Part Of A Trend?

On December 11th, The Daily Caller posted an article about a man who switched his party allegiance from Democrat to Republican. He had worked as an advisor to Bernie Sanders and as a fundraiser for Joe Biden. So why did he change his mind?

The article reports:

But despite my active involvement in the Democratic Party, the concerns I hold regarding the party’s direction in recent years can no longer be ignored. 

I love our country. That is why I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party, a party that is focused on dividing us by radicalizing every issue and undermining our rights enshrined in the Constitution. 

The main reason I am leaving the Democratic Party is its utter disconnect with the American people. The party that once championed the working class has now been overtaken by elites in affluent hubs who couldn’t care less about the struggles of the average American. This shift has left many Americans, including myself, unheard and feeling like an afterthought of the Democratic Party. 

The party’s shortcomings in education have played a significant role in my departure. They have declared war on concerned parents like myself, labeling them “domestic terrorists,” for expressing their opposition to radical curricula that disseminate sexual content to young children. The party’s emphasis on “progressive ideology” in schools, at the expense of parental involvement and a robust STEM education, raises legitimate concerns about the future preparedness of our children. It’s time to shift our focus back to the fundamentals that ensure our children’s success, thereby building a foundation for a more prosperous society. 

Also, the Democratic Party’s shift toward identity politics has steered us away from the timeless belief of judging individuals by their character, and not by the color of their skin or similar characteristics. The weaponization of race and gender identity for partisan political purposes does a significant disservice to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy, and is a detriment to us all.

The article concludes:

This difference between stated values and actual behavior undermines the trust that citizens should be able to place in their government. As I reflect on these issues, I am compelled to seek a political home that aligns with a commitment to judging individuals by their character, fostering accountability, and advancing the well-being of all Americans.

By joining the Republican Party, I am not abandoning my values. Instead, I’m seeking a political home that aligns more closely with my vision for a free, united, and prosperous America. The Republican Party, with its emphasis on individual freedoms, fiscal responsibility, and a commitment to addressing the concerns of all Americans, offers a new path forward — one that I am eager to explore as I re-enter the political arena. 

Please follow the link to read the entire article. He makes a lot of sense.

Let’s Go Back To Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Speech

The Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s had some really good ideas. Martin Luther King, Jr., expressed one of the best ideas of the movement when he said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” (source here) Unfortunately, we have forgotten or deliberately left behind that idea.

On Saturday, The Daily Caller reported:

Wall Street’s top investment banking firms offer career-advancing opportunities to college students, with one catch — applicants are expected to be of certain races and gender identities.

The programs, run by companies that include Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, aim to increase diversity, prioritizing students based on race and gender. They also potentially run afoul of federal civil rights laws, legal experts told the the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Those programs are likely illegal violations of federal civil rights laws including Title VI, Title VII, Title IX, and Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and they are ripe for a legal challenge of their blatant discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, gender identity or sexual orientation,” University of Michigan-Flint professor emeritus Mark Perry, who has filed hundreds of civil rights complaints against colleges, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The companies encourage specific groups to apply, naming racial and gender categories directly in their eligibility criteria, and then attempt to save face by adding statements to clarify applications are still open to all.

The article concludes:

Corporate diversity practices have increasingly been the subject of lawsuits by conservative legal groups. In August, an Atlanta-based investment manager, Fearless Fund, was sued over its grant program for black women. The lawsuit was funded by a nonprofit founded by Edward Blum, the activist behind the Students for Fair Admissions cases that led to the Supreme Court overturning affirmative action.

Separately, a law firm recently removed references to race and sexual orientation in the criteria for its diversity fellowship after it was hit with a lawsuit by Blum’s organization, the American Alliance for Equal Rights.

Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan did not respond to requests for comment.

Let’s get back to what Martin Luther King, Jr., said.

What Racism?

At some point the media needs to come to grips with the fact that identifying people and categorizing people according to the color of their skin is racism. It doesn’t matter what race you are dealing with, we need to remember the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.,”I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Job applications, college applications, and employment decisions should be considered on the basis of qualifications–not race. Evidently there are still a lot of people walking around that don’t understand that.

On Saturday, Red State posted an article about a recent decision by the Minnesota Public Schools.

The article quotes the new policy:

Starting with the Spring 2023 Budget Tie-Out Cycle, if excessing a teacher who is a member of a population underrepresented among licensed teachers in the site, the District shall excess the next least senior teacher, who is not a member of an underrepresented population.”

The article notes:

Following the decision, constitutional lawyer Hans Bader wrote an op-ed, as noted by my colleague, which states:

“It is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. When it comes to termination (as opposed to hiring or promotion under an affirmative-action plan), an employer can’t racially discriminate even against whites. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1996 that an school district can’t consider race even as a tie-breaker, in deciding who to lay off, even to promote diversity, because that (a) unduly trammels the white teacher’s rights — even affirmative action plans are supposed to be mild and not unduly trammel someone’s rights, and getting fired as opposed to being denied a promotion unduly trammels someone’s rights — and (b) putting that aside, the school district couldn’t consider race to promote diversity when black people weren’t seriously underrepresented in its workforce as a whole. That ruling was Taxman v. Board of Education of Piscataway, 91 F.3d 1547 (3d Cir. 1996).”

The article continues:

Despite the backlash this blatantly racist policy has received, it was recently defended by the president and vice president of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers. On Friday, in an appearance on ABC, Greta Callahan, president of the teachers’ union, said:

“This contract language was something that we are, first of all, extremely proud of for achieving but it also doesn’t go far enough … We need to support and retain our educators, especially those who are underrepresented, and this language does one tiny, minuscule step towards that but doesn’t solve the real crisis we’re in right now.”

If a particular group of people are underrepresented, maybe you should look into the cause rather than use racism to try to correct the problem. Have you worked to improve schools in neighborhoods where the underrepresented people live? Have you set up mentoring programs to encourage underrepresented people to become teachers? What have you done to improve the overall quality of education for all students?

The policy of firing teachers based on their race is a losing idea for everyone. If downsizing has to happen, fire the teachers that are not getting the job done–whatever color they are.

 

Reining In The FBI

This is a post by a guest author, R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D.

Authoritarian governments that limit people’s freedom all have police forces that ensure the compliance of their citizens and keep them in power.  The Romans had the Pretorian Guard, the Nazi’s the Gestapo, and the Soviet Union the KGB.  Alarmingly, it is increasingly apparent that the FBI has morphed into an enforcement arm of the Democrat party/Biden administration.   The Founding Fathers, wisely, did not authorized a federal law enforcement agency in the Constitution.   Let’s examine how we got in this situation and what we can do to reverse it.

        The FBI was originally established in 1908 as a small group (30) of special “investigators” to assist the Department of Justice in prosecuting federal crimes that involved crossing state lines.  As all government agencies do, the bureau not only grew in size but greatly expanded their authority and redefined their role over the years.   By the early 1920’s they began gathering and keeping information on private citizens who were not actually charged with crimes other than their political ideology was unacceptable to the government.   The FBI’s most renowned director J. Edgar Hoover, began keeping information that eventually reached over 450,000 files on people suspected of communist leanings.  A good proportion of these people were deported if they were not citizens.  Few were ever actually charged or given the opportunity to defend themselves in court.  In the 1950s the FBI began gathering similar files on homosexuals in the government and later even non-government employees.  In the 1960s the focus was on civil rights sympathizers and leaders such as the Reverend  M.L.King.   Politicians feared what might be in the FBI files on them.  In the course of gathering this illicit information, the FBI frequently used illegal wire-tapping and abused their subpoena and search authority.   Recently, they issued a subpoena to the newspaper USA Today requiring them to turn over a list of all people who logged in to read a specific article on their website.   

There are many other recent example of the weaponization of the FBI especially as related to President Donald Trump and his associates including the impeachment hoaxes, charging General Flynn, and most recently the totally unjustified and unprecedented  raid on Mar-a Lago.    One of the worst instances was when the FBI in order to protect the identity of one of their informers, allowed false witness testimony at a trial that resulted in four men receiving life sentences.  Two served over 30 years and two died in prison.  A court eventually awarded the victims/families over $100 million in damages.  Still trust the FBI?

So what do we do about it?   Here are my recommendations: (1) Repeal the Patriot Act that greatly expanded the authority of the FBI; (2) Terminate the law enforcement authority of the FBI.  All subpoenas, warrants, searches should be handled by the local Sheriff’s departments.   Sheriffs are the only elected law enforcement officials and therefore accountable directly for their actions to the people. (3)  An elected state official or panel should be given the authority to monitor all FBI activities in their state and report to the state legislature.  (4) It should no longer be a crime to “lie” to the FBI.  This has been abused to entrap people and is a violation of the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. 

There may be other effective actions, but this would be a good start.

This Used To Be Illegal–Maybe It Still Is

On Sunday, The Independent Journal Review posted an article about the Mankato School Board in Minnesota. The School Board has voted unanimously to pay non-white teachers “additional stipends” based only on the color of their skin.

The article reports:

Not everyone was happy with the vote. Republican state Rep. Jeremy Munson criticized the policy, saying, “Our largest local school district just voted to pay people differently, not on merit, or by the content of their character, but based solely on the color of their skin.”

“This is allowed and encouraged under a revision to Minnesota state Statute 122A.70,” Munson continued. “Mankato Area Public Schools Policy number 466 provides pay for black and native American school staff above which is paid to white employees.”

The article concludes:

I wonder what Martin Luther King, Jr., the gold standard in race relations and the American Dream, would say. Bearing in mind MLK’s signature quote, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” it’s safe to say he would call it what it is: racist.

MLK’s vision of America is one of a work-in-progress. We’re not there yet, but we’re on the way. The radical left seeks to undermine King’s legacy with policies that are anti-American and blatantly racist.

Don’t let them.

This makes no sense. No one has any control over the color of their skin. It is something you are born with. I have no problem paying teachers more for higher degrees, but increased pay based solely on skin color is simply racist. If this were done in the south and white teachers received more money, there would be massive outrage.

 

Losing A Legacy

On Aug. 28, 1963, at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King, Jr., said the following:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Unfortunately there are many Americans who have chosen to ignore the wisdom contained in that statement. Martin Luther King, Jr., preached forgiveness and non-violence.

Today we are dealing with leaders in the black community preaching division and racism.

Yesterday The Daily Signal posted an article about Critical Race Theory–something the government encouraging to have taught in our public schools. The premise of the theory is that all white are racist and all blacks are victims. Teaching the theory has a very negative impact on our children.

The article reports:

This week, the U.S. Department of Education announced that officials are preparing to use taxpayer money for K-12 schools to advocate the idea that America is systemically racist, and anyone who thinks differently, children included, are part of the problem—whether students know it or not.

Since members of Congress reintroduced a legislative proposal this year to create national civics standards, the Education Department’s new rule would help shape the content of those standards around the intolerant ideas of critical theory.

In a proposed rule released April 19, federal education officials outlined new priorities for federal grant awards to K-12 educators for use on history and civics education in schools.

The content of these standards does not prepare or encourage children to become productive Americans.

The article reports:

The agency would prioritize grants that use critical theory, a worldview that says racism is everywhere and anyone who disagrees is oppressing other people. The Education Department’s announcement highlights The New York Times’ 1619 Project and civics content that the National Museum of African American History and Culture created as exemplary material for educators to use.

Yet the proposal does not mention that the Times’ editors issued a correction to the 1619 Project after high-profile criticism from scholars who said the project’s claims about colonists fighting the American Revolution to protect slavery were wrong. Nor does the federal register say anything about how project editors refused to correct other factual inaccuracies after criticism from Pulitzer Prize-winning researchers.

The federal proposal is even more problematic for parents and teachers who want children to learn attitudes and behaviors that will help them to be good parents, neighbors, employees, and community members when they grow up.

The announcement highlights educational material from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture without admitting that museum officials had to withdraw some content after widespread complaints over the museum’s message.

Last summer, the museum released an infographic describing “white culture” as oppressive, and said ideas such as “hard work” and efforts to “be polite” are evidence of systemic oppression.

Students should not be taught to “work before play” or “plan for the future” because these ideas represent systems of power, according to the museum. Museum officials issued an apology and removed the document in July.

I wrote about that exhibit last July (article here).

The article concludes:

Biden issued an executive order during his first week in office that is consistent with this latest proposal from the Education Department. If approved, the federal education agency’s new rule would ingrain critical theory in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the law governing federal actions on K-12 schools.

Washington is bringing critical theory’s prejudice to your child’s classroom, and whether or not you are a parent of a student, we all should reject the notion that the next generation should be trained in bigotry.

We are ruining the legacy of Martin Luther King. Jr. Let’s go back to raising children who respect authority and don’t judge people according to their race.

 

Commentary From Someone Who Knows

The following was posted at CNS News today by Lt. Col. Allen West:

In the aftermath of the George Floyd incident, everyone seems to want to have a conversation about race in America.

Just recently, presumptive Democrat presidential nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, asserted that if you couldn’t decide whether to vote for him or President Trump, “you ain’t black.”

So, let me clarify something: I was born in February 1961 in a “Blacks only” hospital, Hughes Spalding, in Atlanta, Georgia. I was raised by a proud Black man, Herman West Sr. and woman, Elizabeth Thomas West in the historic Old Fourth Ward neighborhood in Atlanta. My Mom and Dad are buried, together, in Marietta National Cemetery because of their service to our Nation.

The Old Fourth Ward is the same neighborhood that produced Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and where the American civil rights movement emanated, “Sweet Auburn Avenue.”

There is a high possibility that I have forgotten more black history than some may ever learn — or certainly know. I just authored a book titled, “We Can Overcome, An American Black Conservative Manifesto.”

I do not need to “qualify” my being Black based upon some pre-determined ideological agenda. I was raised to believe that I was an individual who could think and believe as I determined. I was taught that America is a place where regardless of where you were born, where you came from, there was an equality of opportunity.

That equality of opportunity has enabled me to attain immense success for myself and set the conditions for the success of my two daughters. My wife Angela, an accomplished former marketing professor and financial adviser, and I now teach our daughters about the perils of equality of outcomes, and those who cleverly disguise that intent within the cries of social justice.

With this being stated, I am tired of our Nation cowering, appeasing, acquiescing, and surrendering to this absurd organization calling itself Black Lives Matter (BLM). There is nothing true or sincere about this ideologically aligned progressive socialist, cultural Marxist organization.

BLM is just another leftist organization created by the same ilk of progressive socialists who created the NAACP. When one reviews the goals and objectives of BLM, they have nothing to do with the real issues facing the Black community in America. The focus of BLM is to cleverly advance the leftist ideological agenda under the guise of a witty name that forces people into guilt, shame.

I do not need any white person in America to kneel before me, apologize, wash my feet, or as the insidious comment of Chick-fil-A CEO, Dan Cathay, shine my shoes. I did a doggone good job of shining my own boots during my career in the US Army — that was my individual responsibility, in which I took great pride.

I am tired of these businesses and corporations being shaken down by BLM to the tune of some $464M, $50M right here in my home of Texas. Why?

Black Lives Matter does not support the critical civil rights issue of this day. The major civil rights issue in America today is educational freedom. How many young black kids are relegated to failing public schools in failing neighborhoods? Where does BLM stand on that issue? They stand with the progressive socialist left and the teachers unions. Ask yourself, has BLM ever condemned the action of Barack Obama in April 2009 to cancel the DC school voucher program?

Yesterday was Father’s Day. How many young black kids are growing up without a father in the house, a strong positive role model, like my Dad, US Army Corporal Herman West Sr.? The policies of the progressive socialist left decimated the traditional two parent household in the black community. What does BLM say about the traditional, nuclear, two parent (man and woman) household? They say that is a tool of white supremacy.

If there is to be a conversation about the rule of law in America and the black community, let’s have that honest conversation. However, BLM wants us to believe that there is some focused, dedicated, intentional genocide being enacted against the Black community by law enforcement.

In 2019, there were a total of nine white law enforcement officer shootings of unarmed black men. Yet, how many blacks have taken to the streets to kill other blacks? And where is the outrage from BLM?

But, even worse, since 1973 there have been over 20 million unborn black babies murdered in the wombs of Black mothers. The organization mostly responsible for the industry of murdering unborn babies is Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood was founded by a known white supremacist, racist, a woman who spoke at Ku Klux Klan rallies — Margaret Sanger. Planned Parenthood has over 70 percent of their “clinics” located in black communities across America.

I have never heard Black Lives Matter speak up, speak out, or speak against Planned Parenthood. Why? Simple, the white progressive socialist masters who fund, resource, and enable Black Lives Matter don’t give a darn about the lives of Black children.

I could go on, but I think you get my point. Black Lives Matter is an oxymoronic and disingenuous organization. As a proud American Black Man, I find Black Lives Matter an offensive and condescending organization whose hypocrisy is blatantly evident. Yet, thanks to the lucrative support of the white progressive socialist collective elitists, it survives, and extorts financial support from the useful idiots in our corporate structure.

All lives matter, but this radical organization, Black Lives Matter, is the ultimate Trojan Horse. The consistent purveyors of systemic racism in America is the Democrat Party. They have smartly devised this organization to enable their ends, the proliferation of the 21st century economic plantation. Black Lives Matter serves as overseers on this plantation, stoking the irrational emotionalism and angst to support their agenda, their purpose.

What is the purpose? Simple. The new plantation of the left is not about producing cotton. It is about creating victims who will be dependent, and produce the new crop — votes.

Just in case you are not familiar with Allen West, he is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army. During his 22-year career, he served in Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, receiving many honors including a Bronze Star. In 2010, West was elected as a member of the 112th Congress representing Florida’s 22nd District. He is a Fox News contributor and author of “Guardian of the Republic: An American Ronin’s Journey to Faith, Family and Freedom” and his latest book from Brown Books Publishing Group, “Hold Texas, Hold the Nation: Victory or Death.”  Mr. West writes daily commentary on his personal website theoldschoolpatriot.com and is a Senior Fellow at the Media Research Center to support its mission to expose and neutralize liberal media bias.)

Just one more note–the two-parent family is the backbone of American society. Before Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” the majority of black and white families were two-parent families. The government programs in the “War on Poverty” undermined first the black family and then the white family. The “War on Poverty” could be described as the gateway to the crime and poverty we find today in our inner cities.

The Presidential Campaign Of Joe Biden Continues To Sadden Those Of Us Who Are Watching Closely

I’m sure Joe Biden is a nice man. He definitely has a beautiful smile. But I truly believe that he is not the man he was even five years ago. He has always been known for gaffes, but he seems to have taken that to a new level since campaigning for President.

Townhall posted an article yesterday about the latest questionable statement by the former Vice-President.

The article reports:

Joe Biden on Thursday compared the death of George Floyd to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, saying Floyd’s death had a bigger global “impact” than King’s.

At an economic reopening roundtable in Philadelphia, the former vice president spoke of how the advent of smartphones had precipitated global participation in the movement against police brutality and racial injustice.

“Even Dr. King’s assassination did not have the worldwide impact that George Floyd’s death did,” Biden said.

“It’s just like television changed the Civil Rights movement for the better when they saw Bull Connor and his dogs ripping the clothes off of elderly black women going to church and firehoses ripping the skin off of young kids,” he continued.

“What happened to George Floyd — now you got how many people around the country, millions of cell phones. It’s changed the way everybody’s looking at this,” he continued. “Look at the millions of people marching around the world.”

There is a lot to unpack in that statement. First of all, the civil rights movement has been part of America since the 1950’s. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a pioneer in that movement. There have been great strides made in that movement, many as a result of the peaceful manner in which Dr. King conducted himself. George Floyd was not working to further the rights of black America. He really had not accomplished a whole lot in his young life. His murder simply provided an excuse for the culture of outrage to mobilize. My second point is that Joe Biden has been in Washington since 1973. If things are so bad, what has he been doing for the past forty-seven years?

The death of George Floyd was horrible. It should never have happened. However, I am not sure that in the heat of the moment we have begun to put his death in context. The bad behavior of one policeman should not be used to condemn all police, just was the bad behavior of the protesters who have decided to riot should not be used to condemn all protesters. How many people have been killed by the protesters? What does that accomplish?

Some Insightful Thoughts On The Democrat Party Primary

Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel posted an article at Townhall today about the Democrat Presidential Primary Campaign. The writers noted some changes in the Democrat Party that may be a problem in the 2020 presidential election.

The article reports:

This week, we were served some less-than-breaking news. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination. If you’ve never heard of him, that’s OK. Few Democrats have. He served in the Marine Corps for four tours in Iraq, but other than that, he hasn’t done much.

What’s interesting is why he’s being forced to drop out of the race. By any sane standards, Moulton is a thoroughly liberal Democrat. On every issue, he’s more left-wing than President Barack Obama was on the day he left office. Three years ago, Moulton would have been considered a liberal firebrand. But not anymore. By the lunatic standards of the modern Democratic Party, Moulton is now a flaming moderate, and that’s the kiss of death. Moderates are no longer welcome in the Democratic Party.

The article notes that when candidate Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, encouraged the Democrats at the debate to be more practical in their platforms, his comments were not well received.

The article also notes some of Vice-President Biden’s recent statements:

Biden: “My senior semester, they (Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy) were both shot and killed. Imagine what happened if, God forbid, Barack Obama had been assassinated after becoming the de facto nominee. What would’ve happened in America?” Imagine you’re Biden’s political director, sitting offstage. All of a sudden, Biden wanders into the unscripted territory and says, “Imagine the assassination of Obama.” This is not an attack on Biden, but he’s not going to be the nominee. So the actual race comes down to Warren’s and Sanders’ competing visions of how to achieve the same socialist fantasy. Warren is promising reparations based on skin color. That’s popular. Sanders wants a government takeover of the entire energy sector. They will be working to out-crazy each other for the next six months. That is a dynamic guaranteed to produce even more extremism. And it has some Democratic leaders worried. The Democratic National Committee voted on a proposal to hold a debate focused exclusively on climate change. Why wouldn’t they? Well, because the solutions the candidates would promise live on television are insane: spend $16 trillion, ban airplanes, seize control of the entire U.S. economy.

Finally, the article concludes:

The Trustafarians love stuff like that. Normal people find it terrifying. Even the party hacks here in D.C. don’t like it, and that’s probably a compliment. Do you really think Nancy Pelosi believes climate change is an existential crisis? Of course, she doesn’t think that. Plus, she flies private. Obama can say whatever he wants about carbon emissions. He can shake his chin and be concerned, but when you’re spending 15 million of your own dollars on a beachfront estate on Martha’s Vineyard, you’re not too worried about the oceans rising. But the Democratic base doesn’t get the joke. Democratic primary voters believe the talking points. And very soon, they will be powerful enough to nominate their own presidential candidate. And when that happens, it’s going to be a very different party.

The 2020 Presidential campaign and election will require serious amounts of popcorn.

 

Reading Too Much Into Something Can Spoil It For Everyone

Yesterday The Daily Wire posted an article about a recent controversy about “A Charles Brown Thanksgiving.” Some people who do not know the history of the Peanuts cartoon were upset about a scene in the program where Franklin, a character who is black, is sitting on one side of the table by himself in a lawn chair while the other characters sit around the table on regular chairs. The television special was declared racist on Twitter because of that scene. That declaration of racism does not hold water when the entire history of the cartoon and television specials is viewed.

The article puts the scene in context:

Of course, all of them have no idea what on earth they are talking about. Fortunately, black journalist Jeremy Helligar cleared up some of the controversy on Friday when he noted that the character Franklin had prime seating in other episodes of the “Peanuts.”

“A relevant aside: During the farewell dinner about one hour and five minutes into 1972’s ‘Snoopy Come Home,’ Franklin was seated on the same side of the table as Charlie Brown, Lucy, and Frieda — in a regular chair,” Helligar said on Medium.

The historical significance of the character Franklin cannot be understated; his creation was reportedly demanded by Charles Schulz following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. when a teacher named Harriet Glickman sent him a letter.

“When asked by the head of the cartoon’s publisher, United Feature Syndicate, if he was sure he wanted to add a black character, Glickman says Schulz replied, ‘Either you run it the way I drew it, or I quit,'” reports The Hill.

The Schulz Museum also celebrated Franklin’s 50th anniversary in July. He has never been treated like a token black character added for cheap lip-service to diversity and has always been a valued member of the “Peanuts” gang.

Watching “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” has been a tradition for family viewing during the Thanksgiving season. Hopefully common sense will rule in this situation, and the tradition will continue.

Fifty Years Later

Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis, Tennessee. My husband and I were stationed there at that time. It was an ugly moment in time. Martin Luther King, Jr., had come to the city in an attempt to quiet things down during a garbage strike which began in February 1968. Two black men had been killed while sitting on the back of a garbage truck smoking a cigarette. Racial tensions were high. Martin Luther King, Jr., first came to the city to address the strikers in March. He supported peaceful protest, but there were people in his inner circle that wanted more drastic action.

Martin Luther King, Jr., believed in racial equality. He believed that men (and women) should be judged by the content of their character–not the color of their skin. I also think he believed in equal educational and professional opportunities for everyone, regardless of race. Some of these ideas have been lost in recent years.

On March 26, The Hill reported:

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke downplayed the importance of diversity in the workforce and at his department on multiple occasions, CNN reported Monday.

Zinke made a number of off-the-cuff remarks that insinuated he did not prioritize diversity within the Interior Department, multiple senior administration sources told the network.

The officials said that the secretary instead said multiple times that he valued finding the best people and most qualified applicants, regardless of their cultural or racial backgrounds.

Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift denied that Zinke ever made the comments about diversity and denied the claims in the report.

“The anonymous claims made against the secretary are untrue. As a woman who has worked for him for a number of years in senior positions, I say without a doubt this claim is untrue, and I am hopeful that they are a result of a misunderstanding and not a deliberate mistruth,” Swift said in a statement.

People should be hired on the basis of their qualifications. If there is a lack of diversity, we need to improve the educational system so that there will naturally be diversity in the best people qualified for a job. I believe that is what Martin Luther King, Jr., had in mind. Quotas and hiring people for the sake of diversity rather than for their qualifications is just as wrong as disqualifying people because of their race, sex, etc.

We still have a long way to go to achieve the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Racism Goes Both Ways

Martin Luther King, Jr. once stated, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” That is a dream all of us should have. People seeking jobs should be judged not according to their sex or whatever minority they may belong to, but by their qualifications. Unfortunately that is a lesson that some Americans have not yet learned.

The Washington Examiner posted an article today about the nomination of Marvin Quattlebaum to the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.

The article reports:

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y, said Thursday he would vote against the confirmation of one of President Trump’s judicial nominees because the candidate is white.

This is not a loose paraphrase of what he said. It is nearly verbatim his explanation for his “no” vote on the nomination of Marvin Quattlebaum to the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina. The only thing missing is the senator stating specifically that he couldn’t support a white nominee because two African-American nominees had failed to pass a Senate vote.

The article points out:

First, it is morally wrong to deny a person a job because of his skin color. You can argue that Republican senators did the same to the President Barack Obama-appointed African-American nominees, but that relies on suspicion and theory — they were probably rejected for reasons of political partisanship. The senator from New York, on the other hand, is saying outright that he will not vote for Quattlebaum’s nomination because he is white.

Secondly, please. This isn’t about diversity. This is politics.

Lastly, Schumer’s speech is humorous considering he is the minority leader of a governing body that is overwhelmingly white and male. There are currently only 22 female senators, 17 Democratic and five Republican. We started this year with only 21, but Sen. Al Franken’s exit opened the door for Minnesota’s former lieutenant governor, Tina Smith, to take his seat.

There are also only three black senators out of 100, according to the Senate webpage.

It’s extremely unlikely Schumer, himself a white male, will step aside anytime soon to balance out the mix.

Refusing to vote for a judicial nominee because he is white is no different than refusing to vote for a judicial nominee because he is black. Both actions are racist. It would be wonderful if those claiming everyone else is racist would stop doing racist things themselves.

We Have Been Here Before

In 1968, there was unrest in America. In April, Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed in Memphis, and in June, Robert F. Kennedy was killed by a disgruntled Palestinian in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the California Presidential primary election. It was a long, hot summer or riots and protests culminating in the Democratic National Convention in August in Chicago. The Democratic Convention was protested by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) (after the fall of the Soviet Union, it was discovered that the SDS had been infiltrated by Russian agents), the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam and the Youth International Party (Yippies).  The purpose of these groups was simply to disrupt the convention. These groups were not unlike some of the groups operating today that refer to themselves as ‘the resistance.’

The Daily Caller is reporting today that a group of George-Soros-backed protesters is planning to show up in Phoenix to disrupt President Trump’s visit on Tuesday.

The article reports:

Although originally founded by activists not backed by donors, Indivisible’s website now states that the group “is a project of the Advocacy Fund,” a progressive advocacy group that receives money from the Open Society Policy Center, an arm of Soros’ Open Society Foundations. That revelation follows USA Today’s reporting in May that leaders of Indivisible and Women’s March met with Democracy Alliance, a Soros-led network of left-wing donors, to discuss funding options.

So what is this really about? George Soros is an avowed enemy of the United States. He is working toward one-world government where he and his friends would be in charge, and there would be no sovereign states as we know them. The freedoms we enjoy under the U.S. Constitution would be gone under the vision of George Soros.

The Republican Senators in Arizona, Jeff Flake and John McCain, are not supporters of President Trump, and cannot be expected to do anything to support his visit. It is also possible that President Trump will endorse the primary challenger to Jeff Flake while he is in Arizona. It is also possible that President Trump will pardon Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has been charged with criminal contempt.

The swamp in Washington is deep and wide and extends out into the nation in many directions. Until President Trump makes some real progress in draining the swamp, we will probably see misguided or paid protesters making an effort to disrupt our country. If they protest peacefully, we need to leave them alone. If they destroy property or injure people, they need to be arrested. Eventually they will realize that breaking the law has consequences and either protest peacefully or go away.

Voter Fraud?

On Friday, The National Review posted an article about voter registration in America. It seems that there are 3.5 million more people on the election rolls than are eligible to vote.

The article reports:

Some 3.5 million more people are registered to vote in the U.S. than are alive among America’s adult citizens. Such staggering inaccuracy is an engraved invitation to voter fraud.

The Election Integrity Project of Judicial Watch — a Washington-based legal-watchdog group — analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011–2015 American Community Survey and last month’s statistics from the federal Election Assistance Commission. The latter included figures provided by 38 states. According to Judicial Watch, eleven states gave the EAC insufficient or questionable information. Pennsylvania’s legitimate numbers place it just below the over-registration threshold.

Cleaning up our voter rolls would not be a major undertaking. All that is needed is to compare Census data, voter rolls, and possibly information from various states’ motor vehicle and license registries.

The article notes that research into Judicial Watch’s information showed 462 counties of the 2,500 studied showed more voters than citizens of voting age.

The article reports:

These 462 counties (18.5 percent of the 2,500 studied) exhibit this ghost-voter problem. These range from 101 percent registration in Delaware’s New Castle County to New Mexico’s Harding County, where there are 62 percent more registered voters than living, breathing adult citizens — or a 162 percent registration rate.

Washington’s Clark County is worrisome, given its 154 percent registration rate. This includes 166,811 ghost voters. Georgia’s Fulton County seems less nettlesome at 108 percent registration, except for the number of Greater Atlantans, 53,172, who compose that figure.

The article concludes:

Under federal law, the 1993 National Voter Registration Act and the 2002 Help America Vote Act require states to maintain accurate voter lists. Nonetheless, some state politicians ignore this law. Others go further: Governor Terry McAuliffe (D., Va.) vetoed a measure last February that would have mandated investigations of elections in which ballots cast outnumbered eligible voters.

Even more suspiciously, when GOP governor Rick Scott tried to obey these laws and update Florida’s records, including deleting 51,308 deceased voters, Obama’s Justice Department filed a federal lawsuit to stop him. Federal prosecutors claimed that Governor Scott’s statewide efforts violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act, although it applies to only five of Florida’s 67 counties. Then–attorney general Eric Holder and his team behaved as if Martin Luther King Jr. and the Freedom Riders fought so valiantly in order to keep cadavers politically active.

Whether Americans consider vote fraud a Republican hoax, a Democratic tactic, or something in between, everyone should agree that it’s past time to exorcise ghost voters from the polls.

Voter identification would clear up some of these problems, but the fact remains that the voter rolls need to be cleared up. Our Representative Republic depends on the honesty of our elections.

Here Comes The Race Card Again

The nomination of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General is a serious threat to the status quo, so the status quo is doing everything it can to block his confirmation. For the political left, that means playing the race card, and they have promptly done that.

The Washington Examiner posted an article today about Jeff Sessions prior history as a U.S. Attorney in Alabama.

The article reports a statement made by Albert Turner, Jr., the son of a farmer who became Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s field director in Alabama and one of his closest associates:

“I have known Senator Sessions for many years, beginning with the voter fraud case in Perry County in which my parents were defendants,” he said. “My differences in policy and ideology with him do not translate to personal malice. He is not a racist.”

“As I have said before, at no time then or now has Jeff Sessions said anything derogatory about my family,” he continued. “He was a prosecutor at the federal level with a job to do. He was presented with evidence by a local district attorney that he relied on, and his office presented the case. That’s what a prosecutor does.”

“I believe him when he says that he was simply doing his job,” he added.

Sessions, while serving as a U.S. attorney in Alabama in 1985, charged both of Turner’s parents and another civil rights activist with tampering with absentee ballots cast by mostly elderly black voters to favor the activists’ preferred candidates in a campaign where both leading contenders were black.

The one thing the political establishment in Washington does not want is an Attorney General who actually enforces the law.

 

I Am Not A Terrorist

I am a conservative. I believe in limited government. I agree with most of the ideas of the Tea Party. I am not, nor am I in danger of becoming, a terrorist. I am a little old lady who remembers when autumn meant the smell of burning leaves, gasoline was $.30 a gallon, and we sang patriotic songs and prayed in school. (I went to elementary school in the south, and we sang Dixie a lot!)

However, the Department of Homeland Security sees people who believe what I believe as a threat.

The Department of Homeland Security publication, LaFree, Gary, and Bianca Bersani. “Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970 to 2008,” Final Report to Human Factors/Behavioral Sciences Division, Science and Technology Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. College Park, MD: START, 2012., includes the following statement about potential terrorists:

Extreme Right-Wing: groups that believe that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack and is either already lost or that the threat is imminent (for some the threat is from a specific ethnic, racial, or religious group), and believe in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism. Groups may also be fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation), anti-global, suspicious of centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty, and believe in conspiracy theories that involve grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty.

…Religious: groups that seek to smite the purported enemies of God and other evildoers, impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists), forcibly insert religion into the political sphere (e.g., those who seek to politicize religion, such as Christian Reconstructionists and Islamists), and/or bring about Armageddon (apocalyptic millenarian cults; 2010: 17). For example, Jewish Direct Action, Mormon extremist, Jamaat-al-Fuqra, and Covenant, Sword and the Arm of the Lord (CSA) are included in this category.

I don’t mean to be difficult, but there is only one religion on that list that has been consistently involved in terrorism. My experience with Christian fundamentalists has been that when someone commits violence in the name of Jesus, he is condemned by the Christian community–not lauded. Bible-believing Christians may practice civil disobedience (e.g. Martin Luther King Jr.‘s freedom marches), but violence against authority is not Biblical (e.g. Dietrich Bonhoeffer felt that he needed to ask God’s forgiveness for plotting against Hitler).

The report is approximately 37 pages long. It reminds me of the story (previously related in this blog) about the man walking around under a streetlight seemingly looking for something. When someone asks him what he is doing, he explains that he is looking for his car keys, which he dropped on the other side of the street. When asked why he is looking under the streetlight when he dropped the keys on the other side of the street, he replies. “Because the light is better over here.” Obviously, as long as he is looking on the wrong side of the street, he has no hope of finding his keys.

So why would the Department of Homeland Security rather see Christians as a threat than Muslims? Christians in America don’t fight back. Muslim radicals have learned to use the American court system to their advantage. We have seen that particularly in the Midwest with regard to foot washing basins in airports and taxi drivers who refuse to transport blind people because Muslims regard dogs as unclean.

It’s much easier to search for your keys under the streetlight! You may never find them, but the search is easier!

 

 
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