Almost three weeks since the election, the consensus is that this has been a populist victory — the people saw themselves ill-served by a lordly empowered elite and voted them out. Legacy media folk warn ponderously of the illegitimacy of seeking news from anyone but themselves. There is one aspect of this populist victory that may need a little more emphasis, and that is that the roll of fundraiser has been knocked down and trimmed down, though by no means entirely broken. Going back to what passes for ancient history, as the Republicans headed towards the first primary contests in Iowa and New Hampshire in 2016, Jeb Bush seemed invincible. He had the family connections, he knew the right people, he had political experience as a governor, and most of all, he had an immense campaign war chest. In July of 2015, the Bush campaign announced that Jeb’s super PAC had raised over $100 million. The feeling among the pundits was that he had a crushing advantage, squeezing out the other candidates. His regular campaign fund, described by Politico then as a “fundraising juggernaut,” was just as impressive. His sums were roughly double that of his nearest rival for the nomination at that point, Ted Cruz. The common wisdom was that as the money goes, so go the votes. Jeb was the man to beat. (READ MORE from Shmuel Klatzkin: With Trump’s Win, The Law Wins) And Trump beat him, and everyone else in that election. Jeb was out after the South Carolina primary in which he finished a distant fourth, getting a mere third of the votes of the third-place finisher — a poor return for those millions. His candidacy didn’t make it to March. In this year’s election, $100,000,000 was chump change, whether because of the Biden inflation or because people have genuinely bought the thought that fundraising is by far the most important thing of all. The Kamala Kampaign raised over a billion dollars and spent even more — they are still fundraising, seeking to cover a multi-million-dollar deficit. And Trump beat her. As readers probably can attest, the Trump campaign and its allies filled our email boxes and every other box with endless requests for money. The point here is not that an effective campaign can be run without money. The point is, rather, that money is not the final determinant or the prime determinant of election victory. The American people are not such dummies as the professionals have thought, easily manipulated by the media bombardment of the campaign. It seems that the people decided that they had had enough of the Harris campaign’s messaging. They did not trust it or the media that conveyed it. It didn’t matter that Trump was severely outspent. When the trusting ear of the people was lost, no amount of high-financed campaigning was going to yield the votes that had been touted. It was not just that the money failed. The media failed as well, and spectacularly. The great deposit of trust that had been accumulated by the journalists of the past has been run through by the moral spendthrifts of the Trump-era legacy media. It may be that only committed Dems still view WaPo, NYT, CBS, ABC, and NBC as fair, balanced, and reasonably objective in covering Trump and the MAGA phenomenon, or even covering old-fashioned Republicans who did not jump to the Never Trump faction. The legacy media’s immense corporate pocketbooks, their grand supportive structures, the high-salaried faces — none of those things  succeed in swaying minds and hearts as they once did. The reason is that they went parochial. They stopped talking to people not already committed to their way of thinking. They preached to their choir, just one denomination in a vast religious quarrel, in which the opposition (satan in Hebrew means one who opposes) is satanic and whose victory would bring an apocalypse. And their influence is increasingly confined to the devotees of their creed. Outside the bounds of those media and their remaining clients, most people have their own religion already. Moreover, they embrace the core American idea that politics should not be made into religion. They sense, if they do not know the details, how America’s Founders learned from the horrors of the English Civil War and the Cromwell dictatorship, when politics was religious, and its disputes were absolute and deadly. They sensed that what the media and the elite ruling class was trying to do was to establish their creed as the ruling religion of America. And they know and love the Constitution well enough to know that that ain’t kosher. It Was Even Worse for the Old-Line Media The fancy media has been the loser even more than King Money. Far more people are going to independent media for their coverage: Joe Rogan, Megyn Kelly, Victor Davis Hanson, Ben Shapiro, and many more, who willingly compete in a free market for the trust of the people and who win it each day anew. Rogan’s 3-plus-hour interview with Trump got more viewers than the World Series game that night, and after three days, had recorded almost 40,000,000 viewers. Legacy media folk warn ponderously of the illegitimacy of seeking news from anyone but themselves, but they are, as above, preaching to their own choir in an increasingly isolated and bitter denomination that demonizes those who do not share their beliefs. No religion has fully realized its beliefs and ideals. Anyone who is honest about their own journey towards manifesting their deepest beliefs in their lives is not offended or put off by seeing that people with different creeds are similarly imperfect. We embrace the freedom to improve. (READ MORE: We Must All Renew the American Covenant) What most Americans do not like and will not accept is an attempt by a creed to force compliance with their beliefs. Only to those humble enough to teach their faith wisdom invitationally do we give our attention, and to their methodology give respect. We all want to understand the puzzle a little more and we know we can gain from hearing out a different perspective. Just don’t force us. A great many Americans have sensed that the legacy media, the moneyed supporters of the DNC and the myriad of PACs allied with them are a modern religious sect. They do not begrudge them their beliefs, but they do mind being constantly proselytized to join. It is like a knock on the door or a call on the phone at suppertime by someone seeking to persuade you that theirs is the only path to salvation. We think — why must you impose on my space and my life? I don’t want to argue about my faith. I want to live it, be inspired by it, and be challenged by it. I will not be forced into an intimate discussion by someone who doesn’t know me or respect me. And so, in this last election, a great many Americans closed the door to these sectarians. We, the door slammers, hope and pray that that door-closing will speak clearly and spur more respect from the slammies and perhaps they even might reflect on why they were slammed. Most of us would welcome that and probably pray for it. In the meantime, we who were shut out and shut down will now have our say. Let us not fail in respect and in grace, even as we use the power granted us in the way our deepest commitment requires of us. May it inspire our disappointed fellow citizens to find their way back to a deeper and better national conversation. The post Big Money and Big Media Lost in 2024 appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Over the past several years — decades, actually — American Catholics have been drifting further and further away from the Democratic Party and, increasingly, coalescing around the GOP. One of the chief reasons for this, according to the co-founder of the pro-Democrat “Catholics for Harris” group, is the Democratic Party’s unwillingness to engage with and listen to Catholic voters, or any religious voters, really. Democrats have increasingly seen faithful Catholics at odds with a political party obsessed with … the mutilation of even children in the name of gender ideology. In a Newsweek op-ed published last week, self-described “political operative” Christopher Hale castigated Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party as a whole for failing to appeal to Catholic voters, crediting a “God Problem” within the party. “Harris’ failure to engage Catholic voters is symptomatic of a broader issue within the Democratic Party: a discomfort with engaging faith communities across the nation,” Hale wrote. (READ MORE from S.A. McCarthy: Hostility Toward Christians Skyrockets Across Europe) He continued, “Over the years, the party has increasingly aligned itself with secular and progressive values, often sidelining religious voices in the process. This shift has alienated many religious voters, who feel their beliefs are not only unrepresented but actively dismissed. For Catholics, this alienation is particularly acute on issues like abortion.” “The Democratic Party’s unwavering commitment to reproductive choice post-Dobbs is to be expected, but its unwillingness to engage with voters who disagree is political malpractice,” Hale observed. He added, “This inflexibility makes it difficult for pro-life or moderately pro-choice Catholics to feel at home within the party, despite aligning with its positions on other critical issues like poverty, health care, and immigration.” Hale noted that Trump, who is not himself a Catholic, consistently appealed to Catholic voters, running targeted ad campaigns, attending Catholic events like the famous Al Smith Dinner, which Harris skipped, and making social media posts about Catholic Saints and holy days. Meanwhile, Harris’s “campaign displayed a noticeable aversion to engaging with Catholic voters,” Hale wrote. “The decision to skip the Al Smith Dinner epitomized this reluctance. It wasn’t just a missed opportunity; it was a clear signal of disengagement,” he continued. Hale added, “For many Catholics, the absence reinforced the perception that their voices and values were unwelcome in the Democratic Party. In battleground states, where Catholic voters often swing elections, this oversight helped contribute to Harris’ defeat.” Of course, the “Catholics for Harris” group itself often overlooked or excused Harris’s radical pro-abortion activism and ignored her vociferous promotion of transgender ideology, both of which were key sticking points for even politically-moderate Catholics. The Democrats Since 1973 The Democratic Party once appealed to American Catholics as a home for blue collar workers who wanted to see their tax dollars spent doing some good. But the succeeding decades, especially since the U.S. Supreme Court’s disastrous Roe v. Wade decision was handed down in 1973, Democrats have increasingly seen faithful Catholics at odds with a political party obsessed with the slaughter of the unborn, the degradation of the institution of marriage, and the mutilation of even children in the name of gender ideology. Some organizations calling themselves Catholic — such as the aforementioned “Catholics for Harris” or the blatantly dissident “Catholics for Choice” — tacitly or openly endorse the evils embraced by the Democratic Party. But Catholic voters have largely chosen to align themselves with the party that champions religious liberty, values Catholic contribution, and seeks to uphold (or, at the very least, doesn’t ridicule) Catholic moral standards. In this month’s election, Catholic voters backed Trump over Harris by an 18-point margin, according to exit polling from The Washington Post and NBC News. In six out of seven swing states, Catholic voters tipped the election in favor of Trump, handing him a landslide victory comprising both the electoral college and the popular vote. (READ MORE: Catholic Bishops Stumble on Immigration) As Hale concluded, “A Democratic Party that loses [58 to 40] percent among Catholics, like it did in this election, is a Democratic Party without a future in vast portions of this country.” But, as Hale does not state, the Democratic Party will have to choose between Catholic voters or its obsession with evils like abortion and transgenderism. The two have proven themselves incompatible. The post The Democrat Party’s Noxious ‘God Problem’ appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

You can draw a straight line from October 7, 2023 to November 5, 2024. After October 7, Americans now saw progressives for what they truly were: an unholy coalition of power-hungry totalitarians. That one event, the worst mass murder of Jews since the Nazi era, exposed every single cause progressive Democrats had preached about — from #MeToo to #BelieveAllWomen to Black Lives Matter to DEI — as a fraud perpetrated on the American public. On November 5, Americans convicted Democrats of that fraud and sentenced them to the political wilderness. Before October 7, Americans had already been growing skeptical of these movements’ excesses. Some Americans had heard about the antisemitism in the Women’s March. Some were aware of BLM leaders’ racism and outrageous misuse of funds on mansions, clothes, and other frivolities.  And some were aware of the toll the “Ferguson effect” on law enforcement had taken on minority communities. But October 7 was the tipping point.  In an instant, progressivism, which for a decade had been self-righteously preaching about racial justice, social justice, climate justice, and transgender justice, and scolding or destroying anyone who didn’t get with the program, entirely and irrevocably lost its moral authority. It didn’t matter whether you were Jewish. Progressives’ response to October 7 was so grotesque, so immoral, that Americans of all stripes were utterly repelled by what they saw. The same people who lectured Americans for years to “believe all women” denied or ignored the horrific sexual violence that Hamas perpetrated at the NOVA festival.  The same people who claimed to be our moral superiors, who instructed us that “Black Lives Matter” and punished those who said “All Lives Matter,” sent a tweet celebrating and glorifying the October 7 attacks on October 8. The sainted progressive Ta-Nehisi Coates, who told us we owed him reparations for slavery, slandered Israel as an “apartheid” state and said he might not have been able to resist joining in the October 7th pogrom. For a decade people have had their careers and lives ruined by social justice warriors over the slightest matter.  Misuse pronouns?  Off to HR.  Object to transgender men using the women’s room or playing in girls sports?  Off to reeducation.  Print an op-ed that makes people “feel unsafe”?  Lose your job.  Fail to genuflect properly to Ta-Nehisi Coates?  Your boss will force you to make a humiliating apology. But when confronted with the base barbarism of October 7, progressives now insisted we consider context.  Nuance.  About how this didn’t start on October 7.  All of America watched as the progressive Left — the animating force in Democratic politics today — which had been hectoring them for years about “justice” stood with the greatest monsters of our time. Americans didn’t just roll their eyes at this hypocrisy.  Progressives had destroyed too many lives and too many careers for Americans to shrug it off.  Progressives had injected too much terror into Americans’ daily conversations and workplaces to get away with just an eyeroll. Instead, Americans reacted on November 5 with fury, as if they were tearing down the Berlin Wall.  No more would Americans allow progressive thought police to dictate, Stasi-like, the limits of their conversations.  No longer would Americans allow the immoral cretins sympathizing with Hamas barbarians to dictate the moral boundaries of American society. Who were the heroes of the November 5 election?  Joe Rogan, the independent podcaster.  Elon Musk, the proprietor of the only social network committed to free speech.  Bari Weiss and the Free Pressers.  Douglas Murray, the independent journalist committed to telling the truth about the Gaza war.  The people who heard America screaming “tear down this wall!” and did it. After October 7, Americans understood beyond a shadow of a doubt that DEI and BLM were never about equality.  No, Americans saw them for what they truly were about: power.  About asserting power over others.  About tearing down one group of so-called “oppressors” and replacing them with the supposed “oppressed.” About extorting spoils from some to give to others. The so-called social justice warriors didn’t care about justice.  These were people who enjoyed the power to destroy careers, who thrilled to the social destruction of others.  These were people who gleefully told others to shut up and think right or else. It was a sadistic frenzy worthy of the Salem witch trials or the height of Nazi fanaticism. These were people who had no interest in making an omelet.  They were in it to break the eggs. And Americans said nuts to that. Americans instinctively knew that the harassment Jews faced on campus would not be tolerated for a second if Black or Hispanic students were the ones being harassed. Americans well knew that if the campus tent cities had been populated by students and faculty supporting the Klan instead of students and faculty supporting Hamas, they would have been rolled up within a week. After October 7 Americans viscerally understood, in a way that Asian-Americans’ lawsuits against colleges’ and high schools’ biased admissions procedures could not convey, that DEI was not about equality.  It was about promoting favored minorities and asserting power over others — especially disfavored minorities — and destroying standards and merit in order to do so. The rot ran all the way to the top. The DOJ Civil Rights Division, which has embraced every cockamamie progressive theory of justice and imposed it on police departments and universities throughout the country, didn’t lift a finger to protect Jewish students’ basic right to move freely about campuses. It took private plaintiffs to file suit in federal court to force UCLA to dismantle the Jew checkpoints student radicals had established on campus. Jews are a minority of minorities, even in the United States.  There are more Blacks and Hispanics in America than there are Jews in the world.  Yet when radical Islamists attacked this tiny minority in Israel, not only did progressives not set out to support the beleaguered Jewish minority, they also immediately launched a parallel assault on Jews in the United States. After October 7, Americans retrospectively looked at the decade of wokeism, of social, racial, climate, and transgender “justice” and saw something far darker, far more malevolent. Progressives were not Martin Luther King Jr., bending the arc of the universe toward justice, and they even ridiculed King’s “colorblind” vision for America.  After October 7, Americans now saw progressives for what they truly were: an unholy coalition of power-hungry totalitarians and amoral destructive nihilists.  A repugnant combination of Joseph Stalin and the Joker, authoritarians imposing their will through the barrel of a gun and people who just wanted to watch the world burn. And why would we expect things to get better? Eighteen Democratic senators just voted to impose an arms embargo on Israel, an ally whose population has been running to bomb shelters every night for over a year because of the genocidal Islamist maniacs on their borders.  Does anyone not think that number will only go up in the future?  We see what American universities are churning out.  With the Senate vote, progressive Democrats doubled down on their abandonment of Jews after November 5. Thanks to the post-October 7 grotesqueries of the progressive movement in its treatment of Jews, and the endless venom it directs toward the State of Israel, Americans were able to stand up on November 5 and say enough.  October 7 created the critical mass needed to overthrow the entire woke edifice of DEI administrators, HR speech police, social media Stasi informants, and the Democratic Party married to all of it. It’s not an autopsy Democrats need to do post-November 5.  It’s surgery.  The current incarnation of progressivism is a cancerous tumor.  The Democrats must remove it from their party, or there will be many more November 5ths to come. READ MORE from Michael Ginsberg: Ukraine’s West Berlin Solution Fairfax County Public Schools’ Mask Mandate: Safetyism Run Amok The post After Oct. 7, Progressives Destroyed the Democrats appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

“We win, they lose.” That Reagan statement was a declaration for the ages, a denouement to the 20th century, encapsulating what Ronald Reagan did to defeat the Soviet Union and win the Cold War. There’s nary a Reaganite who doesn’t know it. Few, however, know the full quote and its origins. It actually went like this: “Dick, my idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic,” averred Reagan. “It is this: We win and they lose. What do you think of that?” The very notion of victory was absurd. Allen had never heard anyone dare use the word “win.” Dick? Who was that? He was Richard V. Allen. And he passed away last week at age 88. He was a fan of this magazine and a friend of its founder, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. Above all, he was a remarkable witness to what Ronald Reagan sought and achieved. What follows is the context of that Reagan declaration. It was late January 1977. It had been mere days since Jimmy Carter had been inaugurated president, setting the stage for a disastrous four years in American history. Allen, only 41 years old, was already a man of impressive academic credentials and experience in foreign policy — graduate work at Notre Dame, a researcher and policy analyst at the Hoover Institution, the Center for Strategic & International Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Nixon White House. (READ MORE from Paul Kengor: Justice Comes to HHS: Trump Taps Kennedy) Now, Allen was contemplating a run for governor of New Jersey. He flew to the West Coast to meet with the former California governor to ask him for his endorsement. Instead, said Allen, he and Reagan ended up “talking and talking and talking” about foreign policy — for four hours. What Allen most remembered was Ronald Reagan looking him in the eye and boldly asserting that declaration: “We win and they lose.” It was an amazing assertion, if not, in retrospect, a prophecy. I first heard it from Allen in a February 1999 address that he gave in Washington, DC, sponsored by the Hoover Institution and the William J. Casey Institute of the Center for Security Policy, the text of which was printed by my good friend and colleague Peter Schweizer in his 2000 volume, The Fall of the Berlin Wall. I was researching a book that would eventually become my 2006 work, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism. I just had to track down Allen to ask him about that moment. I talked to him on November 12, 2001. Allen emphasized how utterly groundbreaking Reagan’s thinking was. He had “never heard such words” from anyone in the foreign-policy establishment. It wasn’t the kind of thing you heard from State Department types or even the Nixon administration, where the policy had been to get along with the Soviets rather than seek to take them down. Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and then Democrat President Jimmy Carter had favored détente — preserving the status quo in Eastern Europe. Their goal was not liberation but (too often) accommodation. The very notion of victory was absurd. Allen had never heard anyone dare use the word “win.” “Governor, do you mean that?” Allen asked Reagan, who replied: “Of course I do.” I asked Allen for added clarification, hoping to document for scholars that Cold War victory had in fact been Ronald Reagan’s precise intention. I asked him: “Are you telling me that on that day in January 1977, Ronald Reagan told you that his goal was to take on and defeat the Soviet empire? That’s what you’re telling me?” Allen replied: “Yes. That’s absolutely right. That’s what I’m telling you.” I further pushed: “And Reagan expressed this specific intent to take on and defeat the USSR and the Soviet empire before his presidency even began?” Allen again affirmed: “Yes, that was his intent.” On that day at Reagan’s home in late January 1977, Allen was so struck that he instantly decided to drop his bid for governor and join Reagan’s crusade to defeat Soviet communism. Four years later, he became President Reagan’s first national security adviser, committing to an effort to do just that — to win. To be sure, Allen did not last long in that position, for stupid reasons that the New York Times unsurprisingly saw fit to underscore in the lead of its obituary. He was replaced a year later, January 1, 1982, by Judge William P. Clark, who became the indispensable advisor to Reagan in developing the strategy to win the Cold War. (I knew Clark very well and was in fact his biographer.) Nonetheless, Allen fully shared Reagan’s (and Clark’s) intent to win, and he witnessed some mighty moments in Reagan declaring those intentions. To that end, there were two other crucial moments in which Allen served as a remarkable Cold War witness to Reagan’s plans. I likewise asked him about those moments over the years. I even sought to get him on video for posterity. Allen and Reagan at the Wall One such moment occurred in November 1978 — at the Berlin Wall. Allen and Reagan traveled all the way to Berlin. Joining them was their mutual friend Peter Hannaford and their three wives. In the book and film, The Divine Plan: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Dramatic End of the Cold War, done by myself and Robert Orlando, Allen shared what he witnessed: Berlin was behind the Iron Curtain. And from the American sector in Berlin, I took [Ronald Reagan] into the East. I took him to several notable places, parts of Berlin where he could see up close what it meant to live in communist East Germany, one of the most repressive of all places in Eastern Europe. We went into an enormous plaza, a platz, as the Germans call it, and people were milling about and walking around. And he was just gathering the flavor of everything. I nudged him and told him to look over there. Two East German police, the Volkspolizei, were stopping a man who was carrying two shopping bags. One of them poked the barrel of his automatic rifle into the stomach of the man, and the other one probed with his rifle in the shopping bags to see what was in them. It was all I could do to restrain Reagan from going over and doing whatever he was going to do.   I was afraid he might punch the East German policeman. Then we’d really be in a pickle, wouldn’t we? … That was his first direct encounter with the wall as such. As we approached the wall very closely, just a few feet away, with Peter Hannaford and his wife on the left, and I and my wife, Pat, on the right, he stared at the wall, glowered, his jaw tightened, and he turned to me and said, “Dick, we’ve got to find a way to knock this thing down.” A really historic quote. I’ll never forget it because, of course, then as president, nine years later, he would stand there and say, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” “Dick, we’ve got to find a way to knock this thing down.” That, of course, was the thought that never left him. And knock it down they did. When the wall went down in November 1989, it was a dramatic sign that we had won and they lost. The Polish Pope: Key Ingredient Another dramatic moment occurred in June 1979 — in Warsaw. The occasion was the pivotal nine days that Pope John Paul II spent in a triumphant return to his native Poland, a period described as Nine Days That Changed the World in the gripping documentary by Newt and Callista Gingrich. Dick Allen witnessed Ronald Reagan’s remarkable reaction to that moment from afar — once again from Reagan’s home in California as the two watched footage of the pope’s visit to Poland. Allen had previously shared that reaction in books and in speeches. What he witnessed was so significant that Rob Orlando and I wanted to track down Allen to share it on camera. By a stroke of Providence, Orlando and Allen just happened to be near one another in New Jersey for a very brief window of time. Orlando grabbed his video equipment and dashed off. Here was what Allen told us (watch here, starting at the 4:00 mark): It happened the day I was in California to see Governor Reagan. It turned out it was on that very day that Pope John Paul II, newly inaugurated, visited Poland. I happened to be sitting in Reagan’s study with him…. I turned on the television set and there it was: The papal plane arriving and the pope descending the steps and kneeling down, as his first action, to kiss the ground in Poland. That was amazing. It still chokes me up to speak of this moment. And I glanced over, it was a moment in which you wouldn’t speak, I glanced over, at Governor Reagan, and I saw a tear in his eye. It was very, very interesting. It was the only time that I ever saw him tear up, and certainly I did as well. I’m a Roman Catholic. He was not. Reagan leaned forward, peered into the TV screen and stated that the new pope was “the key” to winning the Cold War. He immediately wanted to reach out to the new pope and the Vatican and “make them an ally.” Reagan said to Allen: “Dick, that’s it! That’s it! The pope is the key!” Reagan said then and there that the pope was the key to liberating Poland, Eastern Europe, and winning the Cold War. Yes, Reagan wanted to win the Cold War, but how? He knew he would need crucial allies. The election of a Polish pope could not have been a bigger game-changer. As Reagan would later say, John Paul II was his “best friend” in that effort. (Margaret Thatcher was certainly a crucial friend as well.) (READ MORE: That’s How You Overturn an Election) Now, the only thing remaining was for Reagan to get elected. No small feat, though he made it look easy. He won 44 of 50 states against an incumbent in 1980, and was reelected by winning 49 of 50. In 1984, he won the Electoral College by an astounding 525 to 13. With those wins, he could now implement that strategy to win the Cold War. And what happened? Well, as Dick Allen alone heard it first, we won and they lost. Richard V. Allen was quite a witness to that epic Cold War victory. May he rest in peace. The post ‘We Win, They Lose’: Remembering Richard V. Allen appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

WASHINGTON — If you think of Joe Biden as a nice old man who was kicked to the curb, consider his administration’s jaw-dropping efforts to sabotage Donald Trump. The president-elect plans to actually enforce federal immigration law starting Jan. 20, when Trump takes the oath of office. As the New York Post reported Thursday, Team Biden “is quietly rushing to implement new policies that will loosen restrictions on migrants who entered the U.S. illegally — a parting attempt to thwart President-elect Donald Trump’s immigration crackdowns and mass deportations,” according to sources. It’s no wonder that Trump campaigned on the pledge to order “mass deportations” — and it’s no wonder that he won in November. For some time now, New York has been ground zero — with horror stories to show for it. On Wednesday, a New York prosecutor was robbed by a Venezuelan migrant with a Big Apple rap sheet and suspected ties to Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. He also was charged with masturbating in front of her. “He arrived here in New York in June and has managed to get arrested seven times since June, and at one point was smiling, and is smiling now, and I observed him laughing during the proceeding,” Judge Janet McDonnell noted during the hearing, according to the Post. Be it noted, New York is a sanctuary city. So it should be no surprise that more than 210,000 migrants have landed in the Big Apple since 2022. The city has been unable to house all the newcomers, so many are sleeping on the streets. In August, the New York Times reported, the city housed people in more than 100 hotels, with 16,000 hotel rooms serving as shelters. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has the right idea. He declared Tren de Aragua a “terrorist organization.” So which state looks better to transnational gangs? The crisis was inevitable. On his first day as president, Biden ordered a 100-day pause on deportations and gave the green light to illegal crossings when he halted Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program — with little thought of the impact on American citizens, native and foreign-born. U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded 10.5 million encounters at the border during Biden’s tenure. “It is clear that the Biden administration has used unlawful mass-parole programs to shift hundreds of thousands of inadmissible aliens to ports of entry for release into the interior, often with little or no vetting. The end result is the same — a continuing, historic border crisis,” the House Committee on Homeland Security warned in May. It’s no wonder that Trump campaigned on the pledge to order “mass deportations” — and it’s no wonder that he won in November. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston is one of many blue-city mayors who have pledged to resist Trump’s planned deportations. He warned that if federal officials implement Trump’s plan, the Mile High City could see a “Tiananmen Square moment” — Denver police could be “stationed at the county line.” Johnston also maintained his sanctuary city would not be “bullied” into changing its values. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey told MSNBC, “Every tool in the tool box is going to be used to protect our citizens, to protect our residents and protect our states, and certainly hold the line on democracy and rule of law.” Problem: Illegal immigrants are not citizens, governor — and Trump’s goal is to enforce the rule of law. If Healey and Johnston don’t want federal officials to deport illegal migrants — Trump-designated “border czar” Tom Homan plans to start with a focus on illegal migrants with criminal records — they should organize to change the law. I should use this moment to note that many migrants who cross over illegally are looking for a better life. America is better because of its tradition of welcoming newcomers. There are laws in place to vet and approve would-be Americans, and it doesn’t make sense to reward newcomers who don’t respect those laws — especially when the numbers and lack of vetting have downgraded the quality of life in heavily impacted areas. Former NBC News anchor Brian Williams showed he understands what is at stake when he said on Late Night With Seth Meyers that Biden’s “biggest unforced error” was the border. “To tell people it’s not a problem, it’s insulting,” Williams added. And: “For the working class to see incoming migrants getting welcome bags, debit cards, and motel rooms is probably insulting as well.” Williams had a term for this phenomenon: “suicidal empathy.” READ MORE from Debra J. Saunders: Trump Picks His Cabinet, Breaks China The Transition That Turned Into a Loss Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM The post Sabotaging Trump: Abolishing Migrant Restrictions appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Trump’s appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the HHS has sparked fierce debate about everything from fluoride to vaccinations to raw milk. However, these feuds miss the mark when discussing the key contributors to a long and healthy life — common sense. In the current cultural moment, where politics serves as a proxy for entertainment, people seem to forget that policy is not a solution to this country’s biggest problems, including our health woes. While RFK Jr. may help clean up the corruption at the three letter agencies, return scientific research to the gold standard, and finally get the food pyramid right, no amount of law or congressional hearings will replace the foundational pillars of good health — frequent exercise, healthy eating habits, adequate sleep and sunshine, and healthy relationships with friends and family. We should not look to politicians as our saviors. While I am as excited as anyone about the next four years living unburdened by what has been, elevating Trump and his new cast of outlaws to “Avenger” status is misplaced hope. No one is coming to save us. Hopefully, a new administration will create an environment in which we are freer to make positive healthy choices. But the choices are still ours to make. Grass fed steak over hot dogs. Roasted sweet potatoes over potato chips. Stairs over elevator. Even a nice piece of high cacao dark chocolate over a Milky Way. It’s simple everyday decisions like this, stacked day after day, that lead us to a path of health and vitality. Choosing to be healthy is a matter of setting priorities. Declining the alcohol when everyone else is imbibing. Learning how to cook at home. Purchasing healthy items on a budget. Success in health is obtained just like success in any other area of life whether it be financial or professional — through time, preparation, and sacrifice. And like any other challenge, those sacrifices offer great rewards when made consistently. Rewards like not being addicted to pharmaceutical interventions or being able to run outside with your kids or dog. Don’t ever underestimate waking up with a clear mind and fresh spirit, excited about the day ahead of you. Of course we want government looking out for our best interests, free from excessive corporate greed and private interests. Trump has positioned RFK Jr. to get to the bottom of some of the country’s biggest health concerns and conflicts of interest. Do GMO’s and pesticides pose any real health risks? How many vaccines do kids really need and is MRNA technology safe or effective? What are the long-term effects of Ozempic? Are psychedelics the silver bullet to cure mental health that many claim they are? These are all crucial issues that require full transparency and research free from perverse incentives. Still, most Americans do not need to be splitting hairs about a keto diet or intermittent fasting. Personally, such topics fascinate me. But not everyone needs a Ph.D. in health to lead a vital, fulfilling life. It seems information overload has plagued the simplest of decisions and confused healthy habits that should be instilled at a young age to prepare vibrant and virtuous citizens. Children’s education should include nutrition courses and plenty of outdoor play time. Restoring Home Economics classes (can we still call them that?) that teach gardening, cooking, and simple chores should be a priority for the new Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, assuming the Department of Education will still exist a couple of years from now. SNAP and WIC dollars should limit the ability to purchase addictive and unhealthy items such as soda and candy. It certainly is an exciting moment to be alive at a time when transformation of how things are done in Washington D.C. is viable. But remember, politics will always be politics and the real opportunity for change is and always will be within our own homes and communities. Alec Zeck encapsulated this perfectly in a post on X recently: “My wife and I choose what’s best for our family. Period. Government has no say in our home. I don’t care who runs the CDC, FDA, or other corrupt 3 letter agencies. I’m in charge of my own health decisions.” This is the time to embrace health sovereignty — while we still have the choice to do so. READ MORE from Jennifer Galardi: The Mainstream Media Ignores You Food Fight: Competing Visions for America’s Health The post Good Health Depends on Us, Not the Government appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

At President-elect Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign rallies, attendees would hold “Trump Will Fix It” signs. Here’s hoping the antitrust policy that President Joe Biden excessively politicized is one of those “its.” It’s hard to overstate the importance of appointing a better attorney general and FTC chair this time around. Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, previously said he believes that Biden’s appointee as chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan, has done a good job with antitrust policy. I disagree. For nearly 40 years, most antitrust scholars sensibly agreed that the government should base its treatment of potential corporate monopolization, mergers, and related issues on these actions’ effect on “consumer welfare.” This standard ensures that antitrust is used only to prevent businesses from undermining economic competition, preserving a market that drives prices down and product quality up on behalf of us consumers. Antitrust should not protect businesses from competition. Upon taking control of the FTC, Khan discarded this standard and, along with it, decades of bipartisan agreement. Biden’s Department of Justice and FTC quickly morphed antitrust into a tool for helping the White House achieve political aims that have nothing to do with keeping markets competitive. Consider, for example, how the FTC pursued Elon Musk. A newly released report by the House Judiciary Committee delved into how Khan issued a consent decree against X (then Twitter) for no reason other than that Musk — whose existing business interests were in other industries — was the company’s CEO. Khan “called for an immediate vote” just days after reporters announced the sale, which an FTC insider confirmed was what triggered the attention. The Biden FTC also had no problem targeting companies that challenged its corporate donor base. For example, Khan released an interim report against pharmacy benefit managers, companies that health plans hire to ensure they are receiving drugs at competitive costs. The major drug manufacturers have spent significant sums lobbying the government to challenge PBMs, even though the government’s own research shows these companies save patients (and taxpayers) significant sums. With the consumer welfare standard diminished, the facts didn’t stop Khan from protecting drug companies, which have showered her boss with campaign contributions, from market discipline. The shenanigans led Melissa Holyoak, a Republican FTC commissioner, to publicly dissent. She protested that “the Report was plagued by process irregularities and concerns over substance — or lack thereof — of the original order.” So much so that “the politicized nature of the process appears to have led to the departure of at least one senior leader at the Commission.” If that’s a “good job” in Vance’s view, we should be alarmed. The Biden DOJ hasn’t acted any more responsibly. For example, it sued RealPage, an AI-based software company that helps landlords come to terms with market pricing for their units, for facilitating alleged price-gouging even though it had no evidence. The Wall Street Journal editorial board stated that “it doesn’t require a Ph.D. in economics to understand that ballooning rents are caused by demand exceeding supply” and that “what’s really going on (with this suit) is an attempt to distract voters from frustration over the Biden Administration’s inflationary policies.” More recently, Biden’s DOJ targeted Visa’s debit card business over market share concerns despite the clear consumer benefits created by the company. These include secure, accessible services that millions of Americans rely on. Businesses and consumers have plenty of payment choices, but millions choose Visa for this reason. Rather than respecting those choices, Biden’s DOJ is pursuing its anti-corporate agenda with little regard for consumers’ welfare. The solution to the DOJ and FTC’s descent into political partisanship is straightforward: comprehensive reform. Come January, the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress must demand a recommitment to the consumer welfare standard. They must institute checks that prevent the DOJ and FTC from waging ideological warfare. Measures to ensure transparency and inter-commission collaboration, such as requiring the FTC to disclose the rationale and goals of its investigations, could also prove helpful. It’s hard to overstate the importance of appointing a better attorney general and FTC chair this time around. Coupled with new oversight measures, it could go far toward restoring fairness, protecting actual competition, and preventing rogue bureaucrats from imposing their will for personal or ideological gain. Most importantly, it would help restore the country’s trust in its governmental institutions. Whether that will come to pass remains to be seen. American businesses and consumers deserve a government that respects the rule of law. By simply refocusing the FTC and antitrust division of the DOJ on their foundational purposes, we can begin a new era of fair and impartial regulation that serves the public good. That’s something we all should be able to get behind. READ MORE from Veronique de Rugy: Bipartisan Bummer: ‘Industrial Policy’ The GOP’s Gigantic Opportunity Veronique de Rugy is the George Gibbs Chair in Political Economy and a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. To find out more about Veronique de Rugy and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM The post Will Trump Fix Insidious FTC, DOJ Abuses? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Until recently, the biggest challenge facing education reformers was persuading local politicians in states with powerful teacher unions to legalize what has come to be known as “school choice” — the public subsidy of multiple K-12th grade learning options. For while Americans have always had the legal right to educate their children outside the local public school, the cost of doing so at a private or parochial facility has effectively limited that freedom to more affluent families. [T]he number of collaborative programs, especially at churches, is clearly skyrocketing. And while parents have always had the theoretical ability to homeschool, this too has always been easier allowed than done. Undertaking to instruct one’s own child has not only meant giving up the economic benefits of a full-time job but facing the challenge of being a novice teacher with little outside support. Difficult enough for one spouse in a two-parent household, but impossible for most single parents. Yet today, a rapidly spreading religious movement involving multiple denominations is making it possible for more and more families to provide their children with a non-public school option, even if their state legislatures are unwilling to subsidize it. By taking advantage of their large spaces, which go mostly unused during the work week, and enlisting the support of volunteer congregants, a growing number of churches around the country are making it possible for parents to collaboratively homeschool their children without ever having to sacrifice their day jobs. And for fees as low as a few hundred dollars a year. The origins of this trend go back to Covid, when conventional public and private schools were closed and many parents felt compelled to form small neighborhood groups — what the media soon dubbed “learning pods” or “microschools” — to educate their children. With senior centers, YMCAs, town halls, and other venues which might normally have been able to host these improvised schools also closed, a large number of them ended up operating out of local parishes. But as the pandemic subsided and conventional schools gradually reopened, the big surprise was how many families decided that they wanted to stick with what was effectively a new teaching model, church-sited homeschooling. Parents especially liked the freedom to personalize their child’s curriculum within the context of an environment that stressed traditional values. And at the same time, many of the clergy who had initially seen these improvised schools as a temporary measure began to regard them as a worthy ongoing mission. “If you were to ask me ten years ago if I would be interested in starting a homeschool type program,” says Fr. Matthew Conley, pastor of the Saint Mary of the Nativity Church on Boston’s south shore, “I’d have quickly said ‘no thanks … not interested.’” But when he saw how well one of his parishioners, Malin Agostino, had homeschooled her own four children, he thought “perhaps this is something we should be offering around here” and asked her to think about starting one. (READ MORE from Lewis M. Andrews: Leftist Colleges Tend to Produce Leftist Scientific Studies) With just five months to get ready and no advertising beyond word-of-mouth, Agostino and her church team got the Stella Maris Catholic Academy ready to open this September with seventeen K-11th grade students from the surrounding Scituate community. Charging just $1,500 a year for children whose parents help to run the three-day-a-week group homeschool and $3,000 for those being dropped off, their program is on track to double in size by next fall and seems likely to soon reach the maximum number of 75 students the church can comfortably accommodate. Some clergy have become interested enough in homeschooling that they directly manage their own church programs. At the nondenominational Harvest Family Church in Conroe, Texas, for example, Associate Pastor Linda Roberts oversees a two-day-a-week ministry which provides 81 homeschooled children with classes on 24 subjects, ranging from pre-K basics to high school chemistry. We try to “make homeschooling a more viable option for local parents,” Roberts says, by creating a place “where kids can build friendships, the adults can share information, and help is available for difficult subjects.” Families can choose from an à la carte menu of inexpensively supervised courses, averaging just $130 per semester, and teachers themselves have the option to be paid with tuition credits for their own children. There are even church homeschools which have become adjuncts of more traditional parish-sponsored academies. In the Silicon Valley town of Los Altos, for example, the Saint Paul’s Anglican Church runs both the long-established Canterbury Christian School and a newer program for local homeschooled children. The latter may not provide its students with the same amenities as the former, says headmaster Rev. Steve Macias, but it at least gives their families a public-school alternative without one parent having to quit work “in a part of the country … where even ordinary homes cost $3-to-$4 million.” PBS News estimates that overall homeschool enrollment in the U.S. has risen a remarkable 30 percent since 2019, just before American parents first became aware of Covid. Once more, according to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, the trend is clearly accelerating with the number of homeschooled students going from 3.6 million to 4 million, or up 11 percent, over the last year alone. Exactly how much of this increase is due to churches across the country combining homeschool curricula, their unused space, and congregant volunteers to create affordable venues for alternative K-12th grade instruction is hard to say. This is because only eight states – Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Tennessee, and Washington – explicitly grant local parishes or parochial schools the right to oversee homeschoolers. And while there are legal ways for houses of worship in the other 42 states to also do it, they must navigate the kind of regulatory minefield which instinctively causes many to keep a low profile. In some states, for example, churches must be careful to call their educational program something like a “learning center” or “child support ministry,” not a “school.” Church Homeschooling Programs Surge But as changes in the demand for homeschool curricula make clear, the number of collaborative programs, especially at churches, is clearly skyrocketing. My Father’s World used to sell educational materials just to individual families, says the company’s group schooling specialist Leah Brooks, but over the least two years “my side of the business (has) grown a ton.” Equally telling is the number of organizations around the country dedicated to helping area churches organize their own homeschool collaboratives. In Kansas, for example, homeschool mom of six Delana Wallace runs the Heartland Education Reformation Organization (HERO), a nonprofit which advocates for 15 parish-sited homeschool programs and connects local clergy with educators interested in helping to start others. And in Massachusetts, the Family Institute website hosts an online guide to “Church-Based Learning Center Resources,” which has already been used to create 20 Protestant and Catholic programs in the Bay State. “We are in a new age of church homeschooling,” says the guide’s author, Pastor Adam Rondeau of the Bethany Assembly of God Church in Agawam. Working on a national level, Chula Vista Christian University president Lisa Dunne runs the Academic Rescue Mission, which provides online guidance and counseling to congregations wanting to start their own homeschool collaboratives. To date, she has helped start 34 programs in California, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, and other states. (READ MORE: K-12 School Choice Will Improve Higher Education) More recently, former Republican candidate for Minnesota governor Kendall Qualls and his wife Sheila have begun working through their TakeCharge Foundation to establish what they call Washington Academies. Using a homeschool curriculum developed by Hillsdale College, each is designed to start as a K-2nd grade church-sited school that can accommodate the next highest grade every successive year until all grades are taught. One such school just opened in Mississippi, and four more are in development — one in Michigan, one in Tennessee, and two in Minnesota. Ever since June of 2022, when Arizona became the first state to pass universal school choice, prompting eleven other red-leaning states to follow, the frustrating challenge for school reformers in bluer states has been getting their own elected representatives to adopt a similar policy. But as churches around the country are showing, the absence of such legislation does not have to deny any state’s families an affordable alternative to their local public school. The post Churches Bring School Choice to Every State appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

from DollarVigilante: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

from Strategic Culture: This week marks a fateful threshold for the world. In a grave announcement, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the three-year proxy war in Ukraine has now reached a global dimension. The responsibility for this abysmal moment lies fully with the United States’ elitist rulers and their British accomplices. They are inciting […]