Democrats are a threat to democracy. If they don’t like what Donald Trump does, they plan to form a shadow government with the most offensive Democrats leading the shadow Cabinet. It’s ironic, given the fact that they weaponized government under the Obama and Biden administrations. They are planning to not let anyone pay a price […] The post Nutso! Democrats Want to Form a Shadow Government appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

It’s no secret that, as Americans, we mostly focus on domestic politics in our own country. Unlike, say, Canadians, we don’t obsess over the daily comings-and-goings of other nations. It’s virtually impossible to find a single American who can name a Canadian Supreme Court justice or member of parliament, for example. I know I certainly can’t. By contrast, Canadians can tell you all about Clarence Thomas and Matt Gaetz and so on. This is a well-established phenomenon and it makes sense, because the United States is a lot more important than any other country. But even with that in mind, every once in a while, something happens in the parliament of a foreign country that’s hard for us to ignore here in America. Maybe a lawmaker in Taiwan steals a bill and runs away with it, in order to prevent it from being passed into law. That’s something that happened, and was hilarious. Or maybe a member of parliament in India pepper-sprays his colleagues when they don’t vote the right way. Or maybe Italy’s parliament descends into a bench-clearing brawl, which requires one politician to leave the chamber in a wheelchair. These are all well-documented incidents that may not always have a lot of direct relevance to us, but more often than not, at the very least, they’re entertaining to watch. It’s a whole genre on YouTube, actually. The viral moment that just took place in the parliament of New Zealand, on the other hand, does have relevance for Americans. It’s one of the more important political stories of the year, even though it’s taking place thousands of miles from our borders. In case you missed it, several politicians in New Zealand just broke out in a primal, stone-age war dance called the “Haka,” to protest a piece of legislation that’s working its way through parliament. They won’t stop doing the chant, and eventually parliament has to be shut down. Watch: This dance is very dangerous because it may cause everyone in the vicinity to die of secondhand embarrassment. It’s hard to watch this video and not have the same reaction that the speaker of parliament has. It’s painful to sit through. Thankfully a few people have dubbed the audio in various ways. There’s one remix that turns it into a jazzy little piano number from 1925. It actually works surprisingly well.  Because it’s a Friday we might as well play it. Plus, it shows you another angle, so we can justify it that way. Watch: It’s a lot less cringe when you dub in some real music, instead of the prehistoric grunting. Now, it’s a little hard to see in all the pandemonium, but they’re getting in the face of a politician named David Seymour, who introduced a bill they don’t like. The people doing the screeching identify as “Maori,” meaning they see themselves as the allegedly indigenous people of New Zealand. They’re chanting like barbarians and making gun gestures at David Seymour while saying something that apparently translates to “evil.”  Before I get into the specifics about this vote and what it’s about, it needs to be reiterated that this whole “Haka” thing is silly and embarrassing. Maybe you’re not supposed to say that, but it’s obviously true. Everyone who sees it knows that and feels the same way. Yes, we’re supposed to pretend we find it somehow powerful and cool because it’s part of a non-white culture. We’re not allowed to have any negative opinions about anything that a non-white culture does. Even if it’s lame and stupid as hell, and we all know it. WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show But the truth is, these people are embarrassing themselves. Always and everywhere, in every context, the “Haka” is cringeworthy to an immeasurable, painful degree. Here for example was the “Haka” that New Zealand’s basketball team performed at a tournament in 2014, just before getting blown out by double-digits by Team USA. Just look at the reactions during this: There’s nothing like a fearsome war chant before a basketball game where everyone looks at you like you’re crazy. And then you get completely destroyed. Honestly, it just doesn’t work. You can’t do a fearsome war dance on behalf of a conquered people, and then get conquered some more. It’s just sad at this point. The Maori have been doing this dance for centuries and just getting beaten every time, in every context, in every type of battle they’ve ever been in. I think it might be time to hang it up and call it a day.  In any event, back to the viral clip everyone’s talking about. The so-called “indigenous” people had a meltdown in parliament over a bill. What you may not have seen is what preceded that moment. David Seymour laid out some rational and calm arguments in favor of his legislation. And then the so-called “Maori” politicians launched into a volley of personal attacks. Watch: Already, this is how you know these people have no argument. They’re only capable of shouting “shame” and resorting to personal attacks, to the point that they repeatedly get thrown out of parliament. Meanwhile David Seymour is sitting there calmly, saying he wants equality. Admittedly, I’m not an expert on the finer details of New Zealand politics. So I went looking through some New Zealand outlets to try to get as complete a picture as I could. It turns out that the concept of “equal protection under the law” is actually extremely controversial in New Zealand. Here’s the background. Hundreds of years ago, around the late 13th century, Polynesian settlers arrived by canoe in New Zealand. They became the “Maori” people. Depending on who you ask, they were either the first to arrive, or they massacred everyone else who was there. In any event, before long, the Maori wiped out a different tribe called the Moriori, who were pacifists living in the Chatham Islands in the east. They got enslaved and beheaded and cannibalized by the Maori, because apparently that’s what civilized cultures do. And to be clear, this kind of thing wasn’t out of character for the Maori. The Maori routinely enslaved and brutalized their enemies. The moment they acquired muskets from European traders, they fought a series of battles among themselves called “the Musket Wars,” which led to tens of thousands of deaths and even more slavery. These are wars that, of course, the Maori now blame the British for. They also bartered with severed heads, which they called “Toi moko.” They would cut people’s heads off, tattoo them, and then use them for trading. This is what Maori culture was all about. Cutting heads off and cannibalizing each other.  Eventually the British came in and provided some stability with something called the Treaty of Waitangi. The idea was that New Zealand would become a British colony, but that the Maori would have their rights protected. They could keep their land and so on, to the extent that was possible. Then in 1975, New Zealand recognized this treaty in law for the first time. But there was still a big gray area as to what exactly this treaty required. It established tribunals and led to a lot of “rulemaking” by judges, but parliament mostly stayed out of it. With this new bill, David Seymour is trying to change that. He’s proposing concrete legislation that will clarify that everyone in New Zealand — whether they’re “Maori” or not — is entitled to the full protection of the law. He also wants to make it clear that New Zealand is self-governing. The Maori are not a nation within a nation. Here’s how one New Zealand station describes the proposed clarifications: These are clarifications that, if you want to live in a modern civilization — instead of a backwards, third-world tribal hellhole — seem pretty reasonable. But it does mark a change from what’s happening at the moment. Right now, New Zealand explicitly provides reparations to people who identify as Maori. In addition to affirmative action, they just announced a quote “financial redress of $30 million plus interest” to Maori tribes, along with a fund of more than a million dollars to assist with “cultural revitalization.” New Zealand politicians also regularly give lengthy apologies to the tribes, like this one. Watch: This kind of thing has been going on for decades in New Zealand. They fly the Maori flag, they apologize to them, they pay them millions of dollars. And in the end it’s not enough. The demands keep coming. As a result, now their news reports are barely comprehensible, because they’re all speaking a foreign language.  Here for example is how that New Zealand television station explains what the Maori are so upset about: Yes, one of the main criticisms of the bill is — whatever that is. They have to translate it so that people in New Zealand can understand what’s even going on. So it turns out that the Maori want the ability to remain autonomous from New Zealand, which in a democracy seems pretty questionable. The opposition wants to put that up for a democratic vote, and of course the Maori are refusing. They don’t care what the people of New Zealand think about what should happen in New Zealand. But the people of New Zealand should care. And we should care as well. What’s happening over there is a case study that we should pay attention to. New Zealand has bent over backwards apologizing for the alleged evils of “colonization.” They’ve paid out reparations and flown the Maori flag and everything. They’ve centered their whole society around “land acknowledgments” and so on. And now there are pagan chants breaking out in the middle of parliament. The Maori are explicitly campaigning against autonomy and equal rights. They’re threatening politicians who don’t agree with them. This is the sort of “enrichment” that western societies can expect when they start apologizing for their own existence. And as Douglas Murray has pointed out, none of this makes any sense given the Maori’s history. If we’re going to play the game of generational guilt, they should be apologizing to all the people their ancestors have enslaved. Watch: So the Maoris were a violent, brutal people. They practiced cannibalism and many other forms of horrific brutality. But just because they made it to New Zealand a few hundred years before Europeans, we are supposed to see it as some great tragedy that the Europeans took over. In fact we’re supposed to blame Europeans for engaging in violent conquest over people who themselves engaged in even more violent conquest. Keep this absurd, debasing spectacle in mind whenever you hear about “reparations” in this country, or about how oppressed some “indigenous” group allegedly is. Even if you give these people what they want, for decades, they will always want more. No matter how much you apologize to them and pay them millions of dollars, it doesn’t matter. The moment you suggest withdrawing some of their privileges, they will revolt. They will descend into primal chants on the floor of parliament. They will turn your entire government into an international laughing stock. MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+ That is why the only approach to dealing with people like this — the one that New Zealand should have adopted a long time ago — is to deny them any special privileges in the first place. As the saying goes, “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” At this point, now that stone-age war chants have broken out in parliament, it’s probably too late for New Zealand to correct their mistake. And that should be a pretty big clue to everyone in this country that — unless we also want to return to the stone age — we should take a very different approach. We should affirm the greatness of western civilization. We should take pride in our heritage and our culture. We should reject false narratives about our history. That’s how you neutralize the grievance mongers and the guilt-merchants so that they have no power. They can do their stone-age chants in the shower. The rest of us will be doing what New Zealand is apparently now incapable of: We’ll be living in a functioning, self-governing democracy. And if there’s one lesson from these bizarre and embarrassing clips out of New Zealand, it’s that no one should ever take that for granted.

Hollywood star and filmmaker Justine Bateman said the results of the 2024 election marked the end of the woke era, which she said happened when President-elect Donald Trump won back the White House. During the 58-year-old actress’ appearance on Thursday on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Bateman celebrated that Americans were no longer going to be punished for what they said or how they thought. “The political correctness, the woke era is over because you need mob mentality momentum in order to keep that going,” Batman told the host. “In order to threaten people if they are not thinking and talking the way you do.” “To threaten their lives, threaten their careers, threaten their place in society,” she added. “You need that momentum in order to do that, and when Trump won [the] presidency again, that cut that momentum off. So, this whole woke era is over.” Later, she talked about the “spiritual shift” she’s felt in the culture, saying there’s been a “stagnation” and that things “haven’t been moving forward” for the last four years or more. Justine Bateman on America’s Big Awakening. pic.twitter.com/9cpWNVknmT — Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) November 15, 2024 “It started a little bit when Elon Musk bought Twitter and turned it into X,” Bateman said. “And it really changed when Donald Trump won his presidency. I can feel it. For the last four years … there’s been kind of a pressing down, limiting what people can say and what happens, too, is you limit what can even occur in society.” She later broke down her appearance on Watters in a hilarious film critique as part of her ongoing #SocialMediaVideoCritique series on X, in which she reacts to those posting meltdown videos about Trump’s win. Rather than pointing out things like poor messaging or simply mocking their outbursts, Bateman has some fun focusing instead on the backgrounds, lighting, and camera angles. MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+ “An interesting piece in which two scripts are occurring at the same time,” Bateman wrote. “While the audible dialogue is heard, the ‘woman’ character on the right is sending morse code messages to the ‘man’ character on the left. The director could have done this with a tapping or a knocking, but instead it is done with the blinking of the eyes.” “As the morse-code-eye-blinking is happening, you can see the [male] character is in a meditative ‘receiving state,’ while he pulls in the morse code message,” she added, noting the good lighting and location. “The tops of skyscrapers at night gives the viewer a feeling of freedom. It is as if the two characters are hovering 50 ft above the ground. Fin.” In another another brutal yet funny film critique, Bateman took on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) latest video lamenting Trump’s victory, as The Daily Wire previously reported.

President-elect Donald Trump announced on Friday that he has named Karoline Leavitt to be his new White House press secretary. “Karoline Leavitt did a phenomenal job as the National Press Secretary on my Historic Campaign, and I am pleased to announce she will serve as White House Press Secretary,” Trump said in a statement. Trump said that Leavitt “is smart, tough, and has proven to be a highly effective communicator.” He continued, “I have the utmost confidence she will excel at the podium, and help deliver our message to the American People as we, Make America Great Again.” MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+ Leavitt served as the national press secretary for the 2024 Trump campaign and served in the White House during Trump’s first term in office. ? President Donald J. Trump announces @kleavittnh as White House Press Secretary pic.twitter.com/TWrmVmo2Q0 — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) November 15, 2024 This is a breaking news story; refresh the page for updates.

'President Trump and I are going to stop the mass poisoning of American children'

'Motherfucker's never been happier'

The star has not publicly addressed this matter

Donald Trump is the most pro-life president in U.S. history. No other leader of the free world has matched his commitment to defending life, from defunding abortion providers to decisively reshaping the Supreme Court. As we look to a second Trump term, two pro-life policies are likely to take center stage and immediately should be adopted. A third—a national abortion ban—is not likely to get traction at this time. 1. Defund Planned Parenthood Under President Joe Biden, Planned Parenthood received a record $750 million of taxpayer funding while performing a record 392,000 abortions just last year. The so-called nonprofit now gets roughly one-third of its total income from the federal government. Defunding Planned Parenthood would be a major setback for the organization, which has already shown signs of mission drift and ineffective leadership in the post-Roe v. Wade era. Since Cecile Richards left in 2018 after 12 years at the helm, the role of CEO at Planned Parenthood has become a chaotic evolving door, and the overturning of Roe didn’t help. The current leadership has been less effective in executing Planned Parenthood’s mission, as confirmed by both current and former employees. In 2017, Trump sought to defund Planned Parenthood, but was blocked by then-Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and other Republicans lacking the political will and moral clarity to make it happen. He revisited the idea in 2019 through Title X, which provides government funding to Planned Parenthood to distribute contraceptives and other so-called family planning. Just last month, shortly before the election, then-vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, affirmed the Republican ticket’s goal to defund Planned Parenthood under a second Trump administration. This move also aligns with Trump’s stance that abortion is now a state issue and, therefore, federal funding should not be supporting it. Like many other nonprofits in the nation, Planned Parenthood should fund itself, rather than relying on federal handouts. Additionally, we can expect Trump to both cut funding for Planned Parenthood International—Planned Parenthood’s arm in foreign countries—as he did in his first term, and reinstate the Mexico City Policy, one of his first actions as president in 2017, to prevent U.S. taxpayer dollars from funding overseas abortions. 2. Reregulating Abortion Pills Following the overturning of Roe, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration dramatically expanded access to abortion pills by permitting them to be dispensed through pharmacies and even by mail, without requiring any in-person medical oversight. Removing the need for a visit to a medical professional before taking these pills hardly qualifies as safe health care, likely contributing to the fact that 1 out of every 21 women who take them end up in the emergency room. Reinstating basic regulations on abortion pills is a commonsense measure that even pro-abortion advocates once supported. Not least given the revelation of alarming medical statistics, it stands a strong chance of gaining traction with a Republican majority in Congress. 3. A National Abortion Ban Since the Supreme Court chose not to apply the 14th Amendment to unborn children, abortion has been returned to the states. Although a federal abortion ban was quickly brought into the conversation, Trump has consistently stated he would not pursue one, and there’s no reason to expect he’d go back on his word. Calls for a 15-week ban—an arbitrary gestational threshold—were considered, but ultimately rejected, by Trump. In a post-Roe America, where 25 states have already enacted strong pro-life laws, a 15-week ban would undermine their more protective legislation already in place, signaling weakness rather than progress. A 15-week ban would become the standard in all of those pro-life states that have already saved tens of thousands of babies with stricter bans or heartbeat bills that prevent abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Trump is sometimes accused of not listening to advisers, but the pro-life movement’s experience has shown otherwise. As a candidate, Trump admitted his limited knowledge of abortion, but took the time to educate himself. He listened to pro-life champions and accepted critical guidance from Federalist Society Chairman Leonard Leo and other Catholic leaders on Supreme Court nominations. This led directly to the overturning of Roe, an event many pro-life Americans never thought they’d witness. In a second term, Trump is poised to remain a steadfast pro-life president. While pro-life Americans shouldn’t give him a free pass, it would be reckless and disrespectful to ignore his remarkable record. Trump has demonstrated his commitment to the pro-life cause, and there’s every reason to believe he will govern with those values at the forefront once again. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post 3 Pro-Life Policies to Watch for in Trump’s Second Term appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Fingers Crossed: Whoopi's Whopper Could Get Her Clobbered