme Court's outrageous DACA decision because it shows just how far down the slippery slope we are toward two completely different standards of justice. This is a severe threat to the rule of law and the future of our republic.

How is it that Hillary Clinton, who violated State Department policies and federal records laws and exposed classified information on her private server, gets off scot free while Donald Trump gets impeached over a phone call?

Well, we're now seeing this double standard expanded to the functioning of the entire executive branch.

The Supreme Court's liberal majority yesterday ruled that once a president issues an executive order, even one that is illegal, the next president has to go through an extremely laborious process before it can be reversed.

But does anyone doubt that if Joe Biden wins in November, he will, as he promised yesterday, repeal Trump's executive order and make DACA permanent on Day One of his administration?

And does anyone doubt that if Biden wins and repeals multiple Trump executive orders, five justices on the Supreme Court will find a way to say, "Oh, of course he's allowed to do that"?

Yesterday's ruling is also important because it highlights why this election is so vital to the future of our country and the values we believe in, especially the rule of law.

President Trump has made two Supreme Court appointments who replaced two previous Republican appointees. His appointments have shifted the court a little bit to the right. But Trump replacing two Republican appointees doesn't settle the issue.

The next two vacancies, which could easily occur in the next four years (Ginsburg is 87 years old and Breyer is almost 82), will most likely settle the generational direction of the court and the country. President Trump announced yesterday that he will release a new list of potential Supreme Court nominees in September.

Meanwhile, with almost zero reporting, Democrat leaders warned Biden not to publicize a similar list of individuals he would pick to fill Supreme Court vacancies.

Why wouldn't they want the public to know those names? Because it would be clear that those individuals are against your First Amendment freedom of religious liberty, against your Second Amendment right to own firearms and in favor of continuing the carnage of abortion on demand.

If Donald Trump were wrong on every other issue, judicial appointments alone would justify voting for him. Of course, he's not wrong on every other issue. That's Joe Biden.

Bolton's Betrayal
John Bolton's book, "The Room Where It Happened," is making headlines, as I am sure you have noticed. I know John Bolton. But I have no words to describe how I feel about what he is doing now.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement yesterday titled "I Was In The Room Too." Here's what Pompeo had to say about Bolton's book:

"I've not read the book, but from the excerpts I've seen published, John Bolton is spreading a number of lies, fully-spun half-truths, and outright falsehoods. It is both sad and dangerous that John Bolton's final public role is that of a traitor who damaged America by violating his sacred trust with its people."

Attacking The First Amendment
The left and the media are doing everything they can to prevent Donald Trump from holding another rally. They did this before with fake studies claiming that his rallies caused hate crimes.

This time, progressives <went to court trying to shut down tomorrow's rally in Tulsa. Late yesterday, the mayor issued a curfew, even though many people had already started camping out, hoping to get in.

There are also reports that "agitators" are coming in from other states hoping to turn the rally into a riot. This is right out of the Nazi playbook from 1930s Germany.

It's the progressive left that is stoking violence in America, not the conservative right. And more evidence that the left will stop at nothing to prevail.

Pray for President Trump, Vice President Pence, their staff and the good people who are coming to see our president. Pray that Oklahoma law enforcement can thwart the plans of those who seek to threaten our First Amendment rights, which are increasingly under attack from the radical left.

Iran's Nuclear Ambitions
A German intelligence report released this week once again proves that the world's worst regimes – Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and Syria – are working feverishly to obtain and perfect the world's worst weapons of mass destruction.

The report warns that in spite of strict regulations and sanctions, Iran is attempting to use "specially established front companies" to acquire "dual-use goods" that are shipped through "bypass countries" such as Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and China.

German intelligence officials also accused the Islamic Republic of Iran of extensive spying at universities and research facilities.

This report comes on the heels of the German Foreign Ministry finally acknowledging that Iran's repeated threats to "annihilate" the state of Israel are more than just "anti-Israel rhetoric" but are in fact anti-Semitic.

CUFI's Virtual Summit
In these dangerous times, it is vital for America to stand proudly with Israel, our most reliable ally. That's why I urge you to join Christians United For Israel's Virtual Summit June 28th – June 30th. You will hear from an incredible lineup of speakers, such as:Israeli President Reuven Rivlin
Israeli Minister of Defense Benjamin Gantz
Pastor John Hagee
Ambassador Ron Dermer
Ambassador Nikki Haley
Sen. Marsha Blackburn
Sen. Tom Cotton
Sen. Ted Cruz
Sen. Marco Rubio
Sen. Tim Scott
Mark Levin
Dennis Prager
And many, many more.Register now!
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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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Free Speech is Under Full Assault

by J.G. Carter: Increasingly, we see people holding unpopular views being attacked and refused a forum in which to speak. Through the threat of force and censorship to control people's speech, free speech is under full assault. History is replete with others using similar tactics. As in the times before the Nazi rise to power, the Soviet gulag era, and Mao's revolution, similar trends are prevalent today.

Freedom of speech is engaging in unrestricted speaking of one's mind without fear of retaliation or censorship. It is the freedom to use one's natural rights to engage in complex thought and speech. This is not a new concept. Freedom of speech has a history centuries old, long predating the founding of this country. Some want to control these natural abilities. This is where the dispute lies.

One does not have to look far to find multiple examples of the threat of violence and censorship. This ranges from online mobs to technology company and media censorship and peer attacks. Those with differing opinions are blackballed, blacklisted, attacked, and censored out of existence.

Take, for example, distinguished University of Chicago professor Harald Uhlig, attacked by his professional peers and online mob for writing that Black Lives Matters "just torpedoed itself, with its full-fledged support of #defundthepolice." And, "Time for sensible adults to enter back into the room and have serious, earnest, respectful conversations about it all... We need more police, we need to pay them more, we need to train them better."

The mode of operating is the same: disapprove the words someone uses, sensationalize the awfulness of it, then use every method of force available to attack them. As with Dr. Uhlig, threaten to take away their livelihood, discredit their work, and then, by proxy, incite mobs to physically attack them and their property. They are treated worse than the violent criminal who can at least work when released from prison. Even the radicals of the 60s had the decency to honor freedom of speech. One would think today's academics would be the champions of free speech, not adversarial critics.

Then there are the technology giants like Twitter, Facebook, Google, and others, pretending to have an open platform but leading the charge for censorship and tyranny against free speech. This is like selling a microphone, then taking it away when the buyer uses it to say something the seller does not like. Or like selling a pair of shoes but taking them off someone's feet when they do not like where they walk. These platforms are not free, people pay for them through advertisements and other fees. As allies of government, these companies enjoy special protections and regulations, platforms, privileges, benefits, and partnerships.

All enemies of free speech are similar; they control the free expression of speech, the words people choose, and change the meaning of words when it suits them. They attack those who disagree, take away their income, and do whatever harm they can get away with toward those who disagree. It is a violent philosophy.

Ethics are defined by the expediency of the situation. Therefore, they justify making up stories and twisting facts, refusing to let what is just and right get in the way of cramming their beliefs onto others and getting what they want. Sacrificing the value of a person for the promises of a self-serving ideology.

They are the masters of fear. Using out-of-control anger and sensationalized reactions, they bully anyone with differing views. All because a person has a different belief, seeks clarification, or wants to add something new to a complex subject. People are so afraid of the consequences of their violence, they hide, and go underground, carefully censoring what they say.

These are good people who just want to have the freedom to say what they want without attack. Doing as much harm as they can against those not supporting their platform of control is vicious, malicious, and malevolent.

When someone uses the threat of violence to restrict another's natural rights or person, it is called a crime, as when a mugger threatens to hurt someone to take what is not theirs. Somehow, they have escaped this label. All the claims of good intentions are meaningless. "Legalizing" it is just a matter of convenience to act without impunity.

Though fear is used as a means of control, it is those who control who fear. Desperate, they are afraid of being found out. Only the intellectually and morally weak are intolerant of allowing others to speak alternative views. Alternative views will keep them from getting what they want. Freedom of speech threatens power, takes away control, and undermines the social designs of their larger agenda.

Given how malevolent they are when not governing and how malevolent their allies are who do govern, consider how much more vicious they will become with increased power.

What kind of society is left without freedom of speech? There can be no respectful social intercourse, nor any true academics, intellectual discussion, or moral choices without free speech, open debate, and the freedom to say, do, think, and express what wants without reprisals. No society will develop favorably without it.

Society requires free speech to process, consider the uncertain, and incorporate and adjust to new knowledge. Without free speech, civil society will dissipate. A good society is a society that protects people's freedoms. Control over others and a free society cannot coexist.

Yet, we are complicit, giving our freedoms away. We do nothing while the tumbrels roll, cowering as victims of marauders. It is more dangerous to do nothing than to resist and take our freedom of speech back. It is a choice. Live in a society without those freedoms or live in a society where you are free to say as you choose without fear of retaliation.

Protect yourself and protect others. Decry those using these tactics. Call them out. Speak your mind.
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J.G. Carter shared this article on the American Thinker.

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The Enemy Within: A Story of the Purge of American Intelligence

Believe it or not, but the dystopic view that Democracy is dead is by no measure a new idea.

by Cynthia Chung: “Western Europe has only 20 to 30 more years of democracy left in it; after that it will slide, engineless and rudderless, under the surrounding sea of dictatorship, and whether the dictation comes from a politburo or a junta will not make that much difference.”– Willy Brandt (German Federal Chancellor, right before he stepped down in 1974)

Believe it or not, but the dystopic view that democracy is dead is by no measure a new idea.

However, what might disturb you is where this design, in its contemporary form, really germinated from.

The idea that democracy is in a crisis and needs to be replaced with a new form of “governance” did not originate from the outcries of an oppressed people demanding their rights to a decent life. We are not presently seeing an organic, grassroots process in reforming how government, that is, democracy will be “improved” upon. Rather, what we are seeing is a controlled disintegration of the very thing we think we are trying to uphold, and this destruction has been in the works for over 45 years.

It is no coincidence that Samuel P. Huntington is very fond of the Willy Brandt quote “prophesying” the end of democracy (which was used at the beginning of both his books ‘The Crisis of Democracy’ and ‘Disaffected Democracies’), that is after all his purpose in life…to see to it that that prophecy comes true.

In this paper I will go through how the Henry Kissinger crew successfully purged the last significant remnants of decency within the CIA and reshaped the government structure into the Deep State that we see it grotesquely throbbing as today. In this story, we will see how those prominent figureheads who prophesise the “end of democracy” have been the very orchestrators of its destruction.

The First Purge of American Intelligence: The Dismantling of the OSS
On March 4th 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt would be elected President of the United States, which would become a twelve year presidency, ending only due to his passing away. Roosevelt was an anti-imperialist who actively, and successfully, organised towards abolishing imperialism throughout the world.

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was established by Roosevelt on June 13th 1942, under the direction of William J. Donovan, as a wartime intelligence agency. Its purpose was to collect and analyze strategic information required by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to conduct special operations not assigned to other agencies.

Contrary to how we think of American foreign intelligence today, the raison d’être of the OSS was to genuinely win the war (WWII) quickly and with the least amount of loss.

However, FDR would pass away on April 12th 1945, and the OSS would be dismantled a mere five months after FDR’s passing and two weeks after the official end of WWII.

On Sept 20th 1945, Truman infamously ordered the shutdown of the OSS, referring to it as a potential Gestapo , however, not with the intention to disband all foreign intelligence capabilities. The OSS would be replaced under the new banner of CIA, on Sept 18th 1947, and more importantly as a contingent to the National Security Council which was created on the same day. Refer to my paper on this.

Many respectable and patriotic intelligence officers of repute, who were loyal to FDR’s vision, were also thrown out of the intelligence community with the disbanding of the OSS.

In August 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, several years before the 1953 date forecast by the CIA. As a response, the Joint Intelligence Committee submitted an estimate of the nature of the nuclear threat from the Soviets. JIC-502 claimed that once the Soviets had 200 atomic bombs, they could launch a surprise attack and defeat the U.S.

These assertions were made without analysis of Soviet capabilities to actually deliver the weapons, let alone produce them at that rate. The estimates did not even attempt to analyze Soviet strategic intentions.

JIC-502, titled “Implications of Soviet Possession of Atomic Weapons” and drafted Jan 20th 1950, turned out not to be an intelligence report at all but rather a sales pitch, claiming that a nuclear-armed Soviet Union had introduced the notion that “a tremendous military advantage would be gained by the power that struck first and succeeded in carrying through an effective surprise attack.”

It was JIC-502 which would be the first to put forward a justification for the preventive first strike concept, supported by a massive military buildup under the pretence of pre-emptive war.

NSC-68 would be drafted the same year, declaring that the U.S. was in the moral equivalent of war with the Soviet Union and called for a massive military buildup to be completed by 1954 dubbed the “year of maximum danger”, the year JIC-502 claimed the Soviets would achieve military superiority and be able to launch war against the U.S. This proposed military buildup would increase the defense budget from $10 billion to $40 billion from 1950-53.

During this same period another security doctrine was drafted, titled “NSC-75: A Report to the NSC by the Executive Secretary on British Military Commitments”. The report concluded that if the British Empire collapsed, and Britain could no longer carry out these deployments, in defending the “free world” against the Soviets, the U.S. would not be able to carry out its current foreign policy, including NSC-68.

It was thus concluded in the report that it would be more cost-effective to aid Britain in saving its Empire!

If you were ever wondering why the CIA was constantly found paired with British Intelligence, starting from its very inception, in a series of coups in countries they had no reason to be in, now you know why.

The U.S. had gone from an explicit mission to end imperialism worldwide under Roosevelt, to actively supporting and upholding British colonies and vassal states under Truman!

This was all done under the pretence of protecting the “free world” from the evil boogeymen Soviets, whom Churchill decided to be labelled such in his Iron Curtain Speech. And thus, the interests of the British Empire were safeguarded by an abiding American stooge, as long as the narrative that all Russians were villains was believed.

Interestingly, the CIA was not on board with the pre-emptive war strategy, as defined by JIC-502. In February 1950 the CIA responded in ORE 91-49, stating:

“It is always possible…that the USSR would initiate a war if it should estimate that a Western attack was impending. [However], It is not yet possible to estimate with any precision the effects of Soviet possession of the Atomic Bomb upon the probability of war. The implications of atomic warfare, either militarily or psychologically, have not yet been fully appraised.”In other words, the CIA was stating that JIC-502’s frantic lunacy in demanding a military buildup and first strike capability against the Soviets was groundless. That there was no data to support such a claim, and thus such a response would be a reckless and dangerous one.

It became evident to those who wished to push through these permanent war policies that the CIA was going to need “stronger” leadership.

At least, this was the argument made by the Dulles-Jackson-Correa Report which called for a strong CIA Director in the wake of the Cold War. Though Walter Bedell Smith, who would become CIA Director from 1950-53, did much to reorganise the CIA away from the pre-emptive war mongering, it was ultimately Allen Dulles who would take the CIA throne.

It should not come as a surprise that Dulles had himself in mind the whole time when he was talking about the stuff that was needed for a “strong” CIA Director… however, he was not referring to a strong mind, but rather a strong stomach.

Dulles would act as Director of the CIA from 1953-61, until he was fired by President Kennedy (along with the Deputy Director and Deputy Director for Plans), all three were caught essentially committing treason during the Bay of Pigs fiasco, refer to my paper on this.

McCone would replace Dulles as CIA Director and would attempt to clear the CIA of its Dulles loyalists in the Bay of Pigs incident; unfortunately it would not be enough.

During Dulles’ term as CIA Director, he did nothing less than entrench America’s role in exacting permanent warfare across the world against “communist insurgents”, with the never-ending Indochina wars lasting for over 35 years.

Though Bedell Smith would only be CIA Director for three years, he would succeed, along with Donovan (founder of the OSS) to create the most strategically important departments within the CIA: the Office of National Estimates (ONE).

Smith sought potential candidates for this new branch from those who had been thrown out of the intelligence community when Truman disbanded the OSS. Many of these “retired” intelligence officers had served in the OSS’ original Research and Analysis Branch; including William Langer and Sherman Kent who both played crucial roles in the running of ONE. Both Langer and Kent were reputable historians.

It was recognised that there was a crisis in competent intelligence gathering and analysis that would in turn be used to shape reckless war mongering policies such as JIC-502, NSC-68 and NSC-75. As Kent would state, there were those in the CIA who were “seeking power through sacrificing the truth.”

The formation of ONE was to be a major pushback on this type of groupthink within the intelligence community.

Kent would comment on the issue of the agency’s security screening (McCarthyism was in full swing at the time) stating: “When an intelligence staff has been screened through [too finely], its members will be as alike as tiles on a bathroom floor – and about as capable of meaningful and original thought.”

In summary, since the death of FDR there was a somewhat open battle between members of the intelligence community, which could be categorised as FDR loyalists vs Churchill loyalists (1). Although there was an attempt to expunge the most notable intelligence officers who remained anti-imperial, Bedell Smith was successful in bringing these men back in, under the reorganised department ONE, who would in turn be a form of sane leadership within the CIA.

Unfortunately, the NSC did not share these views and there would be a second purge of the last remnants of true American patriots.

The Second Purge of American Intelligence: The Deep State is Born
From the moment Kissinger assumed the post of National Security Advisor to Nixon, he set out to centralize all intelligence estimates, diplomatic initiatives, and covert operations over figuratively and sometimes literal dead bodies of members of the CIA, Joint Chiefs of Staff, State Department and Congress.

According to John Ranelagh in his book The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA:
“Very early in the Nixon administration, it became clear that the President wanted Henry Kissinger to run intelligence for him and that the NSC staff in the White House under Kissinger would control the intelligence community. This was the beginning of a shift of power away from the CIA to a new center: the growing NSC staff.”

Kissinger would use the Watergate scandal, where the CIA was caught by Congress directly implicated in treasonous activities, as the impetus needed to form a new CIA, a secret branch away from the scrutiny of Congress.

In 1978, Kissinger would launch the Intelligence Reorganization and Reform Act, which essentially worked to “clean house” of the intelligence community.

In 1982, under the direction of Kissinger, President Reagan would sign NSDD 77 under Cold War duress, which would launch Project Democracy, a sardonic name for a Trojan Horse.

NSDD 77 allowed Project Democracy the reins over “covert action on a broad scale” as well as overt public actions later to be associated with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The directive ordered the CIA to stay out of both the overt and covert part of Project Democracy, thus giving free reign to the Kissingerian “NSC apparatus”.

Almost one year later, the uninformed and naïve Congress passed the NED Act in Oct 1983, and effectively signed off on wrapping duct tape around their heads.

The structure of the NED essentially functions as a private CIA political operations arm of an invisible, secret government beyond accountability and beyond the reach of the law.

Those who still had a degree of humanity as members of the intelligence community, and had survived the Kissinger purge, were simply kept in the dark about the cloak and dagger operations of the secret government branch.

As for the department ONE, they would be disbanded in 1973 (the year Kissinger became Secretary of State) and replaced with a “group of experts” that would later form the National Intelligence Council in 1979. This would be the last purge of sane patriotic leadership within the intelligence community, left to the hyenas and jackals to run from thenceforth.

In a 1991 interview, then NED President David Ignatius arrogantly stated “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA…The biggest difference is that when such activities are done overtly, the flap potential is close to zero. Openness is its own protection”.

The Real “Crisis of Democracy”
The Trilateral Commission was founded in the wake of Watergate and oil crisis of 1973. It was formed under the pretence of addressing the “crisis of democracy” and calling for a reshaping of political systems in order to form a more “stable” international order and “cooperative” relations among regions.

Its formation would be organised by Britain’s hand in America, the Council on Foreign Relations, (aka: the offspring of the Royal Institute for International Affairs, the leading think tank for the British Crown).

Project Democracy would originate out of a Trilateral Commission meeting on May 31st, 1975 in Kyoto Japan, where the Trilateral Commission’s “Task Force on the Governability of Democracies” findings were delivered. The project was overseen by Trilateral Commission Director Zbigniew Brzezinski and its members James Schlesinger (former CIA Director) and Samuel P. Huntington.

It would mark the beginning of the end, introducing the policy, or more aptly “ideology”, for the need to instigate a “controlled disintegration of society.”

The Trilateral Commission is a non-governmental body, its members include elected and non-elected officials scattered throughout the world, ironically coming together to discuss how to address the “crisis of democracy” in the most undemocratic process possible. It is an organisation meant to uphold the “interests” of its members, regardless of who the people voted in.

You see, by the 1970s democracy was obviously broken, and someone had to put things back in order, right?

This elite grouping of people decided that this approach would be the best for all democracies and just like that, it was brought into official policy across the western hemisphere.

On Nov 9th, 1978, Trilateral Commission member Paul Volcker (Federal Reserve Chairman from 1979-1987) would affirm at a lecture delivered at Warwick University in England: “A controlled disintegration in the world economy is a legitimate object for the 1980s.” This is also the ideology that has shaped Milton Friedman’s “Shock Therapy”.

By the time of Jimmy Carter’s Administration, the majority of the government was being run by members of the Trilateral Commission. But who runs the Trilateral Commission?

Well, keeping in mind that this whole operation is run as an “open conspiracy”, in May 1981, Henry Kissinger who replaced Brzezinski as the head of the Trilateral Commission gave a speech at Chatham House describing his term as Secretary of State:
“[The British] became a participant in internal American deliberations, to a degree probably never practiced between sovereign nations…In my White House incarnation then, I kept the British Foreign Office better informed and more closely engaged than I did the American Department…It was symptomatic.”

In his speech, Kissinger outlined the conflicting ideologies between Churchill and Roosevelt, and concluded with his support for the British worldview as the more superior of the two.

Looks like the Churchill loyalists have won.

Controlled Disintegration: And We All Fall Down
In 1975 the CFR launched a public study of global policy titled the 1980’s Project. The general theme was “controlled disintegration” of the world economy, and the report did not attempt to hide the famine, social chaos, and death its policy would bring upon most of the world’s population.

The study explained that the world financial and economic system needed a complete overhaul according to which key sectors such as energy, credit allocation and food would be placed under the direction of a single global administration. The objective of this reorganization would be the replacement of nation states.

However, before this could occur, nation states would have to falter, or at least give off the impression of faltering.

The failure of the nation state is not a natural phenomenon but rather is the outcome of a fascist coup; involving a banker’s dictatorship, economic looting and permanent warfare (the Cold War never ended) to hinder national industrial growth.

Among the most effective strategies towards this end has been color revolutions, which just so happens to be the NED’s specialty practice and has included, to name a few, the nations of Yugoslavia, Georgia, Iraq, Lebanon, Burma, Iran, Egypt, Yemen, Ukraine and the ongoing Hong Kong protests.

Wherever this strategy has unfolded, the target state is told by the international community that it has no right to intervene and is told to stand by as its nation is ransacked by locusts and its government ‘reorganised’.

With the final purge of American intelligence and the formation of a secret government, rendering anything resembling a democratic process obsolete, unless someone can restart the engine fast, we will soon be confronted by Willy Brandt’s prophecy of finding ourselves rudderless, under a surrounding sea of dictatorship.
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Cynthia Chung is a lecturer, writer and co-founder and editor of the Rising Tide Foundation (Montreal, Canada). H/T The Strategic Culture Foundation.

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Is AR Legislature Powerless on COVID-19 Rules?

by David Ferguson: Some Arkansas legislators are upset with Governor Asa Hutchinson’s COVID-19 emergency rules and are upset with being left out of the decision-making process.

Legislators have been saying in frustration: “We are powerless to stop the Governor.” But these legislators have been misinformed.
The legislature is not powerless. The legislature can end the Governor’s emergency power by terminating his declaration of an emergency. And, if they wish, they can use this power as a way to bring the Governor to the table or force the calling of a special session.The legislature has the power. It is just a question of whether it is politically expedient to use it. The legislature’s authority is found in Arkansas Code § 12-75-107 (c). (1) The General Assembly by concurrent resolution may terminate a state of disaster emergency at any time.
(2) Thereupon, the Governor shall issue an executive order or proclamation ending the state of disaster emergency.The legislature does not need the Governor’s approval to meet for the purpose of passing the resolution and it only takes a majority vote to pass it. Yes, the Governor could veto the resolution, but the legislature can override the veto by a majority vote. Overriding a veto is not a hurdle considering a majority is the same number required to pass the resolution in the first place.

Although the legislature has the power, I would be surprised if many legislators would be willing to just terminate the emergency immediately and go without any rules. But the legislature can use its power as leverage to get the governor to call a special session where they can make changes in the Emergency Services Act.

It is a game of chicken, but it can be played where the legislature has the advantage.
To obtain the advantage, the legislature would need to put the Governor in the position of being the one to let the emergency declaration die if he refuses to make concessions.To do this the concurrent resolution would need to include the following three elements.(1) A statement of grievances and deficiencies in the current emergency services law,
(2) A statement that a special session is necessary to revise those emergency powers, and
(3) Provision for a delay in the termination to allow time for a special session to occur first, but short enough to keep the governor from dragging his feet.The resolution might say something like:“The emergency declaration is terminated effective ten (10) days after the passage of this resolution unless the General Assembly has been brought into special session by that date for the purpose of allowing the General Assembly to amend any and all provisions of the Arkansas Emergency Services Act. If the General Assembly is in special session on that date then the emergency declaration is terminated three (3) days after the end of the special session and a new declaration is necessary.”Yes, the governor could ignore the resolution and just pass a new emergency declaration, forcing the legislature to pass yet another concurrent resolution. The game could go on and on like that but it would be a really bad move for the Governor to alienate a majority of the legislature since the Governor still needs their support in the 2021 regular session of the legislature.

If you have made your way through this long explanation, you may be thinking: “I hate the Governor’s COVID rules and my legislator will fix it.” Not so fast. Many legislators are loathe to buck a governor either because of their party loyalty or fear of reprisal.
The legislature has power, but the political question remains: Is this a fight the legislature wants to fight in order to have a role in this emergency?A personal note: In writing this article I am not advocating for or against any course of action. The article came about because it still bugs me when I hear someone say the legislature cannot do something when I know they have the power. Informing legislators about their powers and about their options is an old habit of mine that is hard to break. I worked for the legislature for over thirty years.

Although I always found something I liked about the governors I worked with, as a legislative employee I always enjoyed helping legislators who were butting heads with those governors. Even in retirement, I am a fan of the Arkansas legislative branch and probably always will be (even though they pass too many left-leaning policies for my taste).
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David Ferguson wrote this article for Conduit News.

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A Call to Action . . .

. . . Democrats like Schumer, Pelosi, and Biden are giving their allegiance to the rioters and looters turning their backs on America.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Success Breeds Failure

Michael Barone

by Michael Barone: Success breeds failure. That's a lesson taught by America's current woes, the stumbling attempts to cope with the novel coronavirus, and the all-too-familiar scripts for responding to police misconduct and violent riots.

What worked once upon a time no longer proves functional; policies that once enjoyed consensus now evoke multivarious complaints; procedures that long proved availing suddenly seem dysfunctional.

Providing evidence for that proposition, Derek Thompson over at The Atlantic writes, "(O)ur orientation toward militarized overpolicing and our slow-footed response to fast-moving pandemics both stem from an inability to adapt our safekeeping institution to the realities of the 21st century."

A quibble. There are legitimate criticisms of "overpolicing" -- do SWAT teams' castoff military equipment really stop crime? -- but over the past quarter century, the story of policing has overwhelmingly been one of success.

Look at the numbers. New York City, under former Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, led the way, reducing homicides from 2,245 in 1990 to 333 in 2013. Others contributed as well. According to Statista, nationally, homicides declined from 24,700 in 1991 to 14,164 in 2014.

This reflects, among other things, a sharp decline in violent behavior by black Americans, who have long accounted for a disproportionate share of violent crime. Parents, teachers and counselors who have shaped this generation of young African Americans deserve much credit for the 55% decline in incarceration of black males ages 18 to 29 from 2001 to 2017.

Simultaneously, there's been a sharp drop in police shootings, of both blacks and others, and the proportion of black victims is below that of black offenders. The death of George Floyd, captured on horrifying videotape, is thus atypical of national trends, an exception rather than the rule.

Why do so many people feel otherwise? Because success breeds failure. The success of American policing has made the continued existence of abuse seem like an intolerable failure.

There's a larger phenomenon here. The successes of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, coming on top of (as former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan pointed out) big income and education gains for blacks in the 1940s and 1950s, were abruptly followed by the deadly urban riots of the late 1960s: success breeding failure.

Peaceful protests and violent rioting came after the election and reelection of the first African American president. Expectations raised by successes that are quickly taken for granted can provide the basis for perceptions of failure.

And not just perceptions. Genuine expertise based on past accomplishments is not a guarantee against future failure.

Example: On Jan. 21, Dr. Anthony Fauci said of COVID-19, "this is not a major threat to the people of the United States, and this is not something that the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about."

This is not the only thing U.S. government experts have gotten wrong. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention botched development of a COVID-19 test and failed to keep count of COVID-19 cases by, among other things, relying on fax machines. The Food and Drug Administration delayed test development with nitpicking and contradictory requirements.

But careful nitpicking, FDA admirers can argue, produced what many consider its greatest historic success: its refusal in the 1950s to approve the fetus-harming drug thalidomide. The CDC's procedures perhaps also stemmed from traditions instilled by past successes. Once again, success breeds failure.

A quibble. There are legitimate criticisms of "overpolicing" -- do SWAT teams' castoff military equipment really stop crime? -- but over the past quarter century, the story of policing has overwhelmingly been one of success.

Look at the numbers. New York City, under former Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, led the way, reducing homicides from 2,245 in 1990 to 333 in 2013. Others contributed as well. According to Statista, nationally, homicides declined from 24,700 in 1991 to 14,164 in 2014.

This reflects, among other things, a sharp decline in violent behavior by black Americans, who have long accounted for a disproportionate share of violent crime. Parents, teachers and counselors who have shaped this generation of young African Americans deserve much credit for the 55% decline in incarceration of black males ages 18 to 29 from 2001 to 2017.

Simultaneously, there's been a sharp drop in police shootings, of both blacks and others, and the proportion of black victims is below that of black offenders. The death of George Floyd, captured on horrifying videotape, is thus atypical of national trends, an exception rather than the rule.

Why do so many people feel otherwise? Because success breeds failure. The success of American policing has made the continued existence of abuse seem like an intolerable failure.

There's a larger phenomenon here. The successes of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, coming on top of (as former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan pointed out) big income and education gains for blacks in the 1940s and 1950s, were abruptly followed by the deadly urban riots of the late 1960s: success breeding failure.

Peaceful protests and violent rioting came after the election and reelection of the first African American president. Expectations raised by successes that are quickly taken for granted can provide the basis for perceptions of failure.

And not just perceptions. Genuine expertise based on past accomplishments is not a guarantee against future failure.

Example: On Jan. 21, Dr. Anthony Fauci said of COVID-19, "this is not a major threat to the people of the United States, and this is not something that the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about."

This is not the only thing U.S. government experts have gotten wrong. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention botched development of a COVID-19 test and failed to keep count of COVID-19 cases by, among other things, relying on fax machines. The Food and Drug Administration delayed test development with nitpicking and contradictory requirements.

But careful nitpicking, FDA admirers can argue, produced what many consider its greatest historic success: its refusal in the 1950s to approve the fetus-harming drug thalidomide. The CDC's procedures perhaps also stemmed from traditions instilled by past successes. Once again, success breeds failure.

Mediavine
As for Fauci, surely, there's no expert on infectious disease better equipped, through knowledge and vast experience. He has performed successfully through six presidents' administrations, and remained ready to acknowledge mistakes and confess ignorance when warranted.

Similarly, probably no one in the world knew more about the financial history of the Depression of the 1930s than Ben Bernanke when he was appointed Federal Reserve chairman in 2006. Yet in a May 2007 speech, he said, "We believe the effect of the troubles in the subprime sector on the broader housing market will likely be limited."

Indeed, one can argue, as biographer Sebastian Mallaby does, that the great success of Bernanke's predecessor Alan Greenspan in suppressing inflation and stimulating growth created an overconfidence and complacency that contributed to the 2008 market crash. In other words, success breeds failure.

How to prevent this? Perhaps more skeptical examination of success and more imaginative envisioning of failure. The hardest thing for political campaign strategists to do, I've observed over the years, is to distinguish the nine times out of 10 they should ignore demands they constantly get to change campaign strategy from the one time out of 10 they should agree. Some people are pretty good at this. But even they are always at risk of failure.
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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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Can We Coexist with Asia’s Communists?

by Patrick Buchanan: The rhetoric out of the North against South Korean President Moon Jae-in, coming from the 32-year-old sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, the rising star of the regime, Kim Yo Jong, has been scalding. In a statement this week, Kim Yo Jong derided Moon as a flunky of the Americans…

Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met for seven hours at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii with the chief architect of China’s foreign policy, Yang Jiechi.

The two had much to talk about.

As The Washington Post reports, the “bitterly contentious relationship” between our two countries has “reached the lowest point in almost half a century.” Not since Nixon went to China have relations been so bad.

Early this week, Chinese and Indian soldiers fought with rocks, sticks and clubs along the Himalayan truce line that dates back to their 1962 war. Twenty Indian soldiers died, some pushed over a cliff into a freezing river in the highest-casualty battle between the Asian giants in decades.

Among the issues surely raised with Pompeo by the Chinese is the growing bipartisan vilification of China and its ruling Communist Party by U.S. politicians the closer we come to November.

The U.S. has been putting China in the dock for concealing information on the coronavirus virus until it had spread, lying about it, and then letting Wuhan residents travel to the outside world while quarantining them inside China.

In America, it has become good politics to be tough on China.

The reasons are many.

High among them are the huge trade deficits with China that led to an historic deindustrialization of America, China’s emergence as the world’s first industrial power, and a U.S. dependency on Chinese imports for the vital necessities of our national life.

Then there is the systematic theft of intellectual property from U.S. companies in China and Beijing’s deployment of thousands of student-spies into U.S. colleges and universities to steal security secrets.

Then there is the suppression of Christianity, the denial of rights to the people of Tibet and the discovery of an archipelago of concentration camps in western China to “reeducate” Muslim Uighurs and Kazakhs to turn them into more loyal and obedient subjects.

Among the strategic concerns of Pompeo: China’s fortification of islets, rocks and reefs in the South China Sea and use of its warships to drive Vietnamese, Malaysian, Indonesian and Philippine fishing vessels out of their own territorial waters that China now claims.

Another worry for Pompeo: China’s buildup of medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, a nuclear arsenal not contained or covered by the Cold War arms agreements between Russia and the United States.

Then there were those provocative voyages by a Chinese aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait to intimidate Taipei and show Beijing’s hostility toward the recently reelected pro-U.S. government on the island.

Finally, there are China’s growing restrictions on the freedoms the people of Hong Kong have enjoyed under the Basic Law negotiated with the United Kingdom when the territory was ceded back to Beijing in 1997.

Also on the menu at Hickam was almost surely the new bellicosity out of Pyongyang. This week, the building in Kaesong, just inside North Korea, where bilateral peace talks have been held between the two Koreas, was blown up by the North. With the explosion came threats from the North to send combat troops back into positions they had vacated along the DMZ.

The rhetoric out of the North against South Korean President Moon Jae-in, coming from the 32-year-old sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, the rising star of the regime, Kim Yo Jong, has been scalding.

In a statement this week, Kim Yo Jong derided Moon as a flunky of the Americans: “It is our fixed judgment that it is no longer possible to discuss the North-South ties with such a servile partner engaging only in disgrace and self-ruin, being soaked by deep-rooted flunkyism.”

North Korea’s state media published photos of the destruction of the joint liaison office. Pyongyang is shutting off communications with Seoul, and a frustrated South looks to be ginning up and reciprocating.

The North-South detente appears dead, and President Trump’s special relationship with Kim Jong Un may not be far behind.

There are rumors of a renewal of nuclear weapons and long-range missile tests by the North, suspension of which was one of the diplomatic achievements of Trump.

Whether Trump’s cherished trade deal with China can survive the growing iciness between the two nations remains to be seen.

What the Chinese seem to be saying with their actions — against India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Australia, Hong Kong and Japan — is this: Your American friends and allies are yesterday. We are tomorrow. The future of Asia belongs to us. Deal with it!

No one should want a hot war, or a new cold war, with China or North Korea.

But if Trump was relying on his special relationships with Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping, his trade deal with China and his commitment by Kim to give up nuclear weapons for recognition, trade and aid, he will have to think again.

For the foreseeable future, Communist bellicosity out of Beijing and Pyongyang seem in the cards, if not worse.
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Patrick Buchanan (@PatrickBuchanan) is currently a blogger, conservative columnist, political analyst, chairman of The American Cause foundation and an editor of The American Conservative. He has been a senior adviser to three Presidents, a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and was the presidential nominee of the Reform Party in 2000.

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Viva la Revolucion . . .

. . . All speech must be deemed okay through the prism of the left-wing mob or endure their wrath.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Bolton Book’s Lies Are Ultimate Betrayal

John Bolton

by Richard Manning: The release of excerpts from a book by fired National Security Adviser John Bolton reveals much more about Bolton than about President Trump.

As is always the case when money is to be made, Bolton (who claims he resigned) makes allegations about the president designed to titillate the ‘Orange Man Bad’ crowd.

One of the most scurrilous of the claims relates to an alleged conversation that the president had with Chinese President Xi Jinping, supposedly asking for help with Trump’s 2020 reelection bid. Both U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney say such a conversation never occurred.

In an excerpt of Bolton’s book published Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal Bolton wrote: “In their meeting in Osaka on June 29, [2019] Xi told Trump that the U.S.-China relationship was the most important in the world. He said that some (unnamed) American political figures were making erroneous judgments by calling for a new cold war with China … Trump then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability and pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win. He stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome. I would print Trump’s exact words, but the government’s prepublication review process has decided otherwise.”

Lighthizer, who was in the room for the meeting Bolton discusses told the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday that the allegation is “Absolutely untrue, never happened. I was there, I have no recollection of that ever happening. I don’t believe it’s true, I don’t believe it ever happened.”

Lighthizer concluded that Bolton’s allegation was “completely crazy.”

Bolton, for his part, was so “stunned” that he hung around for more than two months after the supposed comment to be unceremoniously fired for repeatedly urging the president to get the United States into several military conflicts around the world.

America is at a crossroads. China is engaged in a wholesale assault on our nation. The Chinese government is attacking the dollar as the world reserve currency, infiltrating our nation’s universities and laboratory system, stealing our intellectual property, and coercing U.S. multinational corporations to become China’s political and legislative advocates.

It’s an indictment on John Bolton’s character that in an environment where Marxists are burning our cities he is seeking to destroy the only person standing in China’s way – President Trump.

Bolton’s massive ego was hurt when the president fired him. And the former national security adviser has been offered a small fortune for a “tell all” book. But this does not justify him effectively providing aid and comfort to the enemy out of spite.

It is a shame that someone with a distinguished career like Bolton would be so wrapped up in his own ego over being fired that he would gaslight the president with clear lies.

Sadly, the Bolton book writes the epitaph on his political tomb: “Turned his back on his country when America needed him most.”
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Richard Manning (@LimitGovt) is president of Americans for Limited Government. H/T & view vdeo on FoxNews.

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Tags: Richard Manning, Americans for Limited Government,  John Bolton, Book, lies, ultimate betrayal To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Happy Juneteenth!

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: Slavery has been called America’s “original sin.”

Folks do not generally like to dwell on their sins. That is why we all think forgiveness is so swell.

But the first and most important step in redemption? To stop committing the wickedness, in this case to immediately emancipate those held in bondage. That “struggle,” as the escaped slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass would so eloquently refer to it, was anything but quick.

Emancipation came only after Union forces won the Civil War, America’s bloodiest conflict by far.

But it did come. Slavery was abolished.

And this wonderful news reached Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865 — a date that has lived on as the holiday “Juneteenth.” (Some call it “Emancipation Day” or “Freedom Day.”) And enslaved people were freed.

“This year, Juneteenth, a holiday that celebrates the arrival of the news of emancipation from slavery,” Veronica Chambers writes in the New York Times, “seems to be a bigger deal across the nation.”

By executive order, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has declared today a paid holiday for state employees. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, of blackface infamy, gave all state executive branch employees the day off and promised to push through legislation next year naming Juneteenth a state holiday to be “acknowledged and celebrated by all of us.”

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee says she will introduce a bill to make Juneteenth a national holiday.

I like it. Is there anything more worthy of commemoration than freeing people from slavery? It cannot hurt to remind people there was once slavery in America, or that we fought and died to bring that awful institution to an end.

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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