Have nothing to do with the [evil] things that people do, things that belong to the darkness. Instead, bring them out to the light... [For] when all things are brought out into the light, then their true nature is clearly revealed...

-Ephesians 5:11-13

Category Archives: History

New York Times Declares Democrats Are in Trouble

Monday, 29 November 2021 15:08
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, November 29, 2021:  

The New York Times assigned four of its political journalists to see just how much trouble the Democratic Party is in, going into the midterms. On Saturday their verdict came in: serious, bordering on disastrous.

The party is not only losing the support of many of the its most loyal supporters, but it’s also losing the support of the critical independent voter who has traditionally supported the party.

The Times journalists reported that “Democrats across the party are raising alarms about sinking support among some of their most loyal voters … [because Biden and the Democrat Party] are falling short on campaign promises and leaving their base unsatisfied and unmotivated ahead of next year’s midterm elections.”

This, despite the expectation that passage of the massive trillion-dollar infrastructure bill and the House’s passage of the even larger “Build Back Better” bill would galvanize their support. Instead, reported the Times, “The president’s central promise of healing divisions and lowering the political temperature has failed to be fruitful.”

While RealClear Politics continues to chronicle the collapse in support for Biden, the damage he is doing to the vital independent voter support is staggering: “Among some of his core constituencies … [there are] double-digit declines among Black, Latino, female and young voters.”

Those voters are unimpressed with Biden’s so-called legislative “victories” and are instead dealing with everyday challenges such as rising inflation at the grocery store and the gas station and the controversy over who has the right to determine who will educate their children (and how).

The Times has a poll to prove their point:

According to a survey conducted by Global Strategy Group, a Democratic polling firm, only about a third of white battleground voters think that either the infrastructure or the broader spending bill will help them personally.

The reporters’ conclusion was dismal:

The national environment looks difficult for Democrats, who [in addition] may lose seats in redistricting [as well as facing] the historical trend of a president’s party losing seats during his first term in office.

On the other hand, Republicans see what’s happening and are seizing the opportunity to turn out House Democrats next year. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) reported last Friday that, as of that date, nearly 1,000 Republicans have filed candidacy papers in 379 of the 435 House districts across the country, up significantly from the same time in 2019.

That number includes 196 women, 179 veterans, and 177 who are minorities. As Representative Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), chairman of the NRCC, exuded:

In this environment, no Democrat’s seat is safe, and vulnerable Democrats have a choice to make: retire, or lose.

As of this writing, 17 Democrats have done just that, raising further alarm bells for Miles Coleman, the associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball published by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. Said Coleman, “Swing district members like Ron Kind (D-Wisc.) [and] Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) leaving … [is] a potential warning sign for Democrats.”

This was echoed by Michael McAdams, a spokesman for the NRCC: “The writing is on the wall: Democrats’ majority is doomed, and smart Democrats are calling it quits while they still can.” 

The history of midterms doesn’t treat the president’s party kindly, especially one whose job approval ratings continue to decline. The party of a president with an approval rating under 50 percent loses an average of 37 House seats in the midterms, according to Gallup. Biden’s approval is anywhere from 36 to 45 percent, report the most recent polls. RealClear Politics reports its average is under 42 percent for Biden, versus 53 percent disapproving, an 11-point negative spread.

 

As Biden goes, so goes the Democrat Party. When Rasmussen quizzed 1,200 likely voters over whether they think Biden should run for reelection in 2024, less than a third agreed. They said that in a rematch with Trump, Biden would lose by double-digits, 45 to 32 percent. Among independents — the key Democrat demographic — Biden would lose, 47-20 percent.

The polling firm Fabrizio, Lee & Associates conducted a poll in five key “swing” states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — asking voters how they would vote in 2024. Trump won in a walk, by 12 points in Michigan, 10 points in Wisconsin, eight points in Arizona, six points in Pennsylvania, and three points in Georgia. This, it seems, would be more than enough to overcome even the most egregious voter manipulations conducted by the Democrat Party in those states. As Tony Fabrizio said, “This new data clearly shows that today the voters in these five key states would be happy to return Trump to the White House and send Biden packing.”

Even the poll from Redfield & Wilton Strategies showed Trump leading Biden in their rematch in 2024, the first time Trump has led Biden in their polling.

It’s no wonder that the New York Times can find no good news for Democrats in the midterms. There just isn’t any.

Salvation Army Goes Woke; Demands Members, Donors Repent of Inherent Racism

Saturday, 27 November 2021 13:10
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Saturday, November 27, 2021:  

Following the death of George Floyd in May 2020, the Salvation Army’s International Social Justice Commission shifted its attention to Critical Race Theory. In February this year, Brian Peddle, CEO and the 21st General of the Salvation Army, announced the shift in a video that he claimed would help “overcome the damage [that] racism has inflicted upon the world, and yes, The Salvation Army.”

In a guidebook titled Let’s Talk About Racism, the group claims that the new resource is designed “to fight the evil of racism and create a more just and equitable society.”

From the guidebook:

The Salvation Army acknowledges with regret, that Salvationists have sometime shared in the sins of racism and conformed to the economic, organizational and social pressures that perpetuate racism….

 

The Salvation Army is a holiness movement … [which] includes embracing diversity … and rooting out racism, bias and discrimination from our lives.

It declares that differences in “equity” prove that racism exists in the United States:

Many have come to believe that we live in a post-racial [colorblind] society, but racism is very real for our brothers and sisters who are refused jobs and housing, denied basic rights, and brutalized and oppressed simply because of the color of their skin.

Therefore, says the guide published by the Salvation Army, Salvationists must “lament, repent and apologize for biases or racist ideologies held and actions committed.”

That’s because “the subtle nature of racism is such that people who are not consciously racist easily function with the privileges, empowerment and benefits of the dominant ethnicity [white], thus unintentionally perpetuating injustice.”

Example:

For instance, devout Christians who naively use racial epithets or a well-intentioned Sunday School curriculum that only uses white photography and imagery [are guilty of racism].

The initiative claims that differences in living standards and income are not attributable to individual effort and other circumstances, but to discrimination. Therefore, repentance is required even if not deserved, according to the Army’s new marching orders.

The organization, founded in 1865, received almost 60 percent of its $3.3 billion in donations from “direct public support,” including volunteers ringing bells and hosting stands holding those familiar red buckets. The group says it helps financially some 23 million American families every year and claims a worldwide membership of nearly two million supporters.

Longtime supporters recognize the insidious and divisive nature of Critical Race Theory that has been adopted by the Salvation Army, including Christian talk-show host Greg Koukl. In an open letter to the group, he wrote:

I recently became aware of your International Social Justice Commission material, “Let’s Talk about Racism.” I read virtually every word of the material in every session and surveyed your bibliography. It rapidly became clear to me that TSA has fallen for critical race theory lock, stock, and barrel….

 

To see that TSA has been taken in by the likes of Ibram X. Kendi (“How to Be an Anti-Racist”), Robin DiAngelo (the author of the thoroughly discredited “White Fragility”), and the (also thoroughly discredited) NYT “1619 Project” has my head spinning.

 

Your material’s baseless claim that “our foundations were built on racism” is beyond belief….

 

CRT is a Trojan horse taking in well-intentioned Christian enterprises that — because they care about justice and oppose oppression — naively promote the most serious threat to biblical Christianity I have seen in 50 years….

 

There is a massive number of academics — black and white, Christian and non-Christian, atheist and theist — who have raised the alarm against the aggressive indoctrination and, frankly, bullying of CRT — not to mention the racial essentialism inherent in the view, the false witness it bears against virtuous people, and the general destruction it continues to wreak on race relations in this country.

 

CRT has set us back 50 years.

As a result, Koukl, who has been a public advocate for the Army for years, is pulling his support:

I spoke at length about this on my radio show this week, inviting my audience to read your material for themselves and make their own judgments.

 

I told them, though, that as for me, I was redirecting my giving elsewhere. I am not “cancelling” you, as many in the CRT movement would gladly do to me. Rather, I am carefully investing my resources in organizations that I fully trust will serve Christ in truth and only in truth, and I no longer trust The Salvation Army to do that.

Convicted Chinese Spy Just a Bit Player in China’s Plan for World Hegemony

Tuesday, 23 November 2021 16:57
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, November 23, 2021:

U.S. intelligence officials celebrated the conviction of the first Chinese spy to be extradited and tried on American soil: Xu Yanjun, a senior official with China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS). Said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen: “This conviction of a card-carrying intelligence officer for economic espionage underscores that trade secret theft is integral to [China’s] plans.… With the support of our allies we will continue to investigate, prosecute, and hold accountable those who try to take the fruits of American ingenuity illegally.”

Acting U.S. Attorney Vipal Patel added:

The jury, by its guilty verdict … held Xu accountable for his classic spy techniques.

 

Xu conspired to commit economic espionage on behalf of the Chinese government….

 

This office will continue to seek to protect American innovation and hold accountable those who attempt to steal our nation’s science and technology.

In making its announcement, the Department of Justice explained those “classic spy techniques”:

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, beginning in at least December 2013, Xu used multiple aliases to target specific companies in the United States and abroad that are recognized as leaders in the field of aviation.

 

He identified experts who worked for the companies and [invited] them to travel to China, often initially under the guise that they were traveling to give a presentation at a university. Xu and others paid the experts stipends on top of covering travel costs.

 

According to today’s conviction, Xu attempted to steal technology related to GE Aviation’s exclusive composite aircraft engine fan — which no other company in the world has been able to duplicate — to benefit the Chinese state.

 

In March 2017, a GE Aviation employee in Cincinnati, Ohio, was solicited to give a report at a university in China. The employee traveled to China two months later to present at the university and was introduced to Xu. Xu and others paid the employee’s travel expenses and a stipend.

 

In January 2018, Xu requested “system specification, design process” information from the employee and — with the cooperation of the company, who was [now] working with the FBI — the employee emailed a two-page document from the company that included a label that warned about the disclosure of proprietary information.

 

In February 2018, Xu began discussing with the employee the possibility of meeting in Europe during one of the employee’s business trips and asked the employee to send a copy of the file directory for his company-issued computer.

 

Xu traveled to Belgium on April 1, 2018, to meet with the employee and was arrested at that time.

The mistake Xu made was agreeing to meet the company employee/FBI informant outside of China where he could be extradited to the United States for prosecution. He was convicted on five counts of espionage and is in jail awaiting sentencing. He could get up 50 years.

James Olsen, former chief of counterintelligence for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and author of To Catch a Spy: The Art of Counterintelligence, celebrated the conviction but admitted that the CIA and other agencies “have been relatively ineffective [in] stopping the theft of technology and research and development information” by Chinese spies.

Olsen expects retaliation by the Chinese, who will want to get Xu back:

An American businessman or American journalist in China will be framed. [The regime will] fabricate a case against this person and rush him through a trial.

This will give the Chinese “trade bait.” Olsen added, “They’re probably looking at potential targets right now.”

Why would the Chinese want Xu back? Perhaps because of his high position in the Chinese spy apparatus, he could expose the vast network of spies that China has successfully inserted into the United States. As Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers said, “This case is not an isolated incident. It is part of an overall economic policy of developing China at American expense.”

Michael Pillsbury, in his 2016 book The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower, exposes China’s plan to become the world’s hegemon by 2050. Part of that plan involves stealing technology from its arch-enemy, the United States.

Although Xu’s strategy of “invitation/flattery/bribery/blackmail” was “classic,” the Chinese regime also uses numerous other methods to obtain what it needs to overtake America and relegate her to second-class status in the world. It exploits commercial entities who want access to the Chinese market by demanding they give up essential secrets in order to do so. It has created a vast network of scientific, academic, and business contacts who are willing to sell out America for a price. It uses cyber-spying to penetrate the computer networks of U.S. businesses and government agencies. It uses its vast wealth to buy up American companies that have the technology Chinese manufacturers need and are unable to create themselves.

They use sex. Consider briefly the case of the Chinese spy Fang Fang, (aka Christine Fang), who pawned herself off as a student in California. As Wikipedia put it: “[Fang Fang has] since at least 2012 been cultivating contacts with California politicians who the Chinese government believed had promising futures in politics.” She slept with at least two mayors and connected with U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell, helping bundle campaign contributions for him in 2014, and inserting a Chinese spy into his office staff.

In July 2020, FBI Director Christopher Wray called China the “greatest long-term threat” to the United States, and that “the FBI is now opening a new China-related counterintelligence case every 10 hours.” Of the nearly 5,000 active counterintelligence cases presently open, half of them are related to China.

Xu’s failed attempt to secure proprietary information from GE Aviation revealed that his role in the grand Chinese scheme to become the world hegemon was that of just a bit player. But his conviction reveals the level of infiltration China has already achieved in working toward its goal.

Crime, Biden Drive Down Americans’ Demand for Stricter Gun Laws

Wednesday, 17 November 2021 21:05
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, November 17, 2021:

As violent crime rises along with anti-gun rhetoric from the Biden administration, so does Americans’ pushback against more gun control. On Wednesday, Gallup reported that “stricter gun laws [are now] less popular in the U.S.”

Americans’ demand for stricter gun laws has fallen to the lowest point since 2014. The demand for stricter gun laws peaked at 67 percent — two out of three people — in 2018 following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead. Today, barely half of those polled by Gallup think stricter gun controls are needed.

Not surprisingly, most support for more gun laws comes from Democrats, at 91 percent. Among Republicans, however, support for more Second Amendment infringements has fallen by nearly 12 points since 2019, to just 24 percent. Among independents, support for more gun controls has declined by an astonishing 19 points, to 45 percent.

When asked about their desire for a total ban on all handguns (“Do you think there should be, or should not be, a law that would ban the possession of handguns, except by police and other authorized persons?”), support for such a ban dropped to 19 percent, an “all-time low,” said Gallup, “and down six points in the past year.” Gallup failed to mention that support for a total handgun ban has declined by 10 full percentage points since 2019, according to its results.

Gallup explained:

The latest drop in support for a handgun ban is largely attributable to political independents.

 

Currently, 14% of independents think there should be a ban on handguns, which marks a 16-point decline since 2019, including nine points since 2020.

 

Even fewer Republicans, 6%, favor such a ban, while 40% of Democrats do.

Diminishing support for a total handgun ban is also attributable to the current occupant of the White House. Back in July, President Biden told a town hall meeting:

The idea that you need a weapon that can have the ability to fire 20, 30, 30, 50, 120 shots from that weapon, whether it’s a 9mm pistol or whether it’s a rifle, is ridiculous.

 

I’m continuing to push to eliminate the sale of those things.

And, according to Gallup, that’s one of the reasons Americans continue to push back. It should be remembered that support for banning all handguns began to decline after Congress passed the “Clinton Gun Ban” (a.k.a The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993). In 1991, it peaked at 43 percent, and stands at 19 percent today.

Congress understandably has not passed any new gun laws under Biden. Such legislation has now replaced Social Security as “the third rail” of politics.

Former Democrat Pollster: Biden Needs “Course Correction” to Avoid Catastrophe Next November

Wednesday, 10 November 2021 13:57
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, November 10, 2021:  

Mark Penn, the chief political strategist for Hillary Clinton’s failed 2008 run for the presidency, later became a defender of Donald Trump. Now a pariah, his op-ed in the New York Times on Monday will likely fall on deaf ears.

He said that the New Jersey and Virginia elections last week “just sent a resounding wake-up call to the Biden administration: if Democrats remain on their current course and keep coddling and catering to progressives, they could lose as many as 50 seats and control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections.”

He wrote that “only a broader course correction to the center will give Democrats a fighting chance in 2022 and a shot at holding on to the presidency in 2024.”

Currently, polls are going against the administration. Wrote Penn: “According to our October Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, only 35 percent of registered voters approve of the administration’s immigration policies … [while] nearly nine in 10 voters express concern about inflation … 61 percent of voters blame the Biden administration for the increase in gas prices.”

That “wake-up call” in Virginia and New Jersey last week wasn’t a fluke, he said: “It’s important to be cleareyed about those election results.… Taxes mattered far more than cultural issues.”

This is the “wake-up call” that Democrats are missing, he wrote:

You can’t dismiss a clear electoral trend: the flight from the Democrats was disproportionately in the suburbs, and the idea that these home-owning, child-rearing, taxpaying voters just want more progressive candidates is not a sustainable one.

What the Biden administration must do, according to Penn, is to return to the political center by ending the flow of illegals flooding the country, slowing the push to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar, let the supply chain fiasco fix itself without government interference, and cut the social/welfare spending buried in Build Back Better.

Penn is a realist, and he admits that this is not likely to happen: “Of course, this may require some Houdini-like leadership … but this is the best strategy to protect Democratic candidates in 2022.”

 

He concludes that only about a quarter of the electorate calls itself “liberal,” while “the rest of the electorate nationally is moderate or conservative.” Consequently, “the message from last Tuesday is that the Democrats have gone too far to the left.… Even Bergen County in New Jersey, a socially liberal bedroom community outside New York City, almost swung into the Republican column.”

The swing voters will rule in 2022, wrote Penn:

[Without them] the party will be left with … too small of a base of urban voters and coastal elites.… The risk is that the Democratic Party … will follow its greatest success with an extended period in the desert.

The polling continues to prove that Penn’s recommendations are likely to fall on deaf ears. The Emerson College and the USA Today/Suffolk University polls taken after the New Jersey and Virginia elections showed Biden’s approval dropping to record lows. They showed an increasing number of voters, including Democrats, not wanting Biden to run for reelection in 2024.

In 2010, Democrats took an historic shellacking in the midterms, losing a total of 69 House and Senate seats. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said that could happen again in 2022. In an interview with Judge Jeanine, he said, “My guess is that [Republicans] will pick up between 40-70 seats in the House and at least four seats in the Senate.”

Judge Jeanine asked him if the Democrats’ push to pass Build Back Better will help their chances in 2022. Replied Gingrich, “I think it will be a disaster. The reason is basic: the American people don’t want big government socialism. They want control over their own lives. And the resent having Washington try to dictate everything from masks to vaccinations. I think it will get worse, not better, for the Democrats.”

 

Two More Polls Show Biden Cratering, Including Among Democrats and Independents

Monday, 08 November 2021 15:25
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, November 8, 2021: 

The Emerson College poll results released on Friday were bad enough; those released by USA Today/Suffolk University on Monday were even worse. Both of them were disastrous among the very voters Biden claimed to have won in 2020 and those he must capture to win in 2024 if he decides to run for reelection.

By then there won’t be much of a Democrat Party to support him, if these polls, and others being tracked by Real Clear Politics (RCP), turn out to be correct.

Biden’s approval/disapproval rating at Emerson in September spelled trouble for him: Forty-seven of those polled expressed disapproval of his job performance, while 46 percent approved. Last week, his approval rating dropped by five full percentage points, to 41 percent, while 50 percent of those polled disapproved.

Among independents, the carnage was staggering. In September, 37 percent of them approved. Today, just 25 percent approve. His disapproval rating, not surprisingly, rose a full 10 percentage points, from 56 percent in September to 66 percent currently.

Even Emerson was astonished at the collapse in support for Biden:

The drop in approval is greatest among Black/African-American voters, moving from 72% approval in February to 52% approval in November.

 

Hispanic support dropped from 56% approval to 50% approval, [while] White voters’ [support] dropped from 43% to 38%.

Emerson noted that the dissatisfaction is translating into bad news for Democrats in the 2022 midterms. Just one year away from today (November 8, 2022),

Republicans have an edge there too. A strong plurality, at 49 percent, would vote for the Republican [congressional] candidate, while 42% would vote for the Democrat.

 

Forty nine percent of Independents would vote for the Republican.

And then came the USA Today/Suffolk University poll: “Joe Biden’s approval rating sinks to a new low, at 38%”, said the pollsters. Even worse, they said, “Biden’s support cratered among the Independent voters … this illuminates the size of the hole Democrats need to dig out of as they look forward to the elections in one year.”

 

Biden has failed to meet voters’ expectations, even among Democrats:

 

Nearly half of those surveyed, 46%, say Biden has done a worse job as president than they expected, including 16% of those who voted for him.

 

Independents, by 7-1, (44%-6%), say he’s done worse, not better, than they expected.

In addition, nearly two-thirds of those polled (64 percent) said they don’t want Biden to run for a second term, and that includes more than a quarter (28 percent) of Democrats.

The poll also showed Vice President Kamala Harris with even worse numbers: Her approval rating is 10 points below Biden’s, at 28 percent.

The pollsters asked their audience of 1,000 registered voters how they would vote if the election were held today. Forty-six percent of them said they’d vote for the Republican candidate over the Democrat rival (38 percent). This, wrote the pollsters, “bodes well for GOP hopes of gaining a majority in the House and the Senate.”

How well is the question. In general, the party controlling the White House loses some, often many, Congressional seats in the midterm elections. In 1974, for example, while Republican Gerald Ford was in office, Republicans lost 53 seats — 48 in the House and five in the Senate.

In 1994, with Democrat Bill Clinton in office, Democrats lost 60 seats — 52 in the House and eight in the Senate. In 2006, while Republican George W. Bush was in office, Republicans lost 36 seats — 30 in the House and six in the Senate.

In 2010, Democrats took an historic shellacking: They lost a total of 69 seats while Democrat Barack Obama was in office — 63 in the House and six in the Senate.

And, in 2018, while Republican Donald Trump was in office, Republicans lost 41 seats in the House, while gaining two in the Senate.

With Biden’s approval ratings tanking to historically low levels, the 2022 midterms could stagger the Democrats to the point where the party would take years to recover.

The Second Amendment Had a Very Good Day on Wednesday

Saturday, 06 November 2021 20:50
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Saturday, November 6, 2021:  

The Supreme Court heard opening arguments on Wednesday in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen and, based on the questioning by a number of the justices, supporters of the Second Amendment are likely to claim a victory.

The question to be resolved is “Whether [New York] State’s denial of petitioners’ applications for concealed-carry licenses for self-defense violated the Second Amendment.”

Robert Nash and Brandon Koch brought the case after they were denied such licenses. The New York law reads that they must “demonstrate a special need for self-protection [which is] distinguishable from that of the general community or of persons engaged in the same profession.” The bureaucrats said they didn’t, and denied their applications.

This was despite the fact that Nash, for example, proved himself to be a person of exemplary character who had taken some gun-safety classes and had proved himself confident and capable in the handling of a firearm; and despite that fact that there had recently been a string of robberies in his neighborhood. The state officials denied their applications, ruling that there was no “special” proof that Nash and Koch were endangered more than any others in the general population.

When they sued, the lower court ruled that the denials were proper since the applicants “did not face unique or special danger to their lives.” On appeal to the Supreme Court, Nash and Koch declared that “The Second Amendment makes the right to carry arms for self-defense the rule, not the exception, and fundamental rights cannot be left to the whim of local government officials.”

The high court justices were tough on the defendants in the initial round of oral argument. Chief Justice John Roberts, probably the weakest link in the chain, was surprisingly supportive of the plaintiffs. He told the lawyers defending New York’s law, “The idea that you need a license to exercise the right [to bear arms], I think, is unusual in the context of the Bill of Rights.”

That should be heartening to those who have long claimed that “one doesn’t need permission to exercise a right.”

 

Justice Alito tripped up the defense over twisting history. Here’s the exchange:

Justice Alito: I’m going to give you an example, which is … troubling. I can see how it would slip through. I’m not accusing you personally of anything.

 

But, on page 23, you say that in founding-era America, legal reference guides advised local officials to “arrest all such persons as in your sight shall ride or go armed”….

 

So I looked at this manual, and what it actually says is “You shall arrest all such persons as in your sight shall ride or go armed offensively.”

 

And somehow that word “offensively” got dropped –

 

Ms. Underwood [defense attorney]: Well, our –

 

Alito: – from your brief.

 

Ms. Underwood: I will –

 

Alito: Do you think that’s an irrelevant word?

Alito went on to explain that by leaving out that word it changed the entire meaning, showing that that quote doesn’t support gun control at all.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh heard the state’s argument and told them, “That’s just not how we do constitutional rights, where we allow basic blanket discretion [to government bureaucrats] to grant or deny something.”

John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, weighed in on the case in an op-ed published in Newsweek on Wednesday. He said that if you think Nash and Koch had it tough in New York, try getting a concealed-carry license “in California and six-other ‘may-issue’ states where officials can turn down requests for a carry permit for any reason, or for no reason at all.”

Lott pointed out that rarely are permits granted to ordinary citizens in those states but “when permit decisions rest solely with judges and bureaucrats, the few people who [do] get permits … often have special connections.… Those without connections, more often women and minorities, get the short end of the stick.”

In San Francisco, for example, Lott told of a woman with a court protective order who wasn’t able to get a permit, but the local sheriff’s personal lawyer did. In New Jersey, a man was denied a permit even though he was threatened and robbed at gunpoint in the past, and currently carries a lot of cash in his job servicing ATM machines.

Lott pointed out that “may carry” laws in those states “stop almost everyone [from getting a permit]. Only about 1 percent of adults in may-issue states have a permit to carry. In the other 42 states, 10.8 percent of adults have a concealed handgun permit.”

And those who do carry concealed are among the lowest risk individuals as they “are convicted of firearms-related violations at one-twelfth the rate at which police officers are convicted.”

Even Ian Millhiser, writing for the anti-gun Vox, said that “the NRA had a very good day in the Supreme Court” on Wednesday. After reviewing the oral arguments and the justices’ questions, he concluded that “the case is likely to end with the curtailment of states’ ability to regulate where people can carry guns.”

Tom Knighton, writing for BearingArms.com, said:

It was clear from the questioning that, while it’s unlikely we’ll see all rules restricting the carrying of a firearm overturned, we will probably see something like “shall-issue” becoming the law of the land….

 

More importantly … people in states like New Jersey and California are going to score wins … when we get the ruling on this next year, I expect they’ll be able to get a permit.

He added:

I also expect to see crime begin to drop as criminals start hearing about more and more people carrying firearms.

The war against guns will continue. As long as permission is still needed in some form or fashion to exercise the right to keep and bear arms, the Second Amendment will remain a second-class right.

Biden’s “Build Back Better” Agenda Is Dead, Say House Republicans

Thursday, 04 November 2021 15:34
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, November 4, 2021: 

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart, three House Republicans, including the party’s chief deputy whip, Representative Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.), declared that Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda following Tuesday’s debacle in Virginia is dead.

The day after the Democrats suffered stunning losses in Virginia and a near-death experience in deep-blue Democrat stronghold New Jersey, Ferguson said the results represent “a very strong pushback against government socialism.… I believe [Tuesday’s results] will eat away at [Democrats’] chances of passing the Build Back Better Act.… I think you saw the repudiation of their policies last night.”

The Biden agenda consists of two bills: one that has already passed the House, the so-called infrastructure bill costing $1.2 trillion; the other which remains in limbo even after being cut in half, the social-welfare monster estimated to cost $1.75 trillion.

Republicans are already licking their chops. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (D-Calif.) announced that more than a dozen Democrat-held seats are being added to those the party thinks are vulnerable, suggesting that Republicans might be able to flip as many as 60 House seats next November.

Pollsters agree. Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics moved three Senate seats currently held by Democrats (Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada) from “lean Democratic” to “toss-up,” while Dave Wasserman with the Cook Political Report tweeted that Tuesday’s election results portend both houses of Congress turning Republican “comfortably” next November.

Democrats are defending 14 Senate seats, but Republicans need only to keep those they have and add but one more to regain control of the upper house.

Tuesday’s results are likely to dampen Democrats’ appetite for more spending, in light of the Virginia election results. Exit polls there showed voters were primarily concerned about the economy, schools, and crime. Low on their list of concerns were those of the Democrat agenda, namely Critical Race Theory and COVID-related mandates.

 

Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who has already proven to be a stumbling block to the Biden agenda (along with Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona), reiterated his concerns on Wednesday: “I’ve been saying this for many, many months: People have concerns. People are concerned.”

 

Voters are seeing through the fraud that the bills will “pay for themselves” without raising taxes or causing inflation. Added Manchin, “We’re talking about revamping the whole entire tax code. That’s mammoth. We’ve had no hearings, no open hearings. [Voters] are scared to death.”

In some Wednesday-morning quarterbacking of Tuesday’s Democrat disaster in Virginia, James Pindell, writing for the ultra-liberal Boston Globe, said “Democrats should absolutely be freaking out” over the results, adding that “the future is, in fact, pretty bleak for Democrats.”

He cited three reasons: 1) “Running against Trump may not work anymore.… Democrats are going to have to find another boogeyman [to run against]”; 2) “Democrats have no message”; and 3) “The results on Tuesday may embolden hold-out Senators from passing big pieces of legislation.”

The latest Harvard Caps/Harris Poll, taken a week before Tuesday’s election, should have warned Democrats about the debacle in advance. Fifty-eight percent of those polled were opposed to the big spending bills being pushed by the Democrats, and 56 percent of them said they wouldn’t vote for anyone who voted to pass them.

On virtually every other issue — from the health of the economy to jobs to terrorism to immigration to foreign affairs to COVID mandates to running the government to crime and Afghanistan — Biden’s approval ratings were consistently and significantly underwater. The poll confirmed what other polls are showing: Approval of the Democrat Party has fallen precipitously, from 55 percent to 38 percent, in just the last month.

And the poll showed that congressional approval, with Democrats in control, has likewise dropped off a cliff: from 54 percent approval in June to 31 percent approval currently.

Perhaps most troubling to Democrats is the answer to the question, “If the election were held today would you vote for a Democrat or a Republican for Congress?” Republicans beat Democrats 45 percent to 42 percent.

Democrat anxiety is also being fueled by what happened in 2009, when Democrats suffered defeats in both the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races: Their party lost six Senate seats and 63 House seats in 2010.

Not only does the Biden “agenda” appear to be dead, but the Democrat Party could also suffer terminal political emasculation inflicted by voters next November.

Virginia Lieutenant Governor-elect Winsome Sears Enjoys Many “Firsts”

Wednesday, 03 November 2021 13:12
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, November 3, 2021: 

Winsome Sears made history Tuesday night: In winning the election for Lieutenant Governor, she became the first black woman in Virginia’s history to win a statewide race.

But this wasn’t the first of her “firsts.” Born in Jamaica in 1964, she emigrated to the United States where, after obtaining degrees in English, economics, and organizational leadership, she ran a Salvation Army homeless shelter.

In November 2001, she became the first Jamaican female Republican, the first female veteran, and the first naturalized citizen to serve in Virginia’s House of Delegates.

She also, unintentionally, became the first political candidate in recent Virginia political history to run on a photo taken of her while she was at a shooting range. She was holding a semi-automatic rifle. Her campaign staff turned it into an effective political tool by adding the phrase, “Battle Tested Conservative. Semper Fi.”

When asked about the photo, Sears was surprised. After all, she said, “I’m a Marine. I know how to use a gun.” She added, “But let’s think about this: the Second Amendment tells us we have a right to do so. We have a right to own guns.” She added, “I won’t ever support a red flag law! The Second Amendment says ‘shall not be infringed!’”

In an interview with the Washington Times she explained, “They [guns] are for our protection, and the fastest gun-owning segment [of the population] are Black women.”

During her appearance on Fox & Friends on Tuesday night, she gave God the credit for her win, exclaiming that her victory was “a God thing.”

This fits well with newly elected Governor Glenn Youngkin, who also has strong faith. He met his wife, Suzanne, shortly before obtaining an MBA from Harvard Business School, and they were married shortly after his graduation. According to Youngkin,

She actually said: “You know, I really need to have our faith be in the middle of our marriage. I didn’t really fully appreciate the journey she was going to put me on.”

It’s entirely appropriate for the newly elected governor and lieutenant governor to give credit to God. The country’s first president, George Washington, was the first to proclaim Thanksgiving Day, in 1789, declaring:

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, Who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks, for His kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of His providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war, for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which He hath been pleased to confer upon us.

Founding Father Benjamin Rush (who signed the Declaration of Independence and founded Dickinson College) was even more explicit about the importance of a strong faith, especially among leaders:

Without religion there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.

It’s reassuring to know that Virginia will shortly be able to celebrate the inauguration of two individuals to lead the state whose faith allows them to declare His preeminence in their lives.

Alabama Latest State to File Lawsuit Against Biden Vaccine Mandates

Wednesday, 03 November 2021 13:08
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, November 3, 2021: 

The lawsuit filed by Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall on Tuesday is just the latest in an increasing number of efforts to restrain the federal government over its COVID vaccine mandates. Marshall said the mandates are “flagrantly unconstitutional” and represent “contemptible infringements on individual liberty, federalism, and the separation of powers.”

Nowhere among the few enumerated powers given to the federal government in Article I, Section Eight of the U.S. Constitution is found anything that gives the government the power to issue or enforce such mandates. The founders made sure that, if not enumerated, such powers are reserved “to the states respectively, or to the people.” (See 10th Amendment).

Marshall is ready to file another lawsuit if Biden issues a “private sector” mandate.

The flurry of recent efforts to restrain the federal government began on October 25 when Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed an executive order demanding that her state’s agencies do not comply with the federal mandates. The language was clear:

Effective immediately, no agency, department, board, commission, or other entity within the executive branch of state government shall … seek to impose a penalty on any business or individual for noncompliance.

Ivey was defiant, writing:

The federal government’s outrageous overreach has simply given us no other option, but to begin taking action, which is why I am issuing this executive order to fight these egregious COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

 

Alabamians — and Americans alike — should and must have the choice to roll up their sleeves to get this shot and certainly not forced by government….

 

I am adamantly opposed to federal mandates related to the COVID-19 vaccine and adamantly opposed to state mandates related to the COVID-19 vaccine, plain and simple.

 

As long as I am your governor, the state of Alabama will not force anyone to take a COVID-19 vaccine.

On October 28, Missouri Governor Mike Parsons signed an executive order with similar purposes. Said Parsons:

When President Biden announced his initial plans to force unconstitutional vaccine mandates, we immediately began aligning state resources for legal action. While we hoped the Biden Administration would recognize these mandates as the abuse of authority that they are, they have not, and we must now use every tool we have available to fight this federal intrusion.

He defended the Constitution:

The Constitution and its historical interpretations clearly leave public health decisions to the states. The federal government has no authority to issue COVID-19 vaccine mandates. The Biden Administration acting alone to dictate and mandate health requirements represents the kind of federal power grab the founding fathers warned us against.

On October 29, 10 states filed a lawsuit jointly against the mandates:

We [the States of Missouri, Nebraska, Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming] bring this action to challenge [the Biden administration’s] use of federal procurement statutes to create sweeping new power to issue decrees over large swaths of the U.S. economy and take over areas of traditional state power.

The 10 plaintiffs relied on the separation of powers built into the Constitution to prevent such overreach:

Through Executive Order 14042, President Biden has arrogated to the Executive Branch the unilateral power to mandate that all employees of federal contractors be vaccinated.

 

This power grab is sweeping in its scope. Employees of federal contractors constitute one-fifth of the total U.S. workforce. And the mandate goes so far as to demand vaccination even from employees who work entirely within their own home.

 

That is unconstitutional, unlawful, and unwise.

Some applaud the Founders with uncommon foresight in crafting the Constitution in such a way as to limit the powers of the federal government. On the contrary, they knew the nature of man. As British historian Lord Acton famously said, “All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Ben Moreell, an author at the Acton Institute, wrote in 2010 of what citizens in 2021 are now seeing flowering in Washington, D.C.:

 

The more restrictions and compulsions [a governor, a president, a czar] imposes on other persons, the greater the strain on his own morality. As his appetite for using force against people increases, he tends increasingly to surround himself with advisers who also seem to derive a peculiar pleasure from forcing others to obey their decrees….

 

If the benevolent ruler stays in power long enough, he eventually concludes that power and wisdom are the same thing. And as he possesses power, he must also possess wisdom.

 

He becomes converted to the seductive thesis that election to public office endows [him] with both power and wisdom. At this point, he begins to lose his ability to distinguish between what is morally right and what is politically expedient.

NAACP Urges All Free Agents to Boycott Texas

Friday, 29 October 2021 12:51
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, October 29, 2021:  

In its press release announcing it had sent a letter to every professional sports league in the country urging all free agents to boycott Texas, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) attacked the state, its legislators, the state’s governor, and its attorney general:

As we watch an incomprehensible assault on basic human rights unfold in Texas, we are simultaneously witnessing a threat to constitutional guarantees for women, children and marginalized communities.

 

Over the past few months, legislators in Texas have passed archaic policies, disguised as laws, that directly violate privacy rights and a woman’s right to choose, restrict access to free and fair elections for Black and Brown voters, and increase the risk of contracting coronavirus.

 

If you are a woman, avoid Texas. If you are Black, avoid Texas. If you want to lower your chances of dying from coronavirus, avoid Texas.

Nothing was said about protecting the rights of unborn black children or the rights of people, including black and brown people, to decide for themselves about accepting masks and vaccines. Nothing was said about making voting laws safer, protecting the rights of all Texans, including all people, including those of color.

It didn’t matter. The letter was pure propaganda:

The Texas government has … empowered vigilantes with the authority of the law, going to far as to offer a $10,000 incentive to sue all who aid women in exercising their constitutional right [to murder their unborn child]….

 

As a result … Texas families will not receive the care they deserve.… By passing this law [SB 8, the “heartbeat” law], Texas legislators have created a healthcare institution that isn’t safe for anyone.

Even though free agency won’t apply to most professional athletes until after the season ends, the NAACP continued, “We are pleading with you — if you are a free agent and are considering employment in Texas, look elsewhere.… Texas is not safe for you, your spouse, or your children.… Texas isn’t safe for anyone.”

The letter was delivered to the National Football League Players Association, the Women’s National Basketball Players Association, the National Basketball Players Association, the Major League Baseball Players Association, and the National Hockey League Players’ Association.

 

Manning Johnson would recognize the ploy immediately. A black man born in 1908, Johnson joined the Communist Party USA in 1930 and left the party in 1939 after seeing its true purpose: to divide the country by race.

In his book Color, Communism and Common Sense, published in 1958, he called out the NAACP:

The fact that the reds have never contributed anything tangible to the progress of the Negro is overlooked though the reds have collected millions of dollars as a result of race incitement.

 

Like the Communist Party, the N.A.A.C.P. has collected millions of dollars through exploitation of race issues. The bigger the race issue, the bigger the appeal and the bigger the contributions.

 

Yet one cannot find any report of any of this money being spent for factories and shops to provide jobs, land and home construction, specialized training for talented youth, hospitals, convalescent homes, classes in sanitation and personal hygiene, care and upkeep of property, combatting crime and juvenile delinquency, centers to aid Negro youth in preparing to meet stiff employment competition in science and industry.

 

It is then no accident that the N.A.A.C.P. is dubbed “The National Association for the Agitation of Colored People.” The record speaks for itself. Millions for agitation; not one cent for those things that win the respect and acclaim of other races and national groups.

Since its founding by communist W.E. Burghardt DeBois in 1909, the NAACP has remained true to its purpose: to incite division as part of the overall agenda to turn the American Republic first into a democracy and then into a communist dictatorship. The present letter is just more proof.

More Polls, More Bad News for Biden and the Democrats

Friday, 22 October 2021 13:20
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, October 22, 2021:  

When pollsters describe Joe Biden’s approval ratings as “sinking like a ship” (Haisten Willis at Yahoo), “underwater” (Paul Steinhauser at Fox), and in a “death spiral” (Bob Unruh at WND), Democrats have reason to be concerned about the upcoming midterm elections.

When one of the Democrat Party’s own pollsters — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s Senate Majority PAC — agrees, the Democrats are in serious trouble.

A new Quinnipiac University poll showed Biden’s disapproval rating increasing by another percentage point over the one the group just conducted two weeks earlier: 52-37. That’s 52 percent disapproving of the job Biden is doing compared to just 37 percent who think he’s doing just swell.

The real damage is reflected among independents, with just 28 percent thinking Biden is doing great compared to 56 percent who do not.

When it comes to the country in general, the numbers from Quinnipiac offer no comfort to Democrats: by a 52- to 41-percent margin, Americans say that the country is worse off now than it was a year ago.

A poll done by Grinnell College reports the same percent of unhappy respondents: Biden’s approval rating is a scant 37 percent compared to 50 percent who disapprove of his job performance. Grinnell went on to report that while 54 percent of independents reportedly voted for Biden last November, today that support has cratered, to just 28-percent approval.

A poll conducted by McLaughlin and Associates of 1,000 likely voters in the upcoming midterm elections confirmed the bad news for Biden and friends:

Nearly six in 10 voters, 59%, now say America is on the wrong track.

 

That pessimism includes 66% of independents, 56% of Hispanics, 61% of women … and even 31% of 2020 Biden voters….

 

Moreover, almost one in five 2020 Biden voters, 18%, now disapprove of the job he’s doing as president.

Swing voters — those without significant party loyalty — hold the key to next November. Among them, independents score Biden at -59 percent, suburban voters at -57 percent, Hispanics at -48 percent, and blacks at -18 percent.

Things are so bad, according to McLaughlin, that “55% [of those polled] say that they are worried about the future of America with Joe Biden as president. That figure includes … 54% among independents, 26% among African Americans, and 22% among 2020 Biden voters. Talk about buyer’s remorse!”

In a private meeting held for Democrats in Washington earlier this week, the results of Schumer’s PAC were revealed. The poll focused on Senate battleground states — Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Georgia, and Nevada — and, wrote Politico, “the survey paints a bleak picture for Democrats.” Biden’s approval rating across those states is a dismal 41 percent, with 52 percent disapproving.

The poll focused on “persuadable” voters, those who are on the fence but could be convinced to vote Democrat, and it wasn’t pretty: Just 18 percent of them say that the economy is getting better.

Once again, in the words of James Carville, Bill Clinton’s political advisor in his run against President George H. W. Bush in 1992, “It’s the economy, stupid.” And with signs increasing that the economy, under heavy attack by the Biden administration, is reaching a tipping point into recession in time for the November midterms, McLaughlin concluded:

The coming primaries and midterms are likely to be a political massacre for the Biden Democrats.

Wyoming to Hold Special Session to Push Back Against Vaccine Mandates

Tuesday, 19 October 2021 14:02
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, October 19, 2021: 

The Wyoming state legislature has voted to hold a special session next week to consider two bills pushing back against Biden’s vaccine mandates. Republican Governor Mark Gordon has repeatedly said he would fight against the mandates, even threatening to sue the Biden administration if necessary.

The special session would consider two bills being drafted: 1) a bill sponsored by Representative Chuck Gray of Casper that would ban vaccine “passports” and impose a heavy fine on any company using an employee’s vaccination status to hire, fire, promote, or demote him or her; and 2) a bill sponsored by Representative Tom James of Rock Springs that would impose fines and possible imprisonment for any state employee who attempted to enforce Biden’s mandates.

Wyoming is far from alone. At least 19 governors have issued public statements opposing the administration’s declarations, and several have vowed to fight them.

Southwest Airlines is still recovering from pilots’ pushback that virtually shut down the airline last weekend. Amtrak had to cancel trains because of a similar “staffing issue.” Workers for the shipbuilding company Huntington Ingalls are protesting demands from the company’s president that they get vaccinated or else they will lose their jobs.

The union representing pilots for American Airlines has warned the company it will face similar disruptions in service as Southwest if it doesn’t soften its vaccination demands.

Parents in Nevada, New Jersey, California, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, New York, and South Carolina are protesting school boards’ demands that students, even in grade school, wear masks or face disciplinary action.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is facing rebellion from the police union’s members who are refusing to go along with her vaccine demands. Members of police departments in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Denver are also protesting the demands.

So, Wyoming is not alone.

However, in covering the issue in Wyoming, both the Casper Star Tribune and The Epoch Times got it wrong. Wrote Victoria Eavis for the Star Tribune: “State statutes can’t supersede federal law, according to the U.S. Constitution.” And Isabel van Brugen, writing for The Epoch Times, also got it wrong: “The U.S. Constitution prohibits state statutes from superseding federal law.”

First, the mandates declared by Biden were not law, but executive orders. Under the Constitution (See Article I, Section 1) only Congress can make laws. Second, any law that violates the U.S. Constitution automatically is null and void.

The Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Clause 2) makes that clear:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.

Any law that violates the Constitution, in other words, is null and void. That would allow Wyoming to declare Biden’s executive order as null and void and unenforceable in the state. As President George Washington noted in his farewell address in 1796: “Let there be no change [in the Constitution] by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument for good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.”

Influential Democrat Political Analyst: His Party’s Clout Will Shortly Disappear

Monday, 11 October 2021 13:44
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, October 11, 2021:  

David Shor, perhaps the Democrat Party’s leading political analyst and forecasting guru, believes that unless his party’s messaging changes significantly, and soon, it will lose in 2022, lose badly in 2024, and runs the risk of disappearing altogether by 2032.

Shor, once a pariah for telling the truth, is now back in vogue. And his message is getting attention at both The New York Times and Politico.

Shor, at age 30, has been heavily involved in Democrat Party polling since he was 16. Through his computer models he predicted the outcome of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2012 within tenths of a percentage point. But when, following the death of George Floyd in 2020, he tweeted that the riots that followed would reduce the Democrat Party’s clout in the next election, he was fired.

He has come back from the dead, but not in a way Democrats want to hear. Ezra Klein, writing for the Times on Friday, declared that not only is “Biden’s agenda … in peril … Democrats are on the precipice of an era without any hope of a governing majority.”

Shor’s current model shows the Democrats losing seven seats in the Senate in 2024, giving Republicans the advantage: 57-43. Noted Kline:

The heart of Shor’s … work is the fear that Democrats are sleepwalking into catastrophe….

 

The Power Simulator [his current computer model] keeps telling him the same thing: we’re screwed in the Senate.

The problem, according to Shor, is that the Democrat Party is listening primarily to liberal college graduates for its messaging, and that message is greatly missing the mark: The party focuses on issues and agendas that the average working-class voter cares little about. As Ian Ward noted in Politico:

They probably majored, or are majoring, in political science or public policy….

 

They are … the foot soldiers of the Democratic Party’s permanent reserve army….

 

Democratic candidates hail these young people as a major political asset, pointing to them as proof of the party’s growing base of support among the next generation of leaders and voters.

But Shor disagrees. The agenda items that stir their hearts are at the very bottom of the list among those who actually vote. He noted that “the people the Obama campaign had hired to win over swing voters were seismically out of touch with the people they were meant to persuade … as a result their engagement with those voters may have hurt Obama’s chances more than it helped them.”

As an example, in 2015, nearly a quarter of Obama’s staffers believed that “income inequality” was the single most important issue facing the country, “whereas,” noted Shor, “fewer than one percent of all voters listed ‘the gap between rich and poor’ as the most important issue.”

Steve Phillips, founder of Democracy in Color and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, agrees: The demographic composition of the Democratic Party’s staff does not reflect the demographic make-up of its key voters.

But the problem, according to Phillips, can be remedied by getting more of them to come to the polls to vote. Shor thinks the message needs to change instead. Absent a change — a substantial change — in the message the Democrat Party is delivering, the party is in desperate trouble.

Ward ends his Politico article:

Shor says that Democrats’ expectation that long-term demographic shifts would give the party a semi-permanent majority has fallen flat, and the rural bias of the Senate and the Electoral College will soon make it practically impossible for Democrats to win a governing majority without winning back at least some rural swing voters in key purple states.

 

Unless the party’s messaging changes, the highly educated young liberals who serve as the standard-bearers of the party’s platform are leading Democrats down a path toward political obscurity.

 

Unfortunately, for Democrats, this cadre of young people isn’t likely to disappear anytime soon.

For Republicans, this is good news. Will they take advantage of it?

Biden’s Approval Rating Hits All-time Low

Friday, 08 October 2021 10:20
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, October 8, 2021:  

The headline from Quinnipiac Unversity’s poll results released on Wednesday says it all: “Americans Give President Biden Lowest Marks Across The Board.” Specifically, Biden scored a 53-percent job disapproval rating among the 1,326 citizens who were polled last week, compared to just 38 percent of them who approved. That’s a spread of minus 15 percentage points.

Three weeks ago, Quinnipiac showed Biden with a 50-percent job disapproval rating, and a 42-percent approval rating, a spread of minus eight points. In other words, Biden’s negative spread has doubled in just the past weeks!

His disastrous disapproval rating is in every category:

• Response to COVID: 50 percent disapprove;

• The economy: 55 percent disapprove;

• As commander in chief: 58 percent disapprove;

• On immigration: 67 percent disapprove; and

• On the crisis on the southern border: 67 percent disapprove.

When it comes to overall competency in running the government, Biden scores another low: 55 percent think his administration is not competent for the job.

As Quinnipiac’s polling analyst, Tim Malloy, expressed it:

Battered on trust, doubted on leadership, and challenged on overall competency … Biden is being hammered on all sides as his approval rating continues its downward slide.

This poll merely confirms polls from Gallup and Associated Press. Especially notable is Biden’s loss of faith among independents. Three weeks ago, 52 percent of them disapproved of Biden’s job performance. It now stands at 60 percent.

This is also confirmed by Gallup (independents’ approval rating down to 37 percent from 61 percent at the beginning of his presidency) and AP (independents’ approval rating at 38 percent, down from 62 percent in July).

This is making it increasingly difficult for Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer (the leading Democrats in the House and Senate, respectively) to pass Biden’s “legacy” bills, including the enormous pork-laden $3.5 trillion plan to turn America into something like Europe. As the midterms draw ever closer — just over a year away — Democrats don’t want to go down with the Biden ship. Those leaders have been forced to postpone votes on this monstrosity as the votes increasingly aren’t there to pass it.

There’s increasing angst among Democrats and their pollsters about them being obliterated next November. Political analyst and consultant to top Democrats Douglas Schoen nervously declared that “Democrats [are likely to] suffer the most substantial midterm loss of any party in recent history.”

Recent history is useful in attempting to measure the potential loss facing Democrats in November 2022. In 1994, President Bill Clinton had a disapproval rating of 42 percent, and Democrats lost 52 House seats in the midterm election.

In 2010, President Barack Obama had a disapproval rating of 41 percent, and Democrats lost 64 seats in the House.

Today, Biden is suffering from a disapproval rate of 53 percent and climbing. Readers can do the math and draw their own lines: Schoen’s prediction could be too conservative for the November 2022 Democrat disaster.

Biden either isn’t aware of the impending disaster, or he doesn’t care. He continues to push on issues Americans don’t want: his vaccination agenda (everyone gets the jab, or else!) and his gargantuan spending bill (it will cost “zero dollars”).

Assuming Republicans retake the House and the Senate next year, the real work of repairing the damage and restoring the Republic begins. That work will only be successful if enough constitutionalists replace the spendthrifts and revolutionaries presently in the Congress. And if they are held to their oaths of office by the informed electorate who put them there.

As President Abraham Lincoln said: “I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”

COVID Tyrant Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer Backs Off on Mask Mandates in Response to Falling Approval Polls

Friday, 24 September 2021 15:06
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, September 24, 2021:  

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer agreed earlier this week to back off on enforcing her mask mandates. The reversal came in a budget compromise reached with the state’s legislature which has been at odds with Whitmer ever since she violated the state’s rules regarding COVID mandates.

As Thomas Lifson, writing in American Thinker, noted acidly: “The reason for Whitmer’s reversal is not hard to figure out. Her polls stink.”

There is nothing more threatening to an elected tyrant than to risk losing her position as tyrant. As The New American reported last fall, Whitmer continued to exercise her unconstitutional authority even after the state’s supreme court ruled against her. The court wrote:

The sheer magnitude of the authority in dispute, as well as its concentration in a single individual [Whitmer], simply cannot be sustained within our constitutional system of separated powers.

Nevertheless, Whitmer defied the court and continued to extend her mask mandates and other rules. She added to her state’s citizens’ discontent as a “pandemic hypocrite” when her husband was caught violating one of her rules. This was followed up by she herself being caught violating her own rules.

When James Craig, who retired as Detroit’s chief of police in June, announced he was running as a Republican to replace her in next November’s election, his poll numbers immediately reflected Whitmer’s discontent among registered voters: they were neck-and-neck according to polls released right after his announcement.

On Tuesday those polls were confirmed by Trafalgar Group, which reported that when asked “If Gretchen Whitmer and James Craig were the candidates for Governor in the 2022 general election, for whom would you vote?”, registered voters showed the former police chief beating Whitmer by a gaping six full percentage points, 50 percent to 44 percent.

Craig’s leap was no doubt helped by efforts of a Marxist group called Detroit Will Breathe which interrupted Craig’s initial announcement, forcing him to move to another location. Meshawn Maddock, co-chair of Michigan’s Republican Party, thanked the group on her Twitter account. She posted a photo of a protestor holding a sign that said “defund DPD,” adding:

See the sign? These leftists want to defund your police. Republicans are the only sanity left in the country. Gov. Whitmer is finished. Thank you BLM for reminding us what your world looks like.

Whitmer indeed appears to be finished. The Trafalgar Group polled 1,097 likely voters, with Democrats making up 53 percent and Republicans just 35 percent. When your own party disowns you, your career – even that of Governor of a dark blue state – is over.

As The New American noted, the COVID tyranny in Michigan “will only end when the virus ends, or she is removed from office.”

Democrat Strategist Declares His Party Will Suffer “Blowout Defeat” in 2022

Wednesday, 15 September 2021 21:08
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, September 15, 2021:  

Political analyst and consultant to A-list Democrats Douglas Schoen self-identifies as a Democrat and sees his party losing massively in November 2022. In The Hill he wrote:

The marked decline in support for President [sic] Biden and his administration nationally and in key states indicates that the Democratic Party could endure a blowout defeat in the 2022 midterm elections.

Comparing where Biden is with where Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were at the same time in their administrations “suggests,” wrote Schoen, “that Democrats could suffer even more substantial losses in 2022 than the party did in 1994 and 2010.”

In 1994, with Clinton’s disapproval rate at 42%, Democrats lost 52 House seats and eight Senate seats.

In 2010, with Obama’s disapproval rate at 41%, Democrats lost 64 House seats and six Senate seats.

According to the latest poll from Civiqs, taken from Biden’s inauguration in January through September 13 and capturing responses from more than 100,000 registered voters, Biden’s national disapproval rate is 50% and climbing.

Drilling down into the data from the Civiqs poll Schoen laments that in five key swing states – Georgia, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania – registered voters disapprove of Biden’s job performance by ten full percentage points or more. In reliably Democratic Michigan and Wisconsin voters there disapprove of Biden’s performance by margins of 7 and 8 points, respectively.

He concludes that “the current outlook for Democrats is grim – and it could be even worse,” adding:

If the Biden administration continues to push unnecessarily big government spending initiatives and tax increases, along with weak immigration policies and an incoherent foreign policy strategy, Democrats could suffer the most substantial midterm loss of any party in recent history.

Schoen’s analysis confirms what The New American wrote a week ago, that Biden’s falling approval numbers are putting Congress into play for Republicans next November.

But The New American asked: will it make any difference? Will those campaigning on Trump’s platform of “Make America Great Again” keep their promises and begin the long, arduous path to restoring the Republic?

C. Mitchell Shaw, writing for The New American magazine last March, answered those questions:

Too many Americans seem to believe that the right president will solve our country’s problems. The past four years — with a good, but imperfect, president who fought to “Make America Great Again” by resisting the Deep State and putting America first — shows that that is short-term thinking.

 

After four years of doing what he did, the establishment moved heaven and earth to burn him to the ground (as has now been confirmed by a Time magazine article, which tells about the actions of some of those involved), steal the election from him, and impeach him a second time under bogus charges. And the establishment succeeded in all of that.

 

The takeaway is this: Patriotic Americans need to stop looking for a hero to save America and be the heroes that save her. Real resistance requires an informed electorate.

Shaw, a member of The John Birch Society, writing for The New American which is sponsored by The John Birch Society, declared that “without the effective work of the JBS over past decades, full-blown, dystopian tyranny would already cover the globe.”

It will take more than just showing up once every couple of years to vote to “throw the rascals out” and replace them with other rascals making false promises. The awakening of the electorate as measured by numerous polls is heartening. The real work of restoring the republic begins, not ends, after the election by making sure the new crop of representatives keeps their promises and their oaths of office to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States. Only citizens who understand their history and their present peril will be up to the job.

Biden Administration Sues Texas Over “Heartbeat Law”

Friday, 10 September 2021 12:23
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, September 10, 2021:

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland filed a lawsuit on Thursday challenging the legality and constitutionality of Texas Law S.B. 8, known as the Texas Heartbeat Law. His claim rests on the idea that somewhere, somehow, deep inside the Constitution of the United States there resides a right for a woman to kill her unborn child.

No such right exists. But Garland claims it does, through precedent. In announcing the lawsuit, he said:

The [Texas] act is clearly unconstitutional under longstanding Supreme Court precedent.… In the words of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, “a State may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability.”

Repeating a lie doesn’t turn it into truth. Nevertheless, the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division, claims it does:

It is settled constitutional law that “a State may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability.” But Texas has done just that. It has enacted a statute banning nearly all abortions in the State after six weeks.

This statement, all by itself, shows the flimsy nature of the complaint. First, laws are made by Congress, not by the Executive nor by the Judicial branches of the government. Second, rulings in Roe v. Wade and Casey are rulings — opinions — relating to the particular cases and are not law.

But the suit ignores these facts, declaring that

Texas enacted S.B.8 in open defiance of the Constitution … [it] clearly violates the Constitution….

 

Instead of relying on the State’s executive branch to enforce the law, as is the norm in Texas and elsewhere, the State has deputized ordinary citizens to serve as bounty hunters.

The lawsuit claims that the Texas law is unconstitutional because it violates the “Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution [which] mandates that ‘the Constitution and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof … shall be the supreme Law of the Land … any Thing in the Constitution or Law of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.’”

But Roe didn’t uncover a right of a woman to kill her unborn child. The court created the right out of whole cloth — and political ideology. As Ryan T. Anderson, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals at Princeton University, wrote:

No such right can be found in the text of the Constitution, or in its structure, logic, or original understanding.

In referring to the Mississippi case pending before the Supreme Court, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Anderson noted:

Roe and Casey confected a “constitutional right” to abortion out of thin air. The majorities in those cases did not actually find such a right; they simply imposed their own moral-political opinions about the desirability of legal abortion.

The federal lawsuit ignored the conclusion of former Dean of Stanford Law School John Hart Ely, who declared that Roe was “bad because it is bad constitutional law, or rather because it is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.”

It also ignored the words of liberal, pro-abortion legal scholar Laurence Tribe, who said, “One of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.”

It ignored the dissent of Kennedy-nominated Supreme Court Justice Byron White, who concluded that Roe wasn’t about interpreting the Constitution, its text, or its history, but was instead “an exercise in raw judicial power.”

The lawsuit also claims the Texas law violates the 14th Amendment. That amendment guarantees the right to every person equal protection under the law. But history has made plain that, at the time the amendment was ratified, unborn persons were considered to be covered as well. As Ryan Anderson explained, “The best originalist reading of the 14th Amendment, we are convinced, would include unborn persons within the scope of the provision stating that no state may ‘deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’”

There is a substantial risk of the lawsuit blowing up in the faces of Garland, Biden, and the entire pro-abortion culture: The high court just might use this lawsuit to address the underlying issues herein discussed, and rule that 50 years ago the court made a ghastly mistake that has cost the lives of millions.

Biden’s Falling Approval Numbers Are Putting Congress Into Play for Republicans in 2022

Wednesday, 08 September 2021 21:12
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, September 8, 2021: 

Remington Research Group, a reputable GOP-aligned polling outfit with a “B” rating from FiveThirtyEight, discovered in its latest survey of seven “middle-of-the-road” congressional districts that “the left’s ‘Build Back Better’ agenda is toxic.” This downturn in approval will likely cost the seven Democrats presently representing those districts their jobs next November.

In every district polled, Joe Biden’s approval rating is underwater, averaging 46%. When matched against a “generic” Republican candidate, they are expected to lose by an average of six percentage points.

This is a microcosm of Biden’s approval rating nationally. The eight most recent polls recorded at RealClear Politics show Biden’s approval between 43 and 47 percent, the lowest of his administration so far. FiveThirtyEight’s poll averages similarly have his deficit at 4.1 points as of Sept. 8.

Most vulnerable is the razor-thin eight-seat Democrat majority in the House of Representatives. A loss of just five seats next November would turn control back to the Republicans.

According to Sean Trende, a political analyst at RealClear Politics, the party in power typically loses around 30 seats in the House and two to four seats in the Senate. But, says Trende, “the most important predictor of a party’s performance in a midterm is the president’s job approval rating … abysmal elections for parties in power have occurred when the president was generally unpopular.”

As Biden’s approval rating continues to drop, the likelihood of losses for Democrats in the midterms increases. At 50% approval, Democrats in the Senate would expect to break even. “At 46%,” wrote Trende, “Democrats … only retain control about four percent of the time.”

In the House, Biden’s continuing dismal performance would, per Trende, cost the Democrats upwards of 25 seats. “If he declines much further, however, it could turn into an ugly rout.”

In the Senate, there are five Republican senators with targets on their backs: Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). They painted those targets themselves either by voting to impeach President Trump or supporting the “bipartisan” infrastructure spending bill. Each is taking the easy way out by retiring.

The vacuum in each case is being filled by what Politico calls “Trump acolytes”: those “who have made loyalty to the former president a cornerstone of their campaigns.” For example, former Republican Missouri state Senator John Lamping said that Senator Roy Blunt “is a super-super insider and that’s not what the base wants. No one is running to be a Roy Blunt senator. They’re running to be a Donald Trump senator.”

Three other Republican senators are in jeopardy as well: John Thune (R-S.D.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). They have not yet formally announced their candidacies and could be replaced by Trump “acolytes,” turning the Senate an even darker red.

Biden’s approval ratings are dropping due to his Afghanistan withdrawal disaster, a southern border inundated with illegal immigration, and inflation. Add to that rampant crime in big cities and the economy struggling to find workers, and it’s not at all difficult to see why Biden’s numbers are flagging.

The GOP has other advantages going into the November 2022 midterms: the party controls the redistricting process for 187 House seats, with the Democrats controlling just 75. Biden is unlikely to be an asset on the campaign trail, and his hapless Vice President Kamala Harris is too toxic to put in front of a microphone.

Assuming the Republicans regain control of both houses of Congress in 2022, the next questions must be: will it make any difference? Will those campaigning on the Trump platform of “Make America Great Again” keep their promises and begin the long, arduous path to restoring the Republic? Will they hew to their oaths of office to support and defend the Constitution? Will they make serious efforts to reverse the damage being done by the Democrats? Or will they become invisible in the freedom fight currently raging across the land?

That’s the role of the John Birch Society: creating an informed electorate who will not only select statesmen who promise to keep their oaths but hold them to those promises when they fall away. For more information on how to get involved in the freedom fight, go to JBS.org.

Republicans’ Trust in Establishment Media Cut in Half in Five Years

Tuesday, 31 August 2021 15:08
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, August 31, 2021:  

Barely a third of Republicans polled by Pew Research Center in June said that they trust the establishment media (ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, etc.) to provide them with unbiased, “fair and balanced” news. Five years ago, more than two thirds of them trusted the media as their primary news source.

Overall, fewer than three out of five Americans of all political persuasions have “some trust” in the mainstream media, down from 65 percent in 2016. There’s even been some substantial credibility slippage among Democrats as well, according to Pew. “This is,” wrote the group, “the smallest share over the past five years.”

Not surprisingly, Pew also reported that the percentage of those who don’t trust the media “at all” jumped from six percent five years ago to 14 percent currently.

This confirms what Statista.com reported on Monday: “The credibility of almost all the news media sources in [our] ranking was considerably lower in 2021 than in previous years, highlighting consumers’ growing concerns about reliability, bias, and trustworthiness in the news business.”

The media’s credibility has been slipping for years. In 2019, for example, ABC enjoyed a rating of 63 percent among those polled. Today it’s at 58 percent.

Similar declines are reported at CBS and NBC. The New York Times’ credibility has slipped from 53 percent two years ago to 50 percent at present, along with CNN. Fox News has slipped from 52 percent to 44 percent over the same period, while Huffington Post suffered the most grievous drop, from just 38 percent two years ago to 31 percent now.

Hugh Hewitt, a radio talk show host, law professor, and conservative political commentator, writes from inside the establishment media. He is a regular on NBC News and MSNBC and writes frequently for the Washington Post.

In May he declared in an article published by the Post that “the media has a big credibility problem”, adding, “Media bias has grown worse in recent years. From story selection to story framing, bias leaps off the page or screen and cannot be escaped. The hazard of this vast tilt left is the belief among millions — perhaps a majority — of Americans that [the] media cannot be trusted.”

That leaves those searching for reliable sources for their news in a quandary: where to go? Many are turning to The Epoch Times, which is enjoying a surge in popularity. So are Newsmax, OneAmerica News, and American Thinker.

The New American magazine and its website, TheNewAmerican.com, makes every effort to “tell the story behind the story.”

Missing from the conservation about media bias is the long and deep influence of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Established in 1921 as a private organization whose purpose was to “awaken America to its worldwide responsibilities,” it has insinuated itself into every major part of the culture since its founding.

Richard Harwood, a former Washington Post senior editor, described the CFR as “the nearest thing we have to a ruling establishment in the United States”, adding that many members have enormous influence in the media:

The membership of these journalists in the Council, however they may think of themselves, is an acknowledgment of their active and important role in public affairs and of their ascension into the American ruling class.

 

They do not merely analyze and interpret foreign policy for the United States; they help make it. They are part of that establishment … sharing most of its values and world views.

Media personalities constitute only about five percent of the overall CFR network. Key members of the organization have included:

Several US Presidents and Vice Presidents of both parties;

 

Almost all Secretaries of State, Defense, and the Treasury;

 

Many high-ranking commanders of the U.S. military and NATO;

 

Some of the most influential Members of Congress (notably in foreign and security policy);

 

Almost all National Security Advisors, CIA Directors, Ambassadors to the U.N., Chairs of the Federal Reserve, Presidents of the World Bank, and Directors of the National Economic Council;

 

Many prominent academics, especially in key fields such as Economics and Political Science; and

 

Many top executives of Wall Street, policy think tanks, universities, and NGOs.

CFR insiders, including political journalist Richard Rovere, have revealed the influence of the CFR across the political, economic, educational, and cultural spectrum:

The directors of the CFR make up a sort of Presidium for that part of the Establishment that guides our destiny as a nation. [I]t rarely fails to get one of its members, or at least one of its allies, into the White House. In fact, it generally is able to see to it that both nominees are men acceptable to it.

This is what makes The New American unique: it reveals “the rest of the story” — that is, little happens domestically or internationally (e.g., Afghanistan) without CFR influence and direction.

In the instant case Pew Research merely reveals the awakening of the American consumer to the extensive bias toward collectivism but without explaining that it is a deliberate part of an agenda to lessen America’s influence in the world, preparing it for its role as a part of a world run by CFR elites and its friends in the media, the culture, government, education, and in Hollywood.

Many of the articles on Light from the Right first appeared on either The New American or the McAlvany Intelligence Advisor.
Copyright © 2021 Bob Adelmann