Category Archives: Politics

The Radical Left Exposes its Crafting of the Coup

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I could not believe the headline on the cover of Time Magazine! “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Stole the 2020 Election.” (1) Wow. They are finally admitting that Democrats stole the election. Then I realized that the title said “Saved,” not “Stole.” I quickly brushed off my faux pax and started reading.

The author, Molly Ball, describes, in 6,963 words, how the America-hating cabal of leftist radicals, billionaires and never- Trumpers plotted, connived, schemed, lied, cheated, lawyered, and rioted their way to pulling off the biggest election fraud in the history of our country, the theft of the American presidency with millions of fake votes.(2) It made President Trump’s must-read list. Ball clearly romanticizes the efforts of this radical-left alliance, but the details were damning nonetheless.

The Architect.

“I’ve gotta crow! I’m just the cleverest fellow ‘Twas ever my fortune to know.“

Ball identifies Mike Podhorzer, a senior adviser to the president of the AFL-CIO, as the architect of the plan to get President Trump out of office. Podhorzer was the overseer of the shadow campaign which “touched every aspect of the election.” This article was actually a medical intervention for Podhorzer (“Pod” to his friends) and the other demigods who helped him carry out the steal. They had to crow about it or their heads would have exploded. It was also a preemptive cover story. Every detail of their sin is given the Eddie Haskell treatment.(3): “Your Mom thinks I’m giving you a hug right now but I’m really pinching you on the arm as hard as I can.”

Podhorzer gives democracy a hug.

“Sometime in the fall of 2019, Mike Podhorzer became convinced the election was headed for disaster….”

This was the birth of the steal. Podhorzer knew President Trump was going to win re-election. He saw the MAGA crowds. He salivated over them.(4) He knew that minority and Democrat voters were leaving the Democrat plantation in record numbers. (5)

Trump had made good on his promise to put America and Americans first (6). He protected our borders, took on the swamp, the fake media, the radical left, the woke culture, and the people loved him for it. A red tidal wave was coming.

“…and determined to protect it.”

“Protecting” the election meant making sure Trump did not win by any means necessary. It had nothing to do with protecting the integrity of the election process. Podhorzer and his snobbish crew, the people who know better than us, saw Trump’s election and inevitable re-election as an assault on democracy. They had to steal the election in order to save democracy because “Trump and his allies were running their own campaign to spoil the election.” Yeah. That campaign was called “Trump 2020″ and spoiler alert, Pod: Trump won. But you know that.

Without realizing it, Molly Ball really did write the true story of how Podhorzer and his shadow stole the election without naming the people who actually got their hands dirty. (7) But she documents how Podhorzer set them up for the steal. His DNA is all over the crime scene. Ball used 7,000 words to fawn over these “defenders of democracy.” I think I can translate her piece, which was written in Demoncleze, in under 2,500. Here’s how it went down.

*Podhorzer held “invitation-only” zoom calls attracting thousands which “became the galactic center for a constellation of operatives across the left who shared overlapping goals.” “Podhorzer began working from his laptop at his kitchen table, holding back-to-back Zoom meetings for hours a day with his network of contacts across the progressive universe…” “Among Democratic insiders, he’s known as the wizard…” Galactic, constellation, universe, wizard. This was a friggin Star Wars convention. Suffice it to say Podhorzer put the shadow campaign together, kept them on target and directed their activities.

* “…helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding” for election departments. Here’s a bunch of money and “Oh, by the way, we’d like to change how you run your elections.” They lobbied Congress to give extra money to election administrators, primarily to finance Podhorzer’s plan for a massive Vote by Mail campaign. They got $400 million. They approached an assortment of foundations which contributed tens of millions more. Facebook gave over $300 million. The money was used “… to pay for postcards letting people know they could vote absentee–or, in some states, to mail ballots to every voter….” and for “additional staff and scanners to process ballots.” In August and September, the shadow campaign “sent ballot applications to 15 million people in key states.”

* “They got states to change voting systems and laws.” and worked to change “America’s balky election infrastructure.” Podhorzer needed to make this donkey go where he wanted it to go. They did not change election laws. They got judges and election officials, in key battleground states, to ignore election laws in favor of a system that would allow the most fraud possible. Massive mail-in voting, getting rid of election integrity safeguards and extending Election Day to election month. (8) They convinced Democrat Secretaries of State to allow Rock the Vote, a radical left political organization, “front end access” to voter rolls and the ability to add names to said rolls. (9) All of this was illegal and violated the legislative process dictated by the Constitution. (10) But remember,”They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it.”

* “They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits.” There were no “voter suppression lawsuits.” Democrats filed lawsuits to eliminate election integrity standards against fraud. Republicans tried to stop them.

* “…held media briefings with high-profile experts across the political spectrum, resulting in widespread coverage of potential election issues and fact-checking of Trump’s false claims.” How do you fact-check a fact you have already described as false? There was no fact-checking. They gave their media sycophants marching orders. Trash Trump 24/7, claim that everything he says is a lie and have “experts” on hand to back you up.

*Got millions of people to vote by mail. Coups require chaos and Democrats are drama queens. In this case the Wuhan Virus provided drama and was about to make their dreams come true. They used the virus to create panic. They used the panic to get Vote by Mail, where fraud lives and elections are stolen. This was not about democracy or safety. It was about bringing the best method for election fraud to life. Just ask the judge in Mississippi who ordered a new election after finding out that 78% of the mail-in ballots for the June primary were invalid. (March 4, 2021) (11) Absentee ballots (limited mail-in ballots) can be used to steal a race. But that works only when the number of votes needed is in the thousands.(12) Pod needed millions, and in the name of Wuhan he got it.

On election night “Trump was running ahead of pre-election polling, winning Florida, Ohio and Texas easily and keeping Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania too close to call.” Too close to call? At midnight Trump was ahead in Michigan by 400,000 votes. “Podhorzer, meanwhile, was warning everyone he knew that polls were underestimating Trump’s support.... he had been warning for weeks that Trump voters’ turnout was surging.” But, he assured them, “…as the numbers dribbled out…Trump would lose.”

The Dribbling. On election night around midnight, several Democrat-controlled cities in key swing states, abruptly and in unison, stopped counting votes. This had never happened before in a U.S. presidential race. The states involved were Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and Nevada. Trump was leading in all the battleground states by decent margins. Analysts — I am sure they were Pod’s “experts” — predicted there would be a….wait for it… “blue shift” in key battlegrounds–driven by tallies of mail-in ballots…”And that’s just what happened for days. In Pennsylvania Biden received over a million votes after Election Day, over one-third of his totals.

Who made the call? Who ordered those states to stop counting on election night?

I think it was Podhorzer and his shadow. Voting in person on Election Day, with votes tallied on Election Day, greatly limits fraud and most accurately captures the will of the people. That’s why Democrats oppose it.

*Pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and… fight viral smears. “…deprived [President Trump] of the Twitter and Facebook accounts he used to push the nation to its breaking point.” They brought censorship down on President Trump and conservatives like a hammer and sickle. (13) And it was the Democrats who tried to push the nation to a breaking point with the riots (more on that later), the virus hysteria and stealing the election.

*Helped Americans understand how the vote count would unfold over days or weeks to ward off Trump’s false claims of victory. Trump won on Election Day; Pod planted a story to explain why an Election-Day victory couldn’t be celebrated. “We told you it would be normal if counting took days or weeks.” They needed the time to “find” Biden ballots.

The Most Evil Element Of The Plot

Coups require chaos and Democrats are drama queens, part two. Enter Black Lives Matter (BLM), a racist, hateful, violent organization. All of a sudden America was the most racist country on the planet. A lie. (14) White cops were murdering unarmed black men every day. A lie. (15) Whites were racist simply because they had white skin. That’s racist. There was so much feigned outrage. Self-loathing whites literally got on their knees to BLM and apologized for being white. True. The figurehead for this racist America was President Trump, and the 80 million people who would vote for him were wearing hooded white sheets.

* “The racial-justice uprising [riots] sparked by George Floyd’s killing in May was not primarily a political movement…” but the organizers “wanted to harness its momentum for the election.” BLM co-founder Patrice Cullers said her primary goal was to get Trump out of office.(16) That’s political. Ball confirms, several times, that the people who started the protests [riots] were a “key part” of Podhorzer’s radical alliance and that his posse“ drew energy from the summer’s racial-justice protests [riots], many of whose leaders were a key part of the liberal alliance.” “Many of those organizers were part of Podhorzer’s network, from the activists in battleground states… to organizations with leading roles in the Movement for Black Lives.”

* Violence is hard work. BLM got an assist from Antifa, those skinny white boys in skinny black jeans. Five months of sustained rioting followed, brought to us by the Siamese Twins of Domestic Terror. I am convinced they were taking orders from Starship Podhorzer and his shadow. The riots were planned, financed and organized across state lines. This was the most vile element of the plot.

The first few weeks of rioting may have just been BLM doing their thing, making money off the bodies of dead black men. (17) But Democrats saw their value leading up to the election and after. (18) Democrat governors and mayors allowed them to continue. (19)

Arson, murder, massive building damage, shattered glass, businesses destroyed, innocent citizens brutally terrorized, assaulted, cars destroyed, police violently attacked, murdered, precincts burned to the ground. Over 30 people dead as a direct result of their violent acts. Their domestic terrorism. Over two billion dollars in damages.(20) Cities they destroyed are still boarded up, including Washington, D.C., where their talents were on display January 6th. (21)

This violence worked. When describing why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce suddenly joined Podhorzer’s devious efforts, Ball writes, “The summer’s racial-justice protests had sent a signal to business owners too: the potential for economy-disrupting civil disorder.”

*Black organizers also recruited thousands of poll workers. They created a force of “election defenders” who, unlike traditional poll watchers, were trained in de-escalation techniques. I remember those poll watchers. Their “de-escalation technique” was to keep GOP poll watchers out of the counting rooms. (22) The election was being stolen and the Democrats needed privacy. (23) Of course this violated election laws. (24)

*After Election Day, they monitored every pressure point to ensure that Trump could not overturn the result. The primary pressure points were election officials, politicians and judges. The five months of sustained rioting leading up to the election, and the threat of greater violence should Trump be declared the winner, had everyone scared. Podhorzer’s group bullied most of them into submission with a campaign called, “The World Is Watching” and “Protect the Results.” Judges refused to hear any legal challenge detailing the Democrats’ election fraud. No discovery. No evidentiary hearings. No findings of fact. No justice.(25)

*SHOWING UP, STANDING DOWN Ball describes the decision made by the alliance, late on Election Day, to not riot on November 4th. “The conversation that followed was a difficult one, led by the activists charged with the protest [riot] strategy…We wanted to be mindful of when was the right time to call for moving masses of people into the street,” but decided it was too soon. “So the word went out: stand down.” Podhorzer credits the activists for their restraint. “They had spent so much time getting ready to hit the streets on Wednesday.” Fact-check on aisle Pod: there were several riots on November 4th. (26)

The Phantom Candidate.

I think Podhorzer determined who the Democrat candidate would be as much as he determined how the election would be “won.” Why did Pod and his shadow pick Joe Biden? Let’s cut to the chase. Biden has some form of dementia. I think he is a criminal, corrupt and sexually perverted. But, for at least two years I’d wager, he has also been an elderly, vulnerable adult with dementia. (27) I’m convinced they had him sipping on Adderall cocktails the few times they let him out of the basement. Podhorzer and the Democrats knew he was mentally unfit when they chose him (there oughta be a law against that), and that is precisely why they chose him. There was never any plan to win the election. From the beginning the fix was in. They were rigging the system and the election would be stolen. Even Joe knew that. (28) They didn’t need a candidate who could win. They needed a placeholder.

The Final Brag & The Proper Outcome.“Every attempt to interfere with the proper outcome of the election was defeated…” Coo cook ka do. Podhorzer managed to get Biden installed in the White House. He made sure that the votes of 80 million American citizens didn’t interfere, but it was by the skin of his teeth. In spite of all their craftiness and illegal ballots it would have taken just 90,000 votes for Trump to have overcome their massive fraud and win it all, twice: the Presidency, House and Senate, (29) which truly would have been the proper outcome. (30) (31) (32)

Linda Jordan

Ayn Rand on Education

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http://aynrandlexicon.com/lex

Today’s colleges and universities give lip service to “tolerance,” fawn over “diversity,” and purport to be open and welcoming to all. Nothing could be further from the truth. Conservatives are shunned, canceled, threatened, fired, or assaulted as the case may be. Professors and students openly rejoice in the physical misfortune — or even death — of those who do not share their radical political agenda. “Activists” demand the removal of statues of historic figures… if they haven’t already defaced and toppled them. Even as they savage the past, colleges are repeating it by increasingly racially segregating their students and initiating separate, racially-based departments, dorms, and graduation ceremonies.

Colleges are degrading or eliminating their grading and behavioral standards in an effort to “help” minorities. How patrician and racist is that? They argue that absolutely everything is racist, unaware that by doing so they have refuted their own claim. Many are in favor of slavery reparations, or the massive transfer of wealth from those who never owned slaves to those who never were slaves. They are pushing to defund the police. And eliminate political opposition.

Big Academia is also wildly infatuated with the proposition that there are an infinite number of genders, that sexuality is a “construct” on a “spectrum,” and that drag queens are sacrosanct, the backbone of our civilization, so the avoidance of one or more is akin to a criminal act.

Universities have come to believe sexuality is Black and white, too, insofar as it is somehow different for each race, and therefore also requires separate classes, teachers and venues. Their fervent embrace of transgender theory has led at least one to teach that Jesus was “non-binary.”

Telling the truth about almost anything is now strictly verboten on campuses across the fruited plain. Universities have threatened to expel students for saying “a woman is a woman” and “a man is a man.”

Colleges aid and abet students in their attempt to repeal truth and cancel history. Which has led to some students’ avowed desire to repeal the Constitution. And professors to state that free speech is “racist.”

Universities haven’t just been given a free ride, they have been lavishly, almost obscenely, funded in recent years. Some have endowments making them wealthier than many nations. Grants, loans and debt forgiveness have allowed them to rapidly raise their tuition rates to obscene levels as well, even as they have the gall to denounce capitalism, business, and the “greedy rich.”

It is time for these indoctrination centers to be defundedc– and deprived of the free ride and unearned esteem they have been granted for the past several decades — if we Americans are to once again live up to the ideals that made us great.

But a threat to the nation? Really?

What would you call an institution that rewrites history, denigrates and attempts to destabilize the country it is supposed to serve, seeks to resegregate society, and wishes to erase all distinctions between men and women?

Higher Education a Threat to America

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This is unspeakably sad, as these self-same institutions once existed in large part to challenge and enlighten students and introduce them to the great works of Western civilization and the foundational principles of American society and Judeo-Christian ethics. They taught students how best to think, not what to think. Like a free and impartial press, these institutions were once beneficial– indeed critical– to the health of a free democratic republic. We have neither now.

Today’s colleges and universities serve only to further the goals of their elitist benefactors by indoctrinating their charges into a ubiquitous and homogenous Marxist mindset, one at loggerheads with the notion of a free, democratic republic based on the rule of law and governed by, of, and for the people.0

Today’s colleges and universities give lip service to “tolerance,” fawn over “diversity,” and purport to be open and welcoming to all. Nothing could be further from the truth. Conservatives are shunned, canceled, threatened, fired, or assaulted as the case may be. Professors and students openly rejoice in the physical misfortune — or even death — of those who do not share their radical political agenda. “Activists” demand the removal of statues of historic figures… if they haven’t already defaced and toppled them. Even as they savage the past, colleges are repeating it by increasingly racially segregating their students and initiating separate, racially-based departments, dorms, and graduation ceremonies.

Colleges are degrading or eliminating their grading and behavioral standards in an effort to “help” minorities. How patrician and racist is that? They argue that absolutely everything is racist, unaware that by doing so they have refuted their own claim. Many are in favor of slavery reparations, or the massive transfer of wealth from those who never owned slaves to those who never were slaves. They are pushing to defund the police. And eliminate political opposition.

Big Academia is also wildly infatuated with the proposition that there are an infinite number of genders, that sexuality is a “construct” on a “spectrum,” and that drag queens are sacrosanct, the backbone of our civilization, so the avoidance of one or more is akin to a criminal act.

Universities have come to believe sexuality is Black and white, too, insofar as it is somehow different for each race, and therefore also requires separate classes, teachers and venues. Their fervent embrace of transgender theory has led at least one to teach that Jesus was “non-binary.”

Telling the truth about almost anything is now strictly verboten on campuses across the fruited plain. Universities have threatened to expel students for saying “a woman is a woman” and “a man is a man.”

Colleges aid and abet students in their attempt to repeal truth and cancel history. Which has led to some students’ avowed desire to repeal the Constitution. And professors to state that free speech is “racist.”

Universities haven’t just been given a free ride, they have been lavishly, almost obscenely, funded in recent years. Some have endowments making them wealthier than many nations. Grants, loans and debt forgiveness have allowed them to rapidly raise their tuition rates to obscene levels as well, even as they have the gall to denounce capitalism, business, and the “greedy rich.”

It is time for these indoctrination centers to be defundedc– and deprived of the free ride and unearned esteem they have been granted for the past several decades — if we Americans are to once again live up to the ideals that made us great.

But a threat to the nation? Really?

What would you call an institution that rewrites history, denigrates and attempts to destabilize the country it is supposed to serve, seeks to resegregate society, and wishes to erase all distinctions between men and women?

Eric Utter, American Thinker

How to Fix Our Culture

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The best way to reform our culture? 100 PERCENT DEFUND ALL COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES. No more state and federal funding. Period. Make them sell Communism on the free market. Make them persuade people to pay $100K a year to be taught that Marx understood economics and that Dr. Seuss is evil. That will end WOKE-ness in three days flat. I guarantee it.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

What Drives the Global Elite on Their Maniacal Mission

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When you consider what has happened in the United States in the last nine months, incredibly, it doesn’t even seem like our own nation anymore. People rioting in the streets during the summer are described by the lamestream media as “peaceful protesters.” District Attorneys let hardened criminals out of jail. Grammar schools indoctrinate our children, teaching them to hate America.

The Lunatics are Running the Asylum

Governors mandate lockdowns of their citizens while flagrantly breaking their own rules. A presidential administration, run by who knows who, is undermining the “1776 Project” — which was designed to offer a balanced perspective on American history — while supporting the misdirected “1619 Project,” which was launched by The New York Times and claims that the real founding of the U.S. started when slaves were first shipped across the Atlantic.

On and on it goes: Thousands of strange assertions, end runs around the law, and media flights of complete fantasy. The creepy, illegal, unpatriotic, absurd positions of the Left are unfolding at an increasing pace. Whether it’s defacing property, pulling down statues – even of Gandhi, Grant, and Lincoln – desecrating church symbols, renaming schools, defaming Dr. Seuss, or re-assigning the sex of a plastic toy potato, the Left knows no bounds.

Those in a position to call them out, our elected representatives, as well as opinion makers, too often say little or nothing.

The March to Madness

Exactly what sort of madness leading up to this March is occurring? Is there a common denominator to all of the heartless and heart-sickening behaviors that we’ve witnessed for months on end now, and realistically, on a lesser level, for years? Actually, the answer is yes.

Every activity of the Left, from tiny to gargantuan and in one form or another, is designed to diminish the strength, status, and sovereignty of the U.S. Whether it’s seeking to overrun the country with illegal immigrants, pack the Supreme Court, smear Supreme Court nominees, besmirch local officials, cancel the careers of people who’ve made one errant statement, even if that statement was 30 years ago, all such activities have a common denominator. The common denominator is to vanquish the opposition thoroughly, vanquish the U.S. Constitution, ignore due process, overturn the right of habeas corpus, contort “one person one vote,” and much, much more so that as a nation we are left in tatters.

‘We Know What is Best’

As the U.S. declines, the global elite believe that they move closer and closer to their goal of having a one-world government. Headed by global elites – Leftist multi-million dollar career politicians and Leftist billionaires, who pull the strings around the world – such a government supposedly will produce the utopian society the Left fervently desires.

Utopias don’t exist, however, could not work if they did, and would end up enslaving their citizens. Read Utopia by Sir Thomas More, Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, The Republic by Plato, or any other treatise on supposedly ideal societies. You will quickly understand that the elite invariably will regard the citizenry with disdain, nothing more than serfs – worker drones – who are to act according to how they are manipulated and who will do exactly what they are told.

By any measure, the global elite’s decades-long quest for a one-world government is exceedingly far from American ideals. Indeed, it so distant from what our Constitution guarantees and so far from the spirit of the Declaration of Independence that it is beyond chilling.

A Chilling Vision

If America falls, the whole world falls, except for the Chinese Communists. They will control at least half of the globe, and their form of government is going to be worse than what the global elites have in mind. The Chinese are already experimenting with creating biologically enhanced “super soldiers,” more powerful than the average soldier.

They already have imprisoned thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people in slave labor camps. They already have surveillance cameras in their larger cities to a degree that you cannot imagine. In time, it might be shown that they intentionally released the Wuhan virus on the world. Who can say right now?

The global elites and the Chinese Communists must be contained and stopped. It will be a monumental task, but we stopped Hitler and Mussolini, we overcame the monolithic Soviet Union, and we can prevail now as well. It will require Gen Xers and Millennials to break away from the Left’s cultural stranglehold. And as they do, they will find that at least 75 million Trump voters will be on their side.

Jeff Davidson, townhall.com

The America Haters

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It’s just a matter of the America-Haters convincingly repeating their Hate-America litany as the truth often enough before the masses of American people start buying into it. The reasoning they use to express and justify their hatred of America and Americans is secondary. It could be through their contempt – Americans are crass and boorish people, not sophisticated like Europeans, or through their criticalness – their Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School which is aimed at discrediting America and the American way of life, or through their envy – Americans are greedy, rich and dishonest people, therefore their wealth must be taken from them and fairly distributed, or through their moralism – America is an evil nation made up of people many of whom have descended from past slave owners, therefore restitution is in order, or through distorting and rewriting America’s history by maximizing the image of black Americans and minimizing the importance of white Americans, or through condoning the expression of physical violence and provocation against America and passively supporting mob riots, looting and the destruction of private property of America’s cities, and through concocting any other possible issue that can generate divisiveness.

Whatever America-Haters have to say about America is in the form of a destructive emotional attack. Therefore, it never would occur to them to have anything to say regarding what is positive about America. This omission exposes their emotional need to destroy America and it is enough to indicate that their ideas about America are not only distorted but symptomatic of a severe disturbance in their ability to have perspective about their object of attack and to see America clearly.

While the America-Haters are well on their way to destroy America at any cost, the clueless masses of Americans cannot see the hatred and malevolence behind the America-Haters facade. Given the lack of public recognition and understanding of how to effectively respond and expose their destructive agenda in this emotional plague crisis situation, it is possible for these America-Haters to achieve their ultimate political goal – the complete breakup of this great and exceptional nation through their relentless, non-stop social and political agitation, and turn America into a defunct, communist-style, dictatorship. If this comes to pass the forces of the emotional plague in America that have conducted this operation unrecognized in front of everyone will have achieved a monumental victory.

Charles Konia, M.D.

Vote-a-rama Ends with Senate Narrowly Passing $1.9 Trillion American Rescue Plan

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The United States Senate on Saturday passed President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID relief package, dubbed the American Rescue Plan. The bill was passed 50-49 after “vote-a-rama,” which occurred an all-night session. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) was absent for the votes because of a family funeral back home.

The legislation nows heads back to the House of Representatives. The lower chamber has to vote on the bill before it heads to President Joe Biden to sign into law.

The 27-hour long session was the longest in recent history. A large chunk of time – 10 hours and 44 minutes – was used to read the 628-page bill out loud, which came at Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-WI) request.

The bill includes another round of stimulus checks. Individuals making less than $75,000 will receive a $1,400 check. Couples earning less than $150,000 will receive a combined $2,800. As an individual or couple’s income increases, their stimulus amount decreases. Those payments, however, would phase out at $80,000 for individuals and $160,000 for couples.

One area of contention was extended unemployment benefits, which Democrats needed moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) to sign off on. Eventually, a deal was struck for $300 per week unemployment benefits, which was extended until Sept. 6. The House’s version called for $400 a week in unemployment benefits, but those benefits would expire on Aug. 29. Families making less than $150,000 would receive the first $10,200 of unemployment benefits taxfree.

Beth Baumann, Townhall.com

Ayn Rand on Metaphysical Value Judgments

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The key concept, in the formation of a sense of life, is the term “important.” It is a concept that belongs to the realm of values, since it implies an answer to the question: Important—to whom? Yet its meaning is different from that of moral values. “Important” does not necessarily mean “good.” It means “a quality, character or standing such as to entitle to attention or consideration” (The American College Dictionary). What, in a fundamental sense, is entitled to one’s attention or consideration? Reality.

“Important”—in its essential meaning, as distinguished from its more limited and superficial uses—is a metaphysical term. It pertains to that aspect of metaphysics which serves as a bridge between metaphysics and ethics: to a fundamental view of man’s nature. That view involves the answers to such questions as whether the universe is knowable or not, whether man has the power of choice or not, whether he can achieve his goals in life or not. The answers to such questions are “metaphysical value-judgments,” since they form the base of ethics.

It is only those values which he regards or grows to regard as “important,” those which represent his implicit view of reality, that remain in a man’s subconscious and form his sense of life.

“It is important to understand things”—“It is important to obey my parents”—“It is important to act on my own”—“It is important to please other people”—“It is important to fight for what I want”—“It is important not to make enemies”—“My life is important”—“Who am I to stick my neck out?” Man is a being of self-made soul—and it is of such conclusions that the stuff of his soul is made. (By “soul” I mean “consciousness.)

Is the universe intelligible to man, or unintelligible and unknowable? Can man find happiness on earth, or is he doomed to frustration and despair? Does man have the power of choice, the power to choose his goals and to achieve them, the power to direct the course of his life—or is he the helpless plaything of forces beyond his control, which determine his fate? Is man, by nature, to be valued as good, or to be despised as evil? These are metaphysical questions, but the answers to them determine the kind of ethics men will accept and practice; the answers are the link between metaphysics and ethics. And although metaphysics as such is not a normative science, the answers to this category of questions assume, in man’s mind, the function of metaphysical value-judgments, since they form the foundation of all of his moral values.

Consciously or subconsciously, explicitly or implicitly, man knows that he needs a comprehensive view of existence to integrate his values, to choose his goals, to plan his future, to maintain the unity and coherence of his life—and that his metaphysical value-judgments are involved in every moment of his life, in his every choice, decision and action.

Children Need Protection from Transgender Activists

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Transgender ideology is a threat to children, and also to their right to childhood. Childhood should be a time of innocence and learning to grow into an emotionally well-adjusted, intellectually competent, morally capable adult. Transgender activists seek to sexualize and politicize children long before puberty, telling them they have a right to transition even though their bodies and minds are not fully-formed, and against their parents‘ objections.

Transgender ideology treats children as if they have the same rights as adults and ignores the fact that they are vulnerable to all kinds of suggestion and manipulation. This undermines the principle that we should value a child’s protection above all other considerations, protecting children from the negative effects of their own ignorance, impulsiveness, and enthusiasms, and from those adults who may seek to pursue their own interests at the expense of a child’s well-being and welfare. It amounts to a war on childhood and on responsible parenting.

But trans activists have already labeled attempts by some state legislatures to head off the undermining of protection for children as a ‘war’ on trans people.

These state legislatures are actually seeking to protect children. Children are being targeted for life-changing and irreversible medical procedures to prevent their natural development, the long-term implications of which they are not mature enough to understand.

Some medical professionals have expressed concerns, but they are not being listened to because the ideology of transgenderism is now firmly embedded in the medical profession.

The slightest indication of confusion about sex and the expression of sexual identity can be seized upon as an indication of transgenderism and cultivated as such by activists. This is a form of grooming. Most children are not in a position to resist this unless they have very wise, committed, and resourceful parents to protect them.

Transgender ideology presumes that children can have a clear and firm conviction as to their ‘gender identity’ and can decide on those grounds that they are in the wrong body and they are really of the opposite sex. But the logic is faulty.

Gender is supposedly not biologically determined. Medically qualified trans activists advocate puberty-blocking hormone treatments and gender-reassignment surgery to address an incompatibility between a subjective, non-biologically determined gender identity and the child’s biological sex. But if gender identity has nothing to do with sex or biology this can only make things worse not better. We know that adults identifying as trans already have a significantly higher incidence of mental illness. And this risk continues after transition.

Which is a clear indicator that transition did nothing to address the underlying psychological problems. Perhaps this is why trans activists are so angry and resentful.

But the same approach is being advocated for vulnerable, impressionable, confused and anxious children who get caught up in the spider’s web of transgender ideology.

How can any doctor know for sure that a child’s adoption of a transgender ‘identity’ is not a passing fad? Certainty is impossible. While a child is growing towards adulthood, different genes will express themselves and all manner of psycho-social influences will impact. No one — not even the parents, let alone the child — can possibly know in advance exactly what this process will involve or what the eventual outcome will be. Parents can only hope for the best whilst doing everything they can to bring this about.

The child, meanwhile, is experimenting at being the kind of person he or she imagines best expresses his/her aspirations. But those aspirations may change drastically over the course of growing up. What children need is guidance, support, and protection. This should come primarily from their parents but also those in loco parentis. Children are prey to all sorts of misguided ideas and need protection from themselves as well as from those adults who might do them harm, and this protection should remain in place until children have reached maturity and can take responsibility for themselves.

Doctors who offer transgender interventions to children argue that the developing body and mind of a child can offer unequivocal evidence of the desirability of transitioning before maturity is reached. But transgenderism is not viewed as a pathology by transgender activists; not even the medically qualified ones. This view is becoming increasingly prevalent.

But if transgenderism is not a pathology, what is it? A lifestyle choice? So why all the rush to intervene in the lives of children who are confused about their sexuality? If these children are not ill or disordered, what is the medical justification for altering their minds and bodies (with hormones and surgery) even before they are fully formed? Even if the child desires this outcome, is it wise to gratify this desire before mental and physical maturity is attained?

And yet medically qualified transgender activists seek to do just this.

This is an example of what I term ‘pathological irrationality’ — the kind of reasoning that undermines the very idea of reason itself. The logic of transgender ideology is riddled with contradictions.

In what sense is it defensible to hold that children are competent to make life-changing decisions that are irreversible, the consequences of which will be with them for the rest of their lives, and which in any case might not be necessary at all and simply reflect a lifestyle choice, which in itself might be a passing fad? The doctors ‘treating’ such children are literally ‘playing God’ because they are taking upon themselves the role of omniscient benefactor when in fact they are not omniscient. They cannot possibly know for sure that what they are doing is for the long-term benefit of their patient. But at present they can act with impunity whilst the child carries all the risk and suffers the adverse consequences for life.

Concerns about the well-being and welfare of children motivate the child protection laws, policies, and practices. Why should such protections be sidelined in the case of medical interventions in the lives of children in the name of transgenderism?

If the child later has a change of heart, will that child be justified in judging that they have been mutilated by adults who took advantage of their vulnerability? Even if what happened was with the child’s consent, this consent will have been influenced by the medical transgender activists who have a vested interest in changing children from one sex to the other to suit their political agenda. But if they turn out to have changed a child into the opposite sex who then decides that this was the wrong thing to do after all, then in reality what happened was the taking advantage of a vulnerable, suggestible child to gratify the adults involved.

This is a child protection issue, one that is created by transgender activists who refuse to acknowledge that children have a right to a childhood unmolested by adults with a political agenda. What is really needed is much stronger protection, so that children are allowed to be children without being manipulated into making decisions that may irreversibly ruin their lives.

Wen Wryte, American Thinker

Who Appoints the “Cancelers” in the Cancel Culture ?

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We talk a lot about “cancel culture”. But WHO does the actual cancellations? Is it some modern-day fascist Communist monk, squirreled away in some remote part of the California wilderness? Or in a Silicon Valley office? Is it one person, or a committee? What criteria cause Dr. Seuss to get cancelled, and not something else? And why now? Who decides? What gives these “cancelers” intellectual and moral stature over and above all of us? Who are these cancelling men/women/gender-neutral gods behind the curtain?

We know one thing with absolute certainty: They’re counting on fear and intimidation. That’s all they have. They’re hoping our fear of being disapproved of by others, who also have no idea why Dr. Seuss and their favorite pancake syrup are now abhorrent abominations of immorality, will override our reason, our integrity, our simple common sense and our desire to live in freedom. All these horrible cancellation creatures have for power is our own weakness. The moment we get — and STAY– really strong inside is the moment they perish from their own obvious depravity and insanity. Never forget that. The root of this civil war is not political; it’s psychological, and ethical. They only acquire power outside if we remain weak INSIDE.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason