One crisp winter morning in Sweden

One crisp winter morning in Sweden

Murray Sanders

May 27

One crisp winter morning in Sweden, a cute little girl named Greta woke up to a perfect world, one where there were no petroleum products ruining the earth. She tossed aside her cotton sheet and wool blanket and stepped out onto a dirt floor covered with willow bark that had been pulverized with rocks. “What’s this?” she asked.
“Pulverized willow bark,” replied her fairy godmother.
“What happened to the carpet?” she asked.
“The carpet was nylon, which is made from butadiene and hydrogen cyanide, both made from petroleum,” came the response.
Greta smiled, acknowledging that adjustments are necessary to save the planet, and moved to the sink to brush her teeth where instead of a toothbrush, she found a willow, mangled on one end to expose wood fibre bristles.
“Your old toothbrush?” noted her godmother, “Also nylon.”
“Where’s the water?” asked Greta.
“Down the road in the canal,” replied her godmother, ‘Just make sure you avoid water with cholera in it”
“Why’s there no running water?” Greta asked, becoming a little peevish.
“Well,” said her godmother, who happened to teach engineering at MIT, “Where do we begin?” There followed a long monologue about how sink valves need elastomer seats and how copper pipes contain copper, which has to be mined and how it’s impossible to make all-electric earth-moving equipment with no gear lubrication or tires and how ore has to be smelted to a make metal, and that’s tough to do with only electricity as a source of heat, and even if you use only electricity, the wires need insulation, which is petroleum-based, and though most of Sweden’s energy is produced in an environmentally friendly way because of hydro and nuclear, if you do a mass and energy balance around the whole system, you still need lots of petroleum products like lubricants and nylon and rubber for tires and asphalt for filling potholes and wax and iPhone plastic and elastic to hold your underwear up while operating a copper smelting furnace and . . .
“What’s for breakfast?” interjected Greta, whose head was hurting.
"Fresh, range-fed chicken eggs,” replied her godmother. “Raw.”
“How so, raw?” inquired Greta.
“Well, . . .” And once again, Greta was told about the need for petroleum products like transformer oil and scores of petroleum products essential for producing metals for frying pans and in the end was educated about how you can’t have a petroleum-free world and then cook eggs. Unless you rip your front fence up and start a fire and carefully cook your egg in an orange peel like you do in Boy Scouts. Not that you can find oranges in Sweden anymore.
“But I want poached eggs like my Aunt Tilda makes,” lamented Greta.
“Tilda died this morning,” the godmother explained. “Bacterial pneumonia.”
“What?!” interjected Greta. “No one dies of bacterial pneumonia! We have penicillin.”
“Not anymore,” explained godmother “The production of penicillin requires chemical extraction using isobutyl acetate, which, if you know your organic chemistry, is petroleum-based. Lots of people are dying, which is problematic because there’s not any easy way of disposing of the bodies since backhoes need hydraulic oil and crematoriums can’t really burn many bodies using as fuel Swedish fences and furniture, which are rapidly disappearing - being used on the black market for roasting eggs and staying warm.”
This represents only a fraction of Greta’s day, a day without microphones to exclaim into and a day without much food, and a day without carbon-fibre boats to sail in, but a day that will save the planet.
Tune in tomorrow when Greta needs a root canal and learns how Novocain is synthesized.

The Ghislaine Maxwell (Epstein) documents have been unsealed.

Thread by @Techno_Fog: The Ghislaine Maxwell (Epstein) documents have been unsealed. Will be posting excerpts here - Starting with allegations of minor being traff…

The Ghislaine Maxwell (Epstein) documents have been unsealed.

Will be posting excerpts here -

Starting with allegations of minor being trafficked to Maxwell, Prince Andrew, and Alan Dershowitz (as prev. alleged).

Thread.

The trafficking scheme was international in scope - in France, Ghislaine Maxwell ordered her give an "erotic massage" to a French hotel magnate.

Deposition of the victim:

"I was ordered by Ghislaine (Maxwell) to go and give him an erotic massage."

Serious allegations -

Maxwell directed the minor to have sex with former MIT scientist Marvin Minsky at Epstein's complex in the US Virgin Islands.

(Minsky pictured.)

Allegations against Dershowitz -

Not only did Dershowitz abuse the minor, but he helped draft a non-prosecution agreement that gave Dershowitz immunity.

🧐

Witness interview:

Bill Clinton was at Epstein's island with Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and "2 young girls."

Emails between Epstein and Maxwell:

Epstein instructs Maxwell on how to deny allegations.

Epstein tells Maxwell:

She had "done nothing wrong."

"Go to parties. Deal with it."

This is big:

The FBI was in contact with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's minor victim back in 2014.

Yet they did nothing.

Heartbreaking -

The minor victim was asking the FBI for the evidence (photos and videos) they seized from Epstein.

Why?

So she could prosecute her civil case.

Remember that famous Prince Andrew photo with Ghislaine Maxwell and the victim?

The FBI had their own copy for years - even before the victim's 2011 FBI interview.

The FBI knew. They always knew.

The DOJ let free Epstein's co-conspirator's in the FL case.

This included Maxwell and Sarah Kellen.

Here the victim describes the abuse during flights from Epstein, Maxwell, and Kellen.

Now - let's put things into context.

We previously broke what the FBI/DOJ (in 2008) knew about Epstein.

Main Justice (DC DOJ) was helping run the Epstein case - and even delayed the grand juries.

At the time Epstein signed his plea deal...

The FBI and DOJ knew it had not interviewed all his victims.

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh.

Here's a good article about hydroxychloroquine....

Here's a good article about hydroxychloroquine....

By Harvey A. Risch, MD, PhD
Professor of Epidemiology
Yale School of Public Health

As professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health, I have authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications and currently hold senior positions on the editorial boards of several leading journals. I am usually accustomed to advocating for positions within the mainstream of medicine, so have been flummoxed to find that, in the midst of a crisis, I am fighting for a treatment that the data fully support but which, for reasons having nothing to do with a correct understanding of the science, has been pushed to the sidelines. As a result, tens of thousands of patients with COVID-19 are dying unnecessarily. Fortunately, the situation can be reversed easily and quickly.
I am referring, of course, to the medication hydroxychloroquine. When this inexpensive oral medication is given very early in the course of illness, before the virus has had time to multiply beyond control, it has shown to be highly effective, especially when given in combination with the antibiotics azithromycin or doxycycline and the nutritional supplement zinc.
On May 27, I published an article in the American Journal of Epidemiology (AJE) entitled, "Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-Up Immediately as Key to the Pandemic Crisis." That article, published in the world's leading epidemiology journal, analyzed five studies, demonstrating clear-cut and significant benefits to treated patients, plus other very large studies that showed the medication safety.
Physicians who have been using these medications in the face of widespread skepticism have been truly heroic. They have done what the science shows is best for their patients, often at great personal risk. I myself know of two doctors who have saved the lives of hundreds of patients with these medications, but are now fighting state medical boards to save their licenses and reputations. The cases against them are completely without scientific merit.
Since publication of my May 27 article, seven more studies have demonstrated similar benefit. In a lengthy follow-up letter, also published by AJE, I discuss these seven studies and renew my call for the immediate early use of hydroxychloroquine in high-risk patients. These seven studies include: an additional 400 high-risk patients treated by Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, with zero deaths; four studies totaling almost 500 high-risk patients treated in nursing homes and clinics across the U.S., with no deaths; a controlled trial of more than 700 high-risk patients in Brazil, with significantly reduced risk of hospitalization and two deaths among 334 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine; and another study of 398 matched patients in France, also with significantly reduced hospitalization risk. Since my letter was published, even more doctors have reported to me their completely successful use.
My original article in the AJE is available free online, and I encourage readers—especially physicians, nurses, physician assistants and associates, and respiratory therapists—to search the title and read it. My follow-up letter is linked there to the original paper.
Beyond these studies of individual patients, we have seen what happens in large populations when these drugs are used. These have been "natural experiments." In the northern Brazil state of Pará, COVID-19 deaths were increasing exponentially. On April 6, the public hospital network purchased 75,000 doses of azithromycin and 90,000 doses of hydroxychloroquine. Over the next few weeks, authorities began distributing these medications to infected individuals. Even though new cases continued to occur, on May 22 the death rate started to plummet and is now about one-eighth what it was at the peak.
A reverse natural experiment happened in Switzerland. On May 27, the Swiss national government banned outpatient use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19. Around June 10, COVID-19 deaths increased four-fold and remained elevated. On June 11, the Swiss government revoked the ban, and on June 23 the death rate reverted to what it had been beforehand. People who die from COVID-19 live about three to five weeks from the start of symptoms, which makes the evidence of a causal relation in these experiments strong. Both episodes suggest that a combination of hydroxychloroquine and its companion medications reduces mortality and should be immediately adopted as the new standard of care in high-risk patients.
Why has hydroxychloroquine been disregarded?
First, as all know, the medication has become highly politicized. For many, it is viewed as a marker of political identity, on both sides of the political spectrum. Nobody needs me to remind them that this is not how medicine should proceed. We must judge this medication strictly on the science. When doctors graduate from medical school, they formally promise to make the health and life of the patient their first consideration, without biases of race, religion, nationality, social standing—or political affiliation. Lives must come first.
Second, the drug has not been used properly in many studies. Hydroxychloroquine has shown major success when used early in high-risk people but, as one would expect for an antiviral, much less success when used late in the disease course. Even so, it has demonstrated significant benefit in large hospital studies in Michigan and New York City when started within the first 24 to 48 hours after admission.
In fact, as inexpensive, oral and widely available medications, and a nutritional supplement, the combination of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin or doxycycline, and zinc are well-suited for early treatment in the outpatient setting. The combination should be prescribed in high-risk patients immediately upon clinical suspicion of COVID-19 disease, without waiting for results of testing. Delays in waiting before starting the medications can reduce their efficacy.
Third, concerns have been raised by the FDA and others about risks of cardiac arrhythmia, especially when hydroxychloroquine is given in combination with azithromycin. The FDA based its comments on data in its FDA Adverse Event Reporting System. This reporting system captured up to a thousand cases of arrhythmias attributed to hydroxychloroquine use. In fact, the number is likely higher than that, since the reporting system, which requires physicians or patients to initiate contact with the FDA, appreciably undercounts drug side effects.
But what the FDA did not announce is that these adverse events were generated from tens of millions of patients uses of hydroxychloroquine for long periods of time, often for the chronic treatment of lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. Even if the true rates of arrhythmia are ten-fold higher than those reported, the harms would be minuscule compared to the mortality occurring right now in inadequately treated high-risk COVID-19 patients. This fact is proven by an Oxford University study of more than 320,000 older patients taking both hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, who had arrhythmia excess death rates of less than 9/100,000 users, as I discuss in my May 27 paper cited above. A new paper in the American Journal of Medicine by established cardiologists around the world fully agrees with this.
In the future, I believe this misbegotten episode regarding hydroxychloroquine will be studied by sociologists of medicine as a classic example of how extra-scientific factors overrode clear-cut medical evidence. But for now, reality demands a clear, scientific eye on the evidence and where it points. For the sake of high-risk patients, for the sake of our parents and grandparents, for the sake of the unemployed, for our economy and for our polity, especially those disproportionally affected, we must start treating immediately.

If you give a boy a baseball...

If you give a boy a baseball...

If you give a boy a baseball, he will want a bat to go with it.
You’ll buy him the best bat you can find, and then he will probably want a bucket of balls and a glove and some cleats too.
Then, he will probably spend hours begging you to go out in the yard to play with him, even though you may want to sit on the couch and watch tv. He will insist. And his insistence will win.
And when a boy gets a jersey, he will need pants and socks and a belt to go with it. And a TEAM…..
And then life as you know it will end.
There will be no more lazy weekends watching tv. You will see more sunrises than you ever thought possible. Every spare minute of your time will be spent hauling buckets and bags and stinky cleats and crazy boys all over tarnation for hours to practice for a game.
THE GAME.
And your house will be a mess. And your car will be dirty. All because you gave a boy a baseball.
Your weekends will be spent freezing or burning to death on a fold-up chair. And his weekends will be spent gaining confidence and friends, and learning new skills and having fun and getting dirty. So dirty in fact that you will have to learn how to do laundry in a whole new way, like maybe at a carwash using the pressure washer.
And you will be there the day he hits his first home run, first strikeout, and his first double play. And he will make you SO proud. The other moms will congratulate you. But you feel weird saying thank you because it's not you at bat or on the mound. It's everything him. He did this.
And right before your eyes, your little boy will be transformed from the baby who spun around with his head on the bat, (because he loves attention), into a pitcher. Because he loves attention still.
When you give a boy a baseball, you give him more than just a ball. You give him a sport, and talent, and hope, and dreams, and friends, a new family, a place to learn about the life, room to grow as a person where he can push his limits, and bravery, and courage and LIFE, and memories. And he will have ALL of these things, simply because you gave a boy a baseball.
Because you gave a boy a baseball, you too will develop new/lifelong friendships, developed solely from the same passion for the game and love of your team. You will root together. And spew PG-13 things out of your mouths together. Because you gave a boy a baseball.
Then one day, many years from today….he will be in his room and a baseball will roll out from an old dusty bat bag underneath his bed. And he will pick it up and realize instantly that when you gave that boy a baseball, you also gave him a childhood that he would never forget. And then he will hug you, and your eyes may leak – because you realize that everything YOU gave up along the way…..was worth it!
All because you gave a boy a baseball ⚾️ ……

Two Poll Numbers That Explain So Much — If True

Jul 29, 2020

RUSH: Well, we have a couple of polls, I guess, research studies that may explain a lot. One of them I had not heard of, and the results in this one are gonna stun you. Maybe they won’t.
Anyway, folks, great to be back for yet another day, another three hour excursion into broadcast excellence. Rush Limbaugh, your guiding light, America’s Real Anchorman revved and ready. The telephone number if you want to be on the program today, 800-282-2882. The email address, ElRushbo@eibnet.us.
There is a strategic communications firm out there, much like you may have heard of the McKinsey & Company. This group is called Kekst. And they’re not widely known, but they’re big. They are hired by Fortune 500 companies do all kinds of PR, strategic communications, market research, audience research if there’s an audience involved. And their work is largely never made public. It’s inside baseball kind of stuff for the people that hire them.
Now, I, as a powerful, influential member of the media happen to know many people who use the work produced by this firm, Kekst, K-e-k-s-t is how they’re spelled. And he sent me the latest work product. And it’s a gigantic PDF file chronicling their research on COVID-19, not just in the United States, but around the world. And going through it the relevant page or slide — because what it actually is is a slide presentation much like a keynote presentation or whatever the equivalent is with Microsoft — the relevant slide is found on page 24 of this document.
And it is essentially this. The average American believes that 9% of the U.S. population have already died from COVID-19. Nine percent of the U.S. population is 30 million people. So the average American thinks that 9% of the population’s already died, 30 million people are dead. Now, why would they think such a thing? Sadly, it is a testament to the Drive-By Media.
The Drive-By Media has been reporting case numbers. They have been orgying, they have been orgasming, if you will, over case numbers, every day, brand-new numbers of cases. And what have I been telling you? I’ve been telling you that the attempt here is to convince people that case numbers equal death numbers. The way the media has reported this is, if you get it, you die. They haven’t come out and specifically said this. They don’t have to. They can use the power of suggestion and false reporting in a number of ways. And it’s been successful.
So, as the case numbers mount — I mean, the true number of deaths, I think today we’re gonna pass 150,000 dead in the United States. And yet the average American thinks that 30 million people have already died. Now, if you think that 30 million people have already died, what would you be doing? You’d be hibernating. You’d be hiding. You wouldn’t want to go back to work. You wouldn’t want to send your kid back to school. You would not want to do anything that would result in the country reopening or the economy reopening.
Thirty million people. The average American thinks 9% of the population’s toast. So one of my friends that sent me this said, “If I thought that, I’d be in my basement too.” And, by the way, we’re not alone. Perceptions in major European countries are almost as far off the mark. In the U.K., the average citizen there thinks that 7% of their population has died. In France, the average French citizen thinks that 5% of their population has died.
But we in the United States are the leaders. The average American thinks that 9%, 30 million people, have already died. So you’d have to say that the propaganda effort to link the number of cases of COVID-19 with the number of deaths is working, when in fact the death rate is coming down. The mortality rate is coming down. It is not increasing as the number of cases increase. And yet the average American thinks something entirely different.
Now, here’s the second poll. And I tell you, folks, this one, this is just as bad if not worse. Gallup has come out with one of the most hard-to-believe polls that I have seen in my life. And I just have to tell you, I hope for the sake of the country that the media has not been able to fool this many Americans, ’cause here’s the data.
Gallup claims that Black Lives Matter protests have changed 65% of Americans’ views on racial justice and that half of the respondents now feel connected to the protest cause. They also claim, Gallup does, that more than one in four young adults have participated in a Black Lives Matter protest. Now, my belief is and my strong hope is, my suspicion is that this poll is just another attempt at shaping public opinion rather than reflecting it.
I just refuse to believe that most Americans support this insanity that we see out there. But then we have to ask ourselves, does the average American even see it? I saw footage today of Portland, Oregon, that I hadn’t seen before. This was not riot footage. This was footage of the city, downtown, in a quiet moment where the rioters had gone to bed or whatever they were off doing. There was no activity whatsoever. The place looks like Dresden in World War II. It looks like it’s bombed out and literally destroyed.
And I’m looking at it, I’m thinking, they’ve got a mayor out there who is supporting this. And in Seattle they’ve got a mayor out there supporting this. In fact, folks, this is so strange. We’re coming to an election in November where the Democrat Party is taking a stand. They are staking their electoral future in favor of rioting, looting, arson, and destruction, specifically of federal property.
The Democrat Party seeks power. They are seeking to win the November election by supporting violence and attacks on law enforcement and the defunding of law enforcement. The Democrat Party seems to think that this is a winning message — and then if you look at the hearing yesterday, which wasn’t a hearing. You know what that hearing was?
That was Twitter live.
That so-called congressional hearing, the way the Democrats conducted themselves, that was Twitter live. That’s exactly what it was. If you wonder what I mean when I say this country is not Twitter, the Democrats think that it is. And I’m telling you, the Democrats… Who was it? Michael Goodwin, I think, has a piece today on how the Democrats just destroyed themselves because of the way they acted in this hearing yesterday.
I’m not so sure. Time will tell. But it was either Goodwin or somebody else. No. It was Andy McCarthy. Andy McCarthy has a piece at National Review, and he said the Democrats conducted themselves in the hearing the way they did yesterday because their voters demand it. Well, maybe that’s true, because the Democrats believe that Twitter is America.
They believe that Twitter is a majority of thought in America, and so if they believe that, then they would believe that their voters expect them to treat Republicans the way they treated Barr yesterday. Now, the one thing about that theory is it kind of absolves the Democrats of any blame. It accuses them of being actors in that they’re only acting that way.
They’re only acting rude, they’re only acting anti-American, they’re only acting out the way they did because their voters demand it. In other words, if their voters weren’t demanding they act that way, then they would not be this crazy. Is that true, or have the Democrats become that crazy? ‘Cause I’m telling you, if you can be persuaded to act the way they have been acting because that’s what your voters want…
If it were me, I would say, “We got a problem. Our voters are destroying us. Our voters are putting us in a no-win situation. We can’t…” and I would be fighting it. But, no, they’re just following right along. So I don’t know if it’s really the fact that the voters are demanding they act this way.
I’m sure there’s a certain element of truth to that, but to say that the Democrats are only acting that way because their voters demand it kind of gives them an out, when I don’t think they deserve one. I think they’re making an active decision and strategy decision to conduct themselves the way they did because they believe it’s going to result in them winning.
They believe that that is what a majority of the American people want. They can’t believe it’s just that their base wants that. But, I mean… That’s the point. They are as angry and insane as their base. But to say that they’re doing this because their base demands it kind of puts the onus on the base and gives the Democrats an out. It’s a minor point. It’s not that big a deal at the end of the day because they are acting this way.
You can debate why all you want. But let me get back to this Gallup poll for just a second. Because while it is abundantly clear that the Democrat Party has made the active political calculation that the way to win, the way to get rid of Trump is to clearly support rioting, looting, the destruction of personal property, arson, the destruction of federal property, to violently attack and maim federal law enforcement and police officers.
The Democrats believe that is their ticket to getting rid of the Bad Orange Man, and if we have gotten to that point, then I don’t know, folks. It’s like… Let me now jump back here to this Gallup survey. Black Lives Matter protests have “changed 65% of Americans’ views on racial justice,” even though Black Lives Matter is not a racial justice organization. It’s a Marxist organization.

But then again, that’s something… (sigh) It’s so abundantly clear. That’s what Black Lives Matter says about itself, and yet how many people have no idea that they’re Marxist or communist; that they’re nothing to do, really, with civil rights or racial equality or what have you? Sixty-five percent of Americans’ views on racial justice have been changed.
“Half of the respondents in this Gallup poll now feel connected to the Black Lives Matter cause. Gallup says that more than 25% of young adults have participated in a protest.” Actually, it’s worse. It’s two-in-three Americans support racial justice protests, meaning they support the destruction of Seattle and Portland and what’s going on.
So it’s clear here that the divide that exists in this country between just the two major parties has never been greater. The difference, the contrast in the two approaches to life and governance has never been greater. And the frightening thing is that if you believe all of this stuff… Forget the Gallup survey. Let’s go back to the Democrats for a second, and let me again restate what they are doing.
They clearly want to win the White House. They clearly want to get rid of Bad Orange Man. They clearly loathe Trump and they are poisoned with hatred for him. Their desire to win is as strong as it’s ever been, their desire for power is as strong as it’s ever been, and look at the positions they are taking that they think represent a majority of thinking in America.
To stand in support, not of protests. Riots. Lootings. Arson. The destruction of private property, personal property, federal property. Violent, murderous attacks on law enforcement. They think that’s what’s gonna launch them to victory? They obviously… Folks, they have to think that. They could not be just acting this out. They literally must think that.
Now, why do they think this? We go back to Twitter. They believe Twitter is a majority of thinking in this country. They believe Twitter is America. I do not. As I said, the so-called hearing yesterday, what that was, was Twitter live. You saw the Democrats acting out what happens on Twitter.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is Peter in St. Louis. It’s great to have you, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Rush, thank you. It’s great to be on. I enjoy your show. I just wanted to make a comment. I’m a taxi driver in St. Louis. I’m very familiar with when lawn signs go up. I’m a hundred percent convinced that that 65% in —
RUSH: Wait. Hold on. You’re very familiar with what goes up?
CALLER: Lawn signs. People put signs on the in front of their houses.
RUSH: Oh, lawn signs. Okay.
CALLER: Lawn signs. That 65% poll for Black Lives Matter, in my opinion, a hundred percent reflects the outrage over the killing of George Floyd. It does not reflect support for the full Black Lives Matter. Somehow, the poll was able to capture that in the way it was worded or how they led people or however it was communicated. That’s what they tapped into. Half the Black Lives Matter signs out there came right up after George Floyd was killed. If they had another way to express it, they would have. (crosstalk)
RUSH: Hold it. Are you telling me that as you work —
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: — your average day driving around in St. Louis, you see Black Lives Matter signs like you would see a Trump sign or a Biden sign in the front yard?
CALLER: Absolutely. Lots of them. Yeah, sure.
RUSH: All right.
CALLER: And — (crosstalk)
RUSH: Hang on just a second. Just a second.
CALLER: The number of them doubled. (crosstalk)
RUSH: No, no, no, no. Wait, wait. I need to do a survey here. Have you guys seen Black Lives Matter signs in yards? (interruption) Not in your neighborhood. Your…? (interruption) I have never seen a Black Lives Matter sign anywhere like you see a Trump sign or any other politician sign. You saying that Black Lives Matter signs are all over the place in St. Louis?
CALLER: Absolutely. They were originally in the African-American neighborhoods, in some mixed neighborhoods, but they jumped up in a lot of the white neighbors and more upscale neighborhoods after the George Floyd killing.
RUSH: Okay. Here’s what he’s calling about, in case you’re just joining us. There’s a Gallup poll out today which, folks, we all better hope is wrong as it can be. Gallup is claiming that the Black Lives Matter protests have changed 65% of Americans’ views on racial justice, meaning 65%, the American people believe this is a racist nation founded in slavery.
(sigh) And, further, that half of the respondents now feel connected to Black Lives Matter. Your point is, you think this is confusing because what most people were putting signs in the yards for and reacting to was George Floyd, not specifically support for Black Lives Matter?
CALLER: Absolutely. If there’d been a “Justice for George Floyd” sign, that would have gone up a lot of places.
RUSH: You know, I think you have a point, because I continue to see — as I go through my show prep each and every day I continue to see — stories that reference public opinion and how much it has changed since George Floyd’s death, whereas it originally had to do with (public opinion about all of this had to do with) specifically George Floyd and how he was murdered and how he was killed. And now that the media is taking that and just applying it to Black Lives Matter when Black Lives Matter actually doesn’t deserve it, they don’t own it. It’s all related to George Floyd. The exact point that you’re making.
CALLER: That is correct. That’s my point.
RUSH: But the pollsters obviously are doing this purposely, ’cause I’m telling you, folks: I think this is another attempt by Gallup and whoever the pollsters are to shape public opinion and not reflect it. Because I refuse to believe — I refuse to believe — that 65% of the American people support this insanity. Now, I believe that 65% of Millennial white women might support it.
But I don’t believe 65% of the American people do.
I know that this protest is largely driven by Millennial, college-educated white women. You know, more and more women… I’ll show you what I mean in the next hour. But more and more young women in this country are becoming nothing more than hoods! Your average, ne’er-do-well in the ‘hood, white women. And I can explain it, too, why they’re so confused, the competing things they have been taught.

Pramila Jayapal Tries to Skewer Barr Comparing Portland Rioters to Michigan Lockdown Protests, but Gets Dunked by the Facts

Pramila Jayapal Tries to Skewer Barr Comparing Portland Rioters to Michigan Lockdown Protests, but Gets Dunked by the Facts

Posted at 8:00 pm on July 28, 2020 by Nick Arama

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., speaks at a Congressional Tri-Caucus news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017, on injustice and inequality in America. The Congressional Tri-Caucus is comprised of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

As we’ve been reporting today, Attorney General Bill Barr was testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and he’s been pretty much exposing the Democrats for the ridiculous folks they are over the federal response to the rioting by militant leftists in places like Portland.
As Bill Barr said, this is basically an attack on the United States with the terrorists attacking the federal building and federal law enforcement for political reasons. The Democrats’ reaction? Oh, the poor peaceful protesters!

Democrats are not only seemingly unconcerned about that but actually attacking the actions of the very law enforcement officers the radical leftists are attacking.
Barr made it clear he doubted, were the U.S. Capitol to be attacked by the violent militants, that the Democratic side of the Congress would actually stand up and defend it.
But when Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) had her opportunity to question him, she thought she could trap him, talking over him, making a ridiculous comparison between the rioters and lockdown protesters who demonstrated at the capitol in Michigan while carrying guns.

Trending

One More Barr Video that Just Finishes the Dems Off, Nukes Their Whole Narrative on Riots

Nick Arama

Reporters like Timothy Burke thought it was “remarkable.”
Complete bald-faced false comparisons and lies often are “remarkable.” Talking over someone doesn’t mean it’s a good answer, either. It just makes you rude as well as false.
So let’s review. Lockdown protesters who went to the Michigan capitol were armed as they were legally allowed to be, but not one of them threatened any law enforcement officer while they were there. Not only were they peaceful but they even let the police take their temperature to test that they weren’t sick with the virus before entering the building. Once they finished peacefully protesting in the building, they went home. They were not all white, there were people of color. There was one person with a swastika on a sign, not because they were promoting neo-Nazism but because the person was accusing the governor of behaving like a Nazi. A bad move, but completely miscast by Jayapal.
No one damaged anything. No one threw explosives, Molotov cocktails, frozen water bottles, cans of food at them. No one tried to set them on fire. No one tried to dox them or their families. No one killed anyone. All of those things have been done by rioters supporting the BLM cause. Last I checked, rioters weren’t letting the police check their temperatures to make sure there was no spread of the virus.
Everyone who’s seen the videos of what the rioters have done understands the difference.
So why would Jayapal be encouraging a federal response of pepper balls against these peaceful protesters who were not violent at all compared to the people she seemed to be defending? And as to those people, just to clear up another point, Antifa is made up not of people of color, as she claimed, but mostly white.
But here’s another point that the Rep. seems to have missed, and it’s a pretty big one for someone in Congress to not understand. There was no federal property or law broken by any of the people in Michigan, as there was in Portland. Does she not understand the difference between state and federal property?
So just stop with the racism, Rep. Jayapal. You’re defending and sticking up for terrorists who are attacking the United States.
Just another point. Seattle and the former autonomous zone were in Jayapal’s district. She let that spread out of control, along with every other representative of the area, even being supportive of it. Two black teenagers were killed in that awful experimentation. At least two others were shot. She did nothing.
They think they’re winning with this line of attack, but it just shows more of the public how deranged and not even close to reality they are.

There are no exceptions to the First Amendment, even in a pandemic

There are no exceptions to the First Amendment, even in a pandemic

by Erin Hawley

 | July 28, 2020 01:32 PM

A few weeks ago, the Texas Supreme Court made headlines by warning state officials that there was not, in fact, a pandemic exception to the United States Constitution. This past week, however, the U.S. Supreme Court seemed to create one. In an order that surprised even the liberals at Vox, the Supreme Court blessed a Nevada law that preferences casinos over churches. The decision has no basis in First Amendment law and establishes a worrisome precedent for government overreach in times of crisis.
Located in Dayton, Nevada, Calvary Chapel is a small, rural church that wishes to host worship services for about 90 congregants, which is 50% of its fire-code capacity. Calvary Chapel’s reopening plans are more than compliant with state and CDC requirements. A limited, 45-minute service (half the normal length), one-way entrance and exit footpaths, six-feet of separation between families, a prohibition on passing items, and sanitization between services are just some of the measures proposed by Calvary Chapel.
Yet Nevada forbade Calvary Chapel from opening its doors. In a breathtaking assertion of governmental power premised on COVID-19, Gov. Steve Sisolak (a Democrat) issued a directive that severely constrains church attendance. No church, synagogue, mosque, or other place of worship may admit more than 50 persons — no matter the building capacity or safety measures employed.
The fact that these restrictions do not apply to casinos, gyms, bowling alleys, restaurants, or bars should have made Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley v. Sisolak an easy case. It is blackletter law that strict scrutiny applies to government restrictions on religious exercise that are not “neutral and of general applicability.” If the Free Exercise Clause means anything, it means government may not single out the religious for disfavored treatment. Yet, that is precisely what Nevada has done. While limiting church attendance to 50 people, Nevada allows the casino down the street to admit thousands of people, up to 50% of their maximum capacity.
Further, casinos are not the only venues that are treated more favorably than churches. Other commercial interests, such as bars, gyms, and restaurants, may also operate at 50% capacity. In fact, tournament bowling alleys in Las Vegas seat hundreds of spectators, and like casinos, can admit up to 50% of capacity. State guidelines provide that groups of up to 50 people may sit together in bowling alley grandstands. Meanwhile, the synagogue down the street is limited to 50 total worshippers.
On Friday, in a one-sentence order that contains not a word of explanation, a sharply divided 5-4 Supreme Court denied Calvary Chapel’s application for an injunction restraining the state of Nevada from enforcing its 50-person limit on religious services.
Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch each authored a dissent arguing that Nevada’s reopening plan discriminated against religious services in violation of the First Amendment.
As Alito explained, a public health emergency does not give public officials “carte blanche to disregard the Constitution for as long as the medical problem persists.” Rather, officials are required to craft policies “that account for constitutional rights.”
This principle is hardly new. In 1866, at the height of the Civil War, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution may not be modified in times of crisis. Rather, our founding charter applies “at all times and under all circumstances.” Indeed, the court could not think of any other doctrine “involving more pernicious consequences…than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government.”
If only the current Supreme Court would return to this view. As Gorsuch explained, “the world we inhabit today, with a pandemic upon us, poses unusual challenges. But there is no world in which the Constitution permits Nevada to favor Caesars Palace over Calvary Chapel.”
All is not lost, however. Although Calvary Chapel will not receive its injunction, the courts still have a chance to consider the case on the merits and to ensure that the First Amendment’s protections apply at all times and in all circumstances.

American Towns Don’t Want To Be Big Cities’ ‘Green Energy’ Graveyards

American Towns Don’t Want To Be Big Cities’ ‘Green Energy’ Graveyards

From New York to California, local opposition is thwarting wind and solar projects seen as essential to transitioning from fossil fuels.

By Vince Bielski

July 29, 2020

While the coronavirus recession has sapped demand for energy and put fracking companies on the ropes – with hundreds of bankruptcies declared so far – the renewables that would replace oil and coal are facing a growing challenge that will last long after the pandemic: The resistance of rural communities to mammoth solar or wind farms that can power cities.
From New York to California, local opposition is thwarting wind and solar projects seen as essential to transitioning from fossil fuels. Many opponents support renewable energy in theory and express concern about climate change. And many landowners have partnered with environmental groups to block or delay natural gas pipelines designed to run through their property.
But enough of them just can’t stomach the outsize “green” projects themselves – wind farms with 500-foot-tall turbines (around the height of the United Nations Secretariat Building) and solar spreads covering many square miles that forever change the idyllic look of rural communities and threaten pristine desert habitat.
The opposition has been brewing for years and now poses a threat to states with plans to rapidly accelerate the buildout to meet ambitious renewable energy goals by 2030. The backlash is powerful because it’s coming from across the political and economic spectrum, including professionals, environmentalists, farmers, activists, and concerned parents.
“The opposition has become a serious impediment to New York meeting its clean energy goals,” says Michael Gerrard, a professor at Columbia Law School specializing in environmental and energy regulation.
A key problem is that while many governors have lofty targets – for example, Andrew Cuomo’s call for renewables to meet 70 percent of New York’s energy needs by 2030 – working out the nitty-gritty with power companies often falls to rural counties with little or no experience regulating complex industrial projects.
Local officials have to set new safety rules for developments with enormous footprints. A typical wind farm with 50 turbines might occupy 15,000 acres, or 23 square miles, which is many times the size of the world’s largest manufacturing plants. The proposed buildout of solar farms in Virginia could require 490 square miles of land (about the size of Los Angeles). Many counties and towns facing public opposition have responded with tough measures, imposing moratoriums or restrictions so onerous that they scare developers away.
Out-of-town developers have to win the trust of rural communities, a big challenge that some fail to meet. Utah-based sPower, which has built 158 utility-scale wind and solar projects in 13 states, first investigates a town’s sentiment toward renewable energy in local newspapers and in zoning laws. If that doesn’t raise red flags, the company quietly reaches out to a handful of big landowners to see if they would lease their land for a fee to host a turbine and become advocates for the project.
The hardest part is enlisting the support of those who don’t get lease payouts of thousands of dollars a year, before they join the opposition and derail the project. Like fossil fuel purveyors, renewable energy developers pitch a boost in tax revenues for schools and health services.
“What some developers have done well and some have done very poorly is getting in front of that opposition and controlling the messaging within the community,” says Jeffrey Nemeth, director of wind at sPower who was raised in rural Illinois. “I’m out there sitting at dining room tables or on a tractor talking with landowners. My most successful projects have been when I built relationships with them. I’m not just some guy from the city coming here to change their way of life.”
Even after developers devote years to public meetings and outreach, some folks can’t be swayed. They mostly complain that turbines are an eyesore and make too much noise. At a typical distance of about 1,000 feet from a home, they make about as much noise as a dishwasher that runs most of the day.
And some opponents are raising sensational claims about the noise to stop projects.
“It does cause health issues,” says Diane Fitch, a Madison County, Iowa, supervisor who’s pushing to ban turbines and likens them to cigarettes. “This is going to be the same. They’ll dispute this until we start dying.”
The resistance encountered by renewables in three states – New York, California, and Michigan – illustrates the depth and breadth of obstacles clouding dreams of a carbon-free future.

New York: Tourists, Not Turbines

The five-year fight over Lighthouse Wind farm is among the longest disputes in upstate New York, where hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has been banned since 2015.
Most residents of the small rural towns of Somerset and Yates first heard about Apex Clean Energy’s plan to install about 47 turbines – each one 591-feet tall – after the company quietly began cutting deals with landowners. They stood to earn a total of more than $1 million a year, according to Apex’s website, providing a boost for struggling farmers in the region.
At the first meeting between Apex and residents at a firehouse about five years ago, Jim Simon became incensed because the company had already developed a timeline and approximate location for the wind farm.
“I told the company representative, ‘You’re on step four, and this is the first time you have done anything public with our town. Don’t you feel that’s inappropriate?’’’ says Simon, associate dean at Genesee Community College. “It went downhill from there.”
Apex did not respond to a request for an interview.
Pam Atwater, a retired engineer and businesswoman, helped set up a nonprofit, Save Ontario Shores, to rally the opposition. Its website details the potential negative impact of the turbines on migratory birds and tourism and even names the landowners who signed confidential leases. “When you put in 47 turbines, it industrializes the community,” says Atwater. “But people come here for tourism and a lot of people have cottages that are rented along the lake.”
Simon, a Republican, and other opponents outmaneuvered Apex by running for office and completely taking over both town boards, which enacted tough zoning restrictions. Two years ago, Somerset passed a 200-foot-limit on the height on turbines that amounts to a ban. Clean energy advocates, who stressed the benefits of the estimated $1.5 million in annual tax revenues for schools and services, were outnumbered.
“We got to the point where two guys at a meeting said, ‘You want to step outside?’” says Simon, supervisor of Yates. “There were moments when it was very tense.”
Apex put Lighthouse Wind on pause and if it quits the project, it would be at least the 11th wind farm defeat in New York. That doesn’t bode well as the state aims to leap from 30 to 70 percent renewable energy in 10 years.
In response, the state government is working to sideline local officials. In April, the legislature passed a law that creates a much quicker approval process for wind and solar projects and makes it easier for a new state office to overrule local zoning decisions.
“It’s important to listen to the [local] concerns and try to mitigate them,” says Anne Reynolds, executive director of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York, an Albany- based advocacy consortium of companies and environmental organizations. “But the great majority of New Yorkers support the clean energy goals and understand we have to have a place to put it.”
The law has reignited tensions upstate. Apex could use it to try to overturn the zoning restrictions in Somerset and Yates that are blocking Lighthouse Wind – a possibility that Simon considers an assault on local governments by Cuomo.
“The system is rigged, compliments of Gov. Cuomo,” the supervisor says.

California: Solar’s Desert Storm

The sparsely populated, blazing-hot California desert would seem to offer a way around such problems. Solar developers, fueled with federal incentives, pushed into the California desert over the last decades, aiming to build mega projects on the vast federal properties overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. BLM had as many as 80 applications to process at once in about 2010.
“It was like the gold rush,” says Jeremiah Karuzas, renewable energy program manager for BLM in California.
Big environmental groups cheered the buildout in the California desert – one of the best solar locations in the world. But Kevin Emmerich, a retired national park ranger who has lived in the Mojave since the early 1990s, witnessed firsthand a problem that has long thwarted fossil fuel projects: threats to wildlife.
Specifically, he saw how the projects were crushing tens of thousands of acres of pristine habitat for the threatened desert tortoise and other species just to send power to the Los Angeles area. His nonprofit group, Basin and Range Watch, spearheaded the opposition starting about a decade ago, providing research to pressure federal and local officials to reject projects in the desert.
Emmerich estimates that 70,000 acres of tortoise habitat in California have been destroyed, adding to the recent push for its listing as an endangered species. “There is huge potential to build solar on rooftops and degraded agricultural lands,” says Emmerich. “Why destroy pristine desert when you have many alternatives?”
Emmerich and other opponents helped delay and defeat about a dozen projects. All told, the bureau rejected about 93 solar developments between 2008 and 2016 in the desert for environmental and military concerns. It approved 24 solar and wind farms over the last decade, but only five solar installations are finished and operating on BLM land with three more on the way.
To speed up the rollout, BLM and state officials in 2016 put in place the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan. It identified 600 square miles of federal land where projects would be fast-tracked, hundreds of additional square miles open to development, and set aside about 10,000 square miles for conservation.
But rules to protect vegetation and habitat got in the way of fast-tracking and contributed to the plunge in applications to only two in 2017 before a more recent uptick. Karuzas says the bureau is now fixing the plan to give more flexibility to developers.
“The promise was that permitting would be a little easier,” says Shannon Eddy, executive director of the trade group Large-Scale Solar Association. “It’s much more difficult, and in a lot of cases, precludes development altogether.”
Developers who have sought refuge in private lands closer to small towns in San Bernadino County have faced strong pushback from residents concerned about dust storms and the use of scarce water by solar farms. The desert crust that binds soil – and absorbs carbon dioxide like a sponge – is disturbed when a solar farm is installed. Strong desert winds pick up the loosened sand and dirt, adding more particulate matter to the frequent dust storms that travel for miles and even stop traffic, says Neil Nadler, a commercial real estate developer and conservationist.
“A couple of times driving from Lucerne Valley to Joshua Tree, I had to pull over because my car was going to get wiped out from the dust storm,” says Nadler.
Last year, San Bernadino, the largest county in the contiguous U.S., sent a jolt through the industry by pushing off large developments to five remote areas and taking about a million acres out of play to protect communities. Los Angeles County has also choked off projects, leaving Kern and Riverside counties as friendlier destinations for developers.
Kern’s director of planning, Lorelei Oviatt, has turned her county into the top wind and solar producer in the state. Early on, she set clear rules on where projects can be sited – on land that’s not useable for agriculture or industry – and created a more efficient environmental review that developers appreciate.
But Oviatt says it’s “fantasy” to think that California can double its solar output to meet its target of 60 percent renewable energy by 2030 if other things don’t change. For one, counties need to generate more tax revenue from new solar projects, which are currently excluded from reassessments on land values.
“The easy land is gone,” she says. “The tolerance of local governments and local communities for hosting is gone. They are closing fire stations and libraries. If you are serious about 60 percent, you have to look at the impact of solar on local government revenue.”

Michigan: An Activist in Farm Country

The battle over a giant wind farm that tore up a farming community in Michigan came with an unusual twist. At public meetings in Lapeer County, a mother repeatedly made emotional appeals to officials to oppose the project because she said shadows from spinning blades could cause her special-needs child to have seizures.
DTE Energy, which had been responding to more typical concerns at public meetings for months, now had another fire to put out. The utility brought in neurologist Jeffrey Ellenbogen, an expert in potential health impacts of wind power, who tried to assure the mom and other folks at a public meeting last year that there’s no link between turbines and headaches, dizziness, or seizures.
It didn’t work. A month later, she galvanized the opposition to the 50-turbine wind farm at a packed gathering in a church, featuring a presentation by a prominent anti-wind power activist, Kevon Martis.
Martis is the bane of renewable energy developers in Michigan. The activist travels around the state and says he has made about 40 presentations at public meetings over the last decade. He dismisses wind power is a “high-cost and low-value” proposition that profits only a few landowners with leases.
“Natural gas is certainly cheaper than unsubsidized wind energy,” says Martis, who is “agnostic” on the issue of human-caused climate change. “My long-term solution is nuclear power.”
If officials need to be pressured, Martis tells opponents to use fear. “Your county commissioners will not be moved by facts. They will be moved by political fear,” he wrote on Facebook in December. “Your path to success must involve showing them that your group is a substantial portion of the electorate and that you are fired up and willing to do whatever it takes to stop this project.”
Opponents have been notching victories along the way. Ed Rivet, executive director of the Michigan Conservative Energy Forum, estimates that for every wind farm that gets approved in the state, another one is abandoned, with local opposition a significant factor.
That’s what happened in Lapeer County. While DTE had signed agreements with more than 600 landowners controlling 23,000 acres in its three-year campaign to win support, it couldn’t stop local officials from essentially killing the project through zoning changes that greatly reduced the available land. Michigan’s biggest utility pulled the plug in May.
“Regrettably, part of the opposition is not based on science and facts,” says Matt Wagner, manager of renewable energy development at DTE, which has abandoned three wind projects. “It has really made building wind in Michigan a challenge.”
Developer Rich Vander Veen has had success in Michigan using an economic approach that doesn’t divide towns into those who get lease payouts and those who don’t. For several wind farms, he offered all landowners with at least one acre a share of the project’s revenue, whether or not they host a turbine.
“We got zoning approval from the different townships, the project went up on time and on budget, and we never had any complaints,” says Vander Veen, the Michigan counsel at developer Savion. “We balanced the responsibilities between the developer and communities to help them achieve their goals, like keeping family farms for future generations.”
DTE and Consumers Energy, the state’s other big utility, have set a goal of 25 percent renewable energy by 2030. To get there, DTE is shifting to solar farms, which are lower slung and less visible than turbines, and they don’t make noise. The falling price of solar power and the possibility of fewer community conflicts is behind the transition.
“There’s a pretty big shift to solar,” DTE’s Wagner says. “While solar is not without its challenges, some of them are much more manageable.”

William Barr Hearing: Democrats Stage Embarrassing Spectacle

William Barr Hearing: Democrats Stage Embarrassing Spectacle

Democrats Make Mockery of Barr ‘Hearing’

By Andrew C. McCarthy

July 28, 2020 10:13 PM

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Attorney General William Barr appears before the House Oversight Committee on Capitol Hill, July 28, 2020. (Matt McClain/Pool via Reuters)

Barr brings out the worst in them, which is saying something. If it’s a “hearing,” Bill Barr asked with an irked tongue in cheek, “aren’t I the one who’s supposed to be heard?”
His frustration was more than justified. Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.) and the other Democrats who control the House demanded for months that Barr come to a “hearing” and “testify.” But of course, it wasn’t anything like an actual hearing, and they didn’t want him to testify — as in actually answer questions. The session was a coveted election-year opportunity for Democrats to berate the attorney general of the United States in five-minute installments, accusing Barr of corruption, perjury, violating his oath, betraying the Constitution — at one point, even of killing thousands of COVID-19 victims (apparently, by being attorney general during a pandemic).

Especially at the beginning of the hearing, Barr easily parried the hostile questions — soliloquies with question-marks at the end. He picked apart their misstatements and disingenuous premises, and answered with aplomb. Democrats thus dropped the threadbare pretense that this was a hearing. In the main, the rest of the afternoon was devoted to raging, mock-anguished perorations about how Trump is a dictator and how Barr is helping him destroy our democracy.
These were punctuated by the occasional petulant demand that Barr answer “yes or no” a question that was either loaded or incoherent. When Barr would begin to answer, there would be foot-stomping, indignant, “I’m reclaiming my time” interruptions, claims that there was no question pending (usually after a question had just been posed), and then more Democrat filibustering about how the American people could clearly see that Barr was afraid to answer their questions . . . that they wouldn’t let him answer.

It was an embarrassing spectacle.

NOW WATCH: 'Joe Biden Lays Out $700 Billion ‘Buy American’ Economic Plan'

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Joe Biden Lays Out $700 Billion ‘Buy American’ Economic Plan

Some days, it just feels like we’re doomed. Today is one of those days. And not simply because this should have been an important oversight hearing featuring an important witness — one whom a serious committee would have wanted both to hear out and to challenge. It is, after all, the nature of the Justice Department’s work that there are many tough judgment calls; no one gets them all right.

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What happened on Capitol Hill Tuesday was a debacle to despair over because Democrats do not act this way because they are preternaturally rude. They act this way because their voters expect and demand that they act this way.
It is not hard to understand, even if it is hard to accept. Democrats do not merely disagree with Donald Trump. They abhor him. Their supporters and media friends so loathe him that each “hearing,” each issue, becomes a contest of who can be the most indecorous and contemptuous. Who among us can spew the most bile?
Barr brings out the worst in them, which is saying something. He is learned and quick, he is prepared, and he doesn’t get rattled. Unlike many government officials, he thrives in the give-and-take of civil discourse.
So then we obviously must not permit civil discourse.
The pols are becoming indistinguishable from the ends of the spectrums where they draw their support. In the Democrats’ case, these include people who see America as a despicable, incorrigibly racist force for imperialism and exploitation. They see Republicans and their “deplorable” supporters, Trumpists in particular, as the instantiation of these abominations.
Again and again, Barr explained that in Portland, a federal courthouse is under siege. The executive branch of the federal government has a duty to protect such installations. The very Congress to which Barr was trying to testify has enacted law that obliges the executive branch to safeguard federal courthouses. It is simply a fact that, had the Trump administration not acted to send more law enforcement agents — not “troops” as Democrats claim, not “stormtroopers” as House speaker Nancy Pelosi slanderously put it, but law enforcement officers — the courthouse would now be destroyed. And the taste of destroying it would have whet the anarchic appetite for more destruction.

It is impossible that Democrats do not know the difference between peaceful protesters and rioters, but they mulishly pretend the latter are the former. They either turn a blind eye toward the ongoing mayhem or maintain, straight-faced, that the destruction is a righteous reaction to Trump. That is the deal: No stratagem that paints the president and his administration as deserving of anything more than contempt is beyond the pale.
The transparent point is a cynical political one: Don’t engage the opposition, don’t talk out our disagreements. Portray the opposition as such anathema that voting for the incumbent president in November would be too monstrous to contemplate.

At a minimum, it means there is no point in having congressional hearings. What it portends, though, is far more dire than that. It doesn’t matter how you feel about Donald Trump or Bill Barr. A faction that would rather delegitimize than debate its opposition can do that to anyone or anything. At that point, it’s about power, not policy or progress. Anyone who wants power that badly shouldn’t be anywhere near it.

Were Christians Always So Left-Wing?

Were Christians Always So Left-Wing? 

The education and social milieu that our clergy and laity have been raised in since the 1930s or so have been increasingly inculcated by the Frankfurt School ... and overturning that basic orientation among them is probably past the point of impossibility.

At the College Fix site, headlines like these appear: "Will Georgetown Remain a Catholic University?" and "Catholic University's accreditation at risk because it punished conservative professor for his tweets," and "What does it even mean to be a 'Catholic' university, anymore?"
Consequently, "many Catholic universities have adopted the political[ly] correct fads of secular universities."  Though "[c]ampus leaders claim that Catholic universities' 'commitment to social justice' differentiates them from non-parochial colleges ... they neglect to mention that they have defined the term 'social justice' so broadly that campuses now welcome chapters of the pro-abortion Law Students for Reproductive Justice."  Thus, "professors who support Catholic teachings have come under siege on their own campuses, usually with little support from their academic administration."  Hence, "campus progressives, who wanted to move the curriculum away from a focus on Western civilization to an emphasis on race, class, gender, and sexual orientation" prevail in an effort "to render the Catholic identity of ... colleges merely nominal."
For example, "Notre Dame awarded its 2016 Laetare Medal," the "oldest and most prestigious honor accorded to American Catholics, to the pro-choice Catholic vice president, Joe Biden, who had helped President Obama implement the HHS mandate that forced Catholic institutions, including Notre Dame, to provide insurance coverage for free contraceptives, including abortion-inducing drugs, to all employees. Kevin C. Rhodes, the presiding bishop of the Notre Dame diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend, who declared that Biden's 'gravely irresponsible rejection of Catholic teaching on abortion and marriage should disqualify him from Notre Dame's Laetare Medal.'  Notre Dame's faithful alumni complained as well, but to no avail."
The article "Exploring Intersectionality: A Self-Study of Learning Together"[1] is the product of "teacher educators at a small catholic [sic] liberal arts institution in the mid-Atlantic, USA who infuse intersectionality and social justice topics in classroom discourse attending to [their] students' experiences as first generation college students from immigrant and underrepresented backgrounds."  Besides the leftist jargon, it is noteworthy that at this Catholic university, the word "Catholic" was lowercase, and "catholic," which means "all-embracing" or "universal," was chosen. 
Thus, racism is not good except when it is applied to white people; equality of opportunity is ignored because equality of outcome is the ultimate goal; destruction of property is irrelevant as the "earnest young seeker employs a double standard of political morality, suppresses facts, shuts out the truth by smearing it, [and] shouts so what remains of conscience will not be heard."
Those who have lived under communism know only too well its evil as they warn Americans.  Toledano asserted that for those lured by the deceptive messages, "mass purges, slave labor empires, and systematic assassination no longer offend [because] it's all for the good of the world [and] if, in order to build the perfect society, all democratic rights and human decencies are jettisoned" so be it.
Continual and "dispassionate exposure of the  communist and fascist totalitarians and their propaganda" coupled with the ardent belief that "our democratic civilization cannot be jeopardized by flirtations with death" must be the antidote to a "blind acceptance of an irrational doctrine."  It must be a never-ending effort.
Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.

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[1] From Textiles and Tapestries, 2020.

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