Understanding Change Over The Years thumbnail

Understanding Change Over The Years

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By Tim Bryce

BRYCE ON AGING

I recently wrote this for a good friend on the occasion of his 80th birthday. He is a great guy and I wanted to encapsulate a lot of what we have discussed over the years.

As Jack Benny said, “I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either.” And if you don’t know who Jack Benny was, you’ve missed a lot.

My friend is now entering his 9th decade and is doing a bit of trail-blazing for our group. I started to think about what both he, and all of us, have learned along the way. So, I want to review this by decade.

IN OUR FIRST TEN YEARS

Early on, we develop a dependency on our parents who try to teach us valuable moral values. If they do not, it defaults to churches, scouting, teammates on the playing fields, schools, or the media (which has a lousy track record these days). Parents check out our friends to see if they are good for us; if not, we hear about it. “Stay away from that punk, he’s an idiot,” they said (and quite often they were right).

If we are lucky to have them, we love our grandparents, not because of opulent gifts, but by the love and attention they provide, such as homemade baked goods, trips to the zoo and museums, knitting and sewing, fishing, and attendance at our first baseball game. They also try to teach us the history of the family and our cultural background which, hopefully, we will heed.

We attend school and develop friends, some for life. Some of us love school, others revolt against it for many years, and fight the system.

This is the “Age of Discovery.” You learn what you like to eat and what you abhor. To this day, I still can’t bring myself to eat lima beans or liver.

It’s a glorious time and your only true vacation from life, you just don’t know it at the time.

Boys and girls discover the charm of the other sex, but don’t understand why. We learn to dance with each other, most doing it badly. Boys either know how to get along with girls or are clumsy as they fear catching the deadly “cooties” disease.

You learn about death, through a grandparent or other favorite relative. Suddenly there is a void in your life which we do not understand. Most of us never figure it out, other than to say we wish we had spent more time with the person.

We enjoy the simplicities of life, such as a root beer barrel, rock candy, an ice cream soda, your grandmother’s homemade cakes and pies, owning your own bicycle (which you take everywhere), picking some fruit, catching a fish, or buying a comic book. As a kid, you discovered a dollar could go a long way and we saved every penny.

We suffer numerous bruises, breaks, cuts and accidents. At first, mothers panic, but as it happens more repetitively, they begin to say, “Oh, he’ll get over it.”

Mothers never sleep and constantly listen for signs of mischief. They offer classic maxims like, “If you’re not careful, you’ll put your eye out,” “Be careful or you’ll blow your hand off,” and “Wait until your father comes home.” If you really got out of line, you got swatted. In my house, you got “the strap.” Even my grandmothers kept a flyswatter or switch nearby to keep us in line.

TEENAGE YEARS (11-19)

We are quickly moving towards maturity, and stand in awe of puberty. Mother’s maxims change to, “Stop it or you’ll go blind.”

It is at this age where we learn we have to make our own decisions. What our parents had to say was important, as well as our peers, but we reluctantly learn we are ultimately responsible for our actions and decisions and nobody else.

Physically, our bodies grow and change, and our hormones rage. This is when the parents give us “the talk” which we’re all surprised by; but I think Hollywood has changed all that. I think our grand-kids can now give us a better “talk.” It would be scarey if we replied, “Gee, I didn’t know that.”

We take on small part time jobs, be it at a gas station, drug store, flipping burgers, or whatever. From this, we learn the important concept of “responsibility;” that we will have to work with others who depend on our abilities, regardless of how mundane we think the job is. My first job was as a SOHIO station attendant in Cincinnati where I pumped gas for $1.65 an hour. At our station, gas was 35 cents per gallon (but I also knew places where you could get it for 29 cents). Regardless, this simple job taught me responsibility, how to work with the public, and the necessity for portraying a proper image; I was not just a “grease jockey,” I was a representative of a big company who taught us to wear a clean uniform, cut our hair, and make everyone feel welcome so we could cultivate return business. Now, it is just the reverse.

As we come to the end of the teenage years, we knew we were running out of time, and adulthood was just around the corner. We also knew we would have to seek independence soon, and it scared us.

Our choices were simple:

  • Get a job
  • Go to college
  • Attend a trade school
  • Attend the military – where you learned structure, discipline, and gave the person a sense of purpose.

What we choose during these critical years affect us for the rest of our lives.

It is during the teen years when we learn to drive, scaring the hell out of mothers, and driving fathers crazy as they watch their car insurance skyrocket. Driving a car, teaches us the joy of independence, and to be a responsible driver; because if we screw up here, we can hurt more than ourselves.

We develop an attachment to the music and film of our time. At first, we listen to our parent’s music, but we quickly gravitate to our own. Parents don’t understand the music and constantly yell, “Turn that garbage off!”

Teens also start to experiment with booze and drugs as a form of escapism. The sad thing is, particularly with drugs, it can lead to death. As such, understanding addiction becomes incredibly important.

OUR TWENTIES

Studies from around the world show there is a proper sequence to follow in order to succeed in life: Education -> Career -> Family

If you get this wrong, you will have a difficult time in life. This has been proven all over the world, and starts to become obvious at this stage.

As my father-in-law used to say: “We have 30 years to learn, 30 years to earn, and 30 years to burn (the money).”

This leads to marriage. I tend to believe you should be certified in order to get married. I’ve seen too many people marry for the wrong reasons, particularly one based on sex only. As a Notary Public in Florida I have had the opportunity to marry people. I always admonish them to think of marriage like the Tango, that beautiful Latin dance requiring the skills of both partners; and that is what marriage is, a partnership requiring commitment, and like the Tango, marriage can be just as beautiful if you do it together.

The seeds of religion were planted years ago in Sunday School, but they begin to blossom now. As a youngster you weren’t sure what everything meant. Baptisms and confirmations were mysteries, but we begin to understand it was mostly lessons in morality. Now, in our twenties, we seek such morality, we want to pass it on to our offspring, and we take comfort that a higher Supreme Being is out there.

With a family underway, we become a little more self-conscious about the world around us. We take out life insurance to take care of our family and put aside money for college tuition (Yes, this all begins in our twenties, if we are lucky). We also start to become sensitive to our civic responsibilities, such as voting and jury duty, something nobody prepared us for.

At work, we are aggressively learning our craft. We discover there is a big difference between a career and a mere job. We all seek enjoyment in our chosen craft, but many settle for just a job. The ultimate goal of work is to leave the world a better place than before we got here.

OUR THIRTIES

Sometime during this decade we start to ask the disturbing question, “Have we become our parents?” Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you interpret it), the answer is, “Yes,” as we find we have to make the same decisions our parents made.

Our house becomes a major investment for us, we now have an un-Godly amount of insurance on our houses, cars, and medical. So much so, insurance agents start to smile when they see you are calling them.

We now have little ones underfoot who demand our attention, particularly at school functions, clubs and on the athletic fields. Now is the time to teach them the importance of good grades and being courteous, such as writing a sincere thank you note to someone, particularly grandparents.

It is at this time you become more active in nonprofit groups, such as churches and temples, fraternal groups, professional associations, homeowner associations and school groups. You do this more for peace of mind than anything else.

At work, you are becoming a master of your craft; people look to you for resourcefulness in getting a job done.

Yes, we are definitely starting to become our parents.

OUR FORTIES

When we reach the age of forty, we say “Whoops,” as it dawns on us that our life is half over and we better get moving. This is when we start to take on more responsibilities and become managers and department heads.

Our management style either involves micromanagement, telling everyone how to do their job, or we manage from the bottom-up by carefully training our people, empowering them, and turning them loose on their work. You learn you cannot afford to have people love you, as you’ve got to get a job done. Nor can you afford to be Atilla the Hun. Your goal is to promote teamwork and discourage rugged individualism, thereby creating win-win situations for everyone.

OUR FIFTIES

I’ve found that once you enter your fifties you become more reflective on where you’ve been and where you’re going. Now, more than ever, you embrace a sense of family, particularly as your children graduate, get married, and start families of their own.

One nice thing about becoming a grandparent is you are now at liberty to spoil your grandchildren. You give them money, candy, and toys, and their parents begin to wonder, “Who is this guy?” “Is this the same guy who made us do chores, cut the grass, and keep the house clean for fifty cents?” While your children scratch their heads, you finally get the last laugh.

At work, you have earned senior status, and become an important resource to the company as you mentor and try to educate the younger people. If they’re smart, they will listen as you possess the history of the company. You also can describe what has been tried and failed, and what works. Hopefully, they’ll listen.

OUR SIXTIES

I call this, “The Big Slow Down.”

When you turn 60, people start treating you differently. “Ok old man, sit in the corner, eat your cookie, and we’ll take it from here.” You still have a dance or two left on your card and still want to make a difference, but management and the younger workers begin to shove you aside.

It is also at this time when Retirement raises its ugly head. Some people welcome it, others resist it. Now we have to think about Social Security, Medicare, Insurance supplements, and keeping a constant eye on our portfolio.

You find personal conversations with your peers change from such things as management, production, and the competition, to things such as sciatica, macular degeneration, Milk of Magnesia, GasX, hemorrhoids and impotence. And it occurs to you, it was more fun the other way around.

You consider attending your 50th high school reunion. Some will go and have a great time catching up with old friends; others will remember the jerks of their class who are still witless. Consequently, you decide wisely to stay home. After all, we have Zoom don’t we?

OUR SEVENTIES

This is when we become more cognizant of the changes around us:

  • We cannot relate to the fashions of the day, preferring clothes and material from our younger days. For example, we can no longer find the type of underwear we wore for years.
  • We no longer understand the vernacular. For example, people say things like “Woke,” “Meme,” “Apps,” and “Social Equity,” and we scratch our head.
  • We do not understand their music and dancing. Frankly, it looks like a group of people in heat.
  • We start forgetting things, be it a name or word, or even worse, to shave, brush your teeth, or wash your hair in the morning. You’ve done it for so many years, you believe you already did it. You are also apt to lose TV remotes, cell phones, and keys.
  • The political world has changed. It is totally different than what you remember. You just don’t get it. Nor do you understand the morality of the day. It is not what you grew up with.
  • Due to our gastrointestinal problems, we now eat food in smaller portions and it’s more bland.
  • Travel, which was considered a great joy earlier in life, is now considered loathsome. Besides, we no longer have the strength to climb mountains anymore.
  • We have difficulty with the technology of the day. We use smart phones for nothing but communications, and ignore the hundreds of icons on it. Plus we still write checks and balance bank accounts using paper; either because we do not know how to set it up, or we simply do not trust the banks. Regardless, we develop a dependency on our grandchildren to fix the TV remotes, cell phones, and change all the clocks.
  • In terms of romance, we chase each other around the bedroom but quickly forget why.
  • Friends pass away without notice and we find ourselves alone.

Basically, we are afraid of getting beat up by age. We’re a little heavier now, we’ve lost or are losing our hair and hearing

It is around this time, we lose a spouse, and life is not the same anymore. There is an emptiness inside us and feel like we’ve lost an appendage. For those lucky to have stayed married all these years, enjoy every moment together and cherish your time. You are very lucky.

We now find ourselves in the uncomfortable position of being matriarch or patriarch of the family, something we didn’t sign up for, but now expected to pick up the check at family dinners.

You may not be strong anymore, but you’re smarter now. You are no longer able to pick up large stones or move refrigerators in a single bound, so you find other, more imaginative ways to get the job done, such as picking up the phone and calling a son or grandson.

You start planning for your demise by making sure your wills and related paperwork is in order. You also begin to consider who was good and bad to you over the years. You also negotiate with funeral homes for services and your final resting place. Many people think this is morbid, but you want to do what is right. One suggestion before making the final decision: alcohol. It’s easier to face a mortician when you are inebriated as opposed to clean and sober.

You find you spend more time in doctor offices than any other place, for tests, biopsies, consults, or routine checkups. You find your trips to medical facilities commands your social calendar, and you object to it. Interestingly, in doctor offices you can still find the same issues of “Boys Life” and “Sports Illustrated” you read back in the 1960s.

Physicians tell us to take a multitude of pills and medicines, thereby becoming the largest meal for us during the day. We take so many pills and medicines, we feel like a walking test-tube experiment. It’s very dehumanizing.

Then again, everyone insists you get some form of exercise, even if you’ve got bone-on-bone in your knees, neuropathy in your feet, your spine is out of alignment, bone spurs in your shoulders, and you now wear an adult diaper. Nevertheless, to keep people happy you go to a gym to stretch, lift weights, walk, and use bicycles. Does, this honestly make you feel better? Hardly, as your arthritis is still in a “seek and destroy” mode in your body.

What is most important is to keep your mind active. You read more, particularly history. Most people think you’re crazy for reading a hardbound book as opposed to a computer tablet. They think you are not in step with the news, but you are actually more aware of what is going on than younger people. You are also much less interested in being “politically correct,” and more interested in just enjoying life.

You finally discover that the simple things in life are the best. Trinkets and expensive toys no longer impress you. All you want is:

  • The love of a good woman.
  • A good drop of whiskey, perhaps a cigar, and some stimulating conversation.
  • Plus a good root beer barrel every now and then.

Your mantra is now KISS: Keep it Simple Stupid.

OUR EIGHTIES

I really cannot speak about this decade with any authority, but I presume it is time to enjoy the simple pleasures of life and keep it simple.

Again, to quote Jack Benny, “Give me golf clubs, fresh air, and a beautiful partner, and you can keep my golf clubs and the fresh air.”

I guess the point of this essay is to realize we live in a constant state of change, and our ability to adapt over time. This that tests our fortitude. Some recognize change for what it is, and others openly resist it. Some people think the secret to longevity is simply to remain current with technology. I tend to believe it is an amalgamation of such things as technology, fashion, our vernacular, customs, and changing moral values. This is difficult to assimilate, particularly when you grew up with certain values. As for me, I don’t worry about such things and try to treat people courteously and professionally, with a little common courtesy thrown in.

Just remember, there is no denying an old Bryce’s Law, “If there is anything constant, it is change.”

Keep the Faith.

Tim Bryce is Host of “Senior Voice America” in Clearwater, FL, Mon-Fri, 8-10am, TAN TALK RADIO, 1340AM, 106.1FM.

For Tim’s columns, see: timbryce.com

Note: All trademarks both marked and unmarked belong to their respective companies.

Copyright © 2022 by Tim Bryce. All rights reserved.

Mitch McConnell Is Funding Lisa Murkowski in Alaska BUT NOT Blake Masters in Arizona thumbnail

Mitch McConnell Is Funding Lisa Murkowski in Alaska BUT NOT Blake Masters in Arizona

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By The Geller Report

Lisa Murkowski has backed Biden 67% of the time. She does the opposite of what she tells Alaskans she will do. Blake Masters, on the other hand is the real deal. McConnell is a democrat operative.

Arizona Republican Blake Masters relentlessly hammered Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) on the issues of border security, inflation, abortion, and big-tech censorship in a clear-cut victory in Thursday’s U.S. Senate debate. https://t.co/cTOA2cRkFE

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) October 8, 2022

Maria Bartiromo: Mitch McConnell Is Funding Lisa Murkowski in Alaska BUT NOT Blake Masters in Arizona (VIDEO)

By Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit October 9, 2022:

Maria Bartiromo invited Trump-endorsed Arizona Senate Candidate Blake Masters on this morning to discuss his close race with radical Democrat Mark Kelly.

Mark Kelly is a “California progressive” who has supported every single Joe Biden policy including his open border with Mexico. Illegal aliens are invading America’s southern border and Mark Kelly approves of this. Democrats are sick.

During their discussion today Maria Bartiromo pointed out that Mitch McConnell is funding Lisa Murkowski but did not fund Blake Masters in Arizona.

Of course, Murkowski is a horrid person who helped push ranked choice voting in Alaska that will throw elections to Democrats for decades to come. Ranked choice voting already cost Alaska Republicans their one GOP representative seat.

At the same time, Mitch McConnell cut back his PAC support to Blake Masters in Arizona in his tight race with Mark Kelly.

Watch Blake Masters on Sunday Morning Futures.

Support Blake Masters Here

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED TWEET:

BREAKING: @TulsiGabbard announces she’s leaving the Democrat Party Gabbard says the DNC is under the complete control of woke warmongers. pic.twitter.com/HlmEdJwBoH

— Election Wizard 🇺🇸 (@ElectionWiz) October 11, 2022

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

BLM’s Cullors Renovates Backyard of Luxurious $1.4M L.A. Mansion thumbnail

BLM’s Cullors Renovates Backyard of Luxurious $1.4M L.A. Mansion

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By Discover The Networks

Black Lives Matter (BLM) cofounder Patrisse Cullors has been busy making pricey renovations to the backyard of her luxurious $1.4 million mansion, according to a report from the Daily Mail, showing that “trained Marxist” Cullors has installed a brand-new sauna, garden, plunge pool, concrete steps, a children’s swing and slide set, and a trampoline outside her ritzy house located in the upscale Topanga Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles.

This is not the first time she has upgraded the home, as she reportedly installed a $35,000 fence around the property in June 2021.

Cullors had purchased four homes since 2016 in California and Georgia for a total of worth $3.2 million, among them the Topanga Canyon compound, which she paid for in cash under the entity name “Abolitionist Entertainment, LLC” in March 2021.

After facing mounting criticism over missed funds, she resigned from BLM in May 2021 — one month after it was revealed she had purchased the Topanga Canyon home. Cullors claimed to have bought the homes to support her family and blamed “right-wing media” for highlighting her spending habits on luxurious homes.

Race hustling is lucrative work if you can get it.

Patrisse Cullors

33 Known Connections

Cullors Steps Down from Leadership Post with BLM

On May 27, 2021, Cullors announced that she would be stepping down as executive director of the BLM Foundation the following day. She claimed that her resignation had been in the works for more than a year and was unrelated to criticism she had received from conservatives vis-à-vis her enormous wealth and her various property acquisitions. “Those were right-wing attacks that tried to discredit my character, and I don’t operate off of what the right thinks about me,” Cullors said.

To learn more about Patrisse Cullors, click here.

RELATED TWEET:

It has their attention. https://t.co/d7uV9B2jnN

— Larry P Thomas (@larrythkw) October 10, 2022

RELATED ARTICLE: DeSantis Team Embarrasses MSNBC’s Reid, Rejects Interview

EDITORS NOTE: This Discover the Networks column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Give Her Back Her Kurdish Name: Jina Amini thumbnail

Give Her Back Her Kurdish Name: Jina Amini

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By Middle East Media Research Institute

We all know her as Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old girl that was tortured and killed by the “religious morality police” of Iran’s Islamic Republic. However, her name was Jina, a beautiful Kurdish name, meaning “life.”

In Iran, the Kurdish population is being discriminated against, and Kurdish names are banned. “Iran controls of how its citizens name their children. Iran denies names that are not on their approved Persian and Islamic list, names that represent ethnic nationalism or regional pride are banned, with the exception of Persian names,” Kurdish affairs commentator Hamid Mustafa explains.[1] Therefore, in her official documents, she was registered as “Mahsa,” a Persian name permitted by the Islamic Republic. Yet, at home, she was Jina. This is the name her family used to call her, this is the name her mother uttered, while crying on her grave.[2]

The Kurdish slogan “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” (“Woman, Life, Freedom”). (Source: Twitter)

She Was Forced To Carry “Mahsa” As Her Official Name

Kurdish human rights activists on social media point out that Jina was not just beaten to death because she was wearing her hijab too loosely and not in accordance with the regime’s standards, but also because she was Kurdish. The Kurdish-Swedish activist, Dr. Kochar Walladbegi, writes: “In Iran… minorities such as the Kurds are being suppressed… For Kurds, being killed and tortured is a systematic behavior [of the Islamic Republic], they face this every day of their lives!… Jina was tortured by the Iranian morality police… also because she was a Kurd and a woman, which makes her a minority within a minority! I decided to call her by her Kurdish name Jina that stand for living, a name she, like many other Kurds, was not allowed to carry. Instead, she was forced to carry ‘Mahsa’ as her official name, for the short 22 years of her life.”[3]

The Islamic Republic Accuses Kurdish Opposition Groups Of Helping The Protesters

After Jina’s death, the demonstrations against the Islamic Republic intensified all over the country, especially in the Kurdistan region. Kurdish media outlet Rudaw reported that the Iranian government told the Kurdish opposition parties based on the Kurdistan Region borders “to evacuate” their bases, otherwise the regime “will consider other options.” “Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) showered the skies of the Kurdistan Region’s Erbil and Sulaimani provinces with ballistic missiles and suicide drones late last month, targeting bases of Kurdish opposition groups, whom they accuse of providing arms to the protesters in the country,” Rudaw explained.[4]

Furthermore, Nazim Dabbagh, the representative of the Kurdistan Regional Government office in Tehran, said: “The Iranian government has investigated and found that a number of the Iranian [Kurdish] opposition parties have interfered in the protests and accuse them of inciting chaos, therefore Iran has stressed that the parties must evacuate their headquarters.”[5]

“Jin, Jiyan, Azadi“

It is worth noting that the protests’ Farsi slogan “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi [Woman, Life, Freedom]” is in fact a popular Kurdish one, which has been used for years in the Kurdish independence movement. It was Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed founding member of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), who popularized the slogan in his writings.

Political activist Zozan Sima writes: “But the intimidation, [which the Islamic Republic of Iran] tried to bring to bear on women, Kurds, and those opposed to the system in the person of Jina, has kicked back and lit a new spark in the struggle against the system. Most significant are the crescendo of slogans [that] women and men – in Iran in general and in Iranian Kurdistan in particular – are chanting in Kurdish and in Farsi as one voice: ‘jin-jiyan-azadi!’ and ‘zan-zendegi-azadi! [Woman, Life, Freedom!].”[6]

Explaining the meaning of the slogan, in her book, “The Art of Freedom,” Kurdish freedom movement activist Havin Guneser states: “You’ve probably heard of ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadi.’ Because of this theory… the Kurdish freedom movement has shown the connections that make women’s revolution the liberation of life itself. It is about freeing life. Therefore, men also see that, in fact, they do not have any real privileges. Similarly, we say that the colonization and oppression of Kurds prevents Turks from becoming democratic [and the same can be said of Iran!]. The enslavement of women also perpetuates the enslavement of men… That’s why we say women’s revolution liberates life. In Kurdish, the root of the word life is ‘Jin’. Jin means woman, while jîn means alive and jiyan means life. The root word is the same. And that’s why we say Jin, Jiyan, Azadi. Azadi means freedom. And given that the Sumerian word for freedom is Amargi, which means ‘returning to the mother,’ the three words are so interconnected and make perfect sense: women, life, freedom. As women become free, it is inevitable that life itself return to its magic and enchantment. Thus, the slogan, Jin, Jiyan, Azadi.”[7]

What Is In A Name?

It is undeniable that the protests for freedom in Iran have also a Kurdish root. The change in Iran will be coming from women and ethnic minorities that are tired of being oppressed and persecuted.

In social media, many users are writing: “Say her name.” Well, her name was Jina. Let us not forget her death and let us not cancel her Kurdish identity. The fight “for freedom” (“baraye azadi,” as the popular anti-regime song goes)[8] is in opposition to the Islamic Republic’s discrimination against women, against minorities, and against Kurds. Jina was both a woman and a Kurd.

Her name Jina finds its source in the slogan for freedom, Jin, Jiyan, she was a woman, she represents life. Say her name: Jina Amini.

AUTHOR

Anna Mahjar-Barducci

Anna Mahjar-Barducci is a MEMRI Senior Research Fellow.

Sources:

[1] Facebook.com/Himdad.A.Mustafa, September 28, 2022.

[2] Kurdistan-au-feminin.fr, October 3, 2022.

[3] Facebook.com/kwalladbegi, September 20, 2022.

[4] Rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/091020221, October 9, 2022.

[5] Rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/091020221, October 9, 2022.

[6] Medyanews.net/crescendo-of-kurdish-womens-rallying-cry-jin-jiyan-azadi/, September 22, 2022.

[7] Havin Guneser, The Art of Freedom: A Brief History of the Kurdish Liberation Struggle, PM Press, Oakland, CA, 2021.

[8] Youtube.com/watch?v=XrvpRb2jY1M, Baraye Azadi by Shervin Hajiaghapour.

EDITORS NOTE: This MEMRI column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Trump Must Run thumbnail

Trump Must Run

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By The Geller Report

Trump is the man, battle hardened and primed for the battle of the ages. Anyone who believes that there is anyone more fit, i.e. DeSantis etc., has not been paying attention.

Do not believe, for a moment, that the hell that was visited on Trump wouldn’t be visited on his successor—in spades. And why not, it worked. The left smeared, mocked, defamed, libeled and persecuted Trump since the day he took that fateful ride down the escalator at Trump Tower.

I know of no other person who could have withstood the daily, brutal beatings he sustained. And he kept coming – harder, faster, stronger. Trump ’24 and beyond.

By J.R. Dunn, The American Thinker, October 9, 2022:

The final take on the disastrous Mar-a-Lago raid and its noxious aftermath – the latest in a series of “killing blows” aimed at Donald Trump and the movement he created — is that Trump must run once again for president and must win. The logic behind this is simple: the Deep State, in its slow, dull-witted, and utterly inept way, is making its big move, and Trump is the only visible figure who can stand against this. The Left is well aware of this, and is terrified.

Consider the timeline: on August 7, the Senate passed the “Inflation Reduction Act,” dramatically expanding government spending, including doubling the size of the IRS. The next day, Mar-a-Lago was raided, permanently rupturing the modus vivendi that has underlain the American political system since its founding. Two days later, it was revealed that the drastically expanded IRS was looking to hire gunmen “willing to use lethal force.” Two days after that, the inflation act was passed by the House.

In due time, we got Biden’s Demon Lord speech, which cast more than half the populace as enemies of the state, to the delight of the hard Left, followed by Countess Hochula, speaking from her castle deep in the Adirondacks banning Republicans from her realm.

Since then, we’ve seen dozens of Trump attorney, aides, and even mere supporters arrested, subpoenaed, and otherwise harassed by an out-of-control Justice Department. The depth here was probably reached with the ensnarement of enemy of the people Mike Lindell by three carloads of FBI agents at a Hardee’s drive-in. (Why no chopper gunships? I assume they were down for maintenance.)

This progression of events is no accident, comrades. Things like this don’t “just happen” – they are made to happen. It clearly demonstrates that the woke elite intends to take things to another level, challenging its opponents – which is to say, the American people — directly. How far this will go, whether to open police action or 2020-style targeting by Antifa and related elements, is impossible to say. But one thing we can take for granted is that this represents, at the very least, an intention, and that the Left will attempt as much as it can get away with.

The progressive elite has cut itself off from the mainspring of American political life as thoroughly as the Confederates did in 1861. Though, following Hegel’s dictum, this time it’s farce. It all immediately began falling to pieces – the raid itself, obviously meant to mark the beginning of a political purge, blew up in the faces of the DoJ and FBI, Donald Trump got a much-needed second wind, and the MAGA masses are now energized to a point unseen since the Big Cheat. Clearly, this generation of swamp dwellers is incapable of carrying out any exercise of greater complexity than tying their shoes.

But why now, you ask? It’s not that they particularly think that this is the right time – it’s simply the logic of events. All the errors and crimes they’ve committed in the past decade are pushing them inexorably to the next step, and then the one after that. So, as in the case of the raid itself, they make their moves without adequate preparation, without careful planning, and without guarantees. The result is the half-crazed acts of desperation we’re seeing right now.

The response to the raid ranged from incredulity and disgust from the voting public to a kind of mollusk-like belching from the current GOP leadership. Evidently, there is somebody named “DeSantis,” who is, believe it or not, the governor of Florida, where Mar-a-Lago is located. The DoJ, in defiance of law, tradition, and common sense, set out to persecute an innocent man living in Florida, which DeSantis purports to govern. He could have answered this in tones of thunder, demanding to know what the Hell they thought they were doing in his state. He could have ordered the local SAC (special agent in charge) to appear at his office, and when he didn’t show up, drove over to his office escorted by State Police and plenty of media, to publicly humiliate him. He could even have shut the office down and ordered the staff out of state, as used to occur with regularity in my hometown when I was a kid (granted, it was the Mob-controlled police force that was doing this in Utica, but the principle is sound).

But he didn’t do any of this. No, he released a “statement,” which I’m not going to bother to look up – reading it once was enough. But it went something like, “That wasn’t very nice… maybe you shouldn’t do things like that.”

So much for the young GOP lion. Martha’s Vineyard stunts are one thing, standing up when it counts is something else altogether.

This puts DeSantis in the same class as Kristi Noem and Scott Walker. We all recall Noem bending to the transgenders, while Walker’s career evaporated when he adapted the RINO stance toward illegals under pressure from GOP donors. DeSantis is likely to recover better than these two, but he is clearly not yet ready for national office.

We’ll simply add that this is the man who has been widely proposed as a “replacement” for Trump.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

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It’s Time to Talk Turkey About Race [Part 1]

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By The Daily Skirmish – Liberato.US

The diversity narrative may be the most successful fish story the Left tells America, but that doesn’t make it right.

One part of the narrative says black and brown people can’t be racist.  That’s crazy.  Listen to this:  Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez was caught saying a white man was showing off his black son like a trophy and, further, the black son is like a “monkey”.  “They’re raising him like a little White kid…. this kid needs a beatdown,” because he was misbehaving, this ‘wise Latina’ went on to say.  Wow!  Didn’t we just go through a whole thing about renaming monkeypox because any reference to monkeys at all is offensive to blacks?

The diversity narrative also says Democrats can’t be racist, only Republicans are racist.  Hate to break it to you, but Nury Martinez is a Democrat.  It figures – Democrats are the party of slavery and segregation.  If Nancy Pelosi saying last week we need immigrants to stay in Florida to pick our fruit isn’t racist, I don’t know what is.  Her remark reminds me of Hitler’s master plan for all the races.  The German Volk were going to rule and everybody else was going to clean toilets, figuratively and literally speaking.

Another problem with the diversity narrative is that it’s segregationist.  This whole thing about racially exclusive ‘safe spaces’ and segregated dorms is still going on.  A self-described students-of-color group just demanded a safe space at a high school in Charlottesville.  Not exactly Martin Luther King’s dream.  Things have taken a poisonous turn.  I’m all for the First Amendment right of free association, but the answer is to start your own group, not demand that the government adopt segregation as its official policy.

Another time-honored value the diversity narrative tramples on is equal protection of the laws.  Kamala Harris said a couple weeks ago hurricane relief should be based on race, not need.  This reflects the poisonous concept of ‘equity’ that has taken over civil rights thinking.  People didn’t all start out in the same place so we need to misuse the government to make sure they all end up in the same place.  That might sound good to you, but if the government actually tried to hand out hurricane relief to minorities while telling similarly situated white people ‘tough luck’, it would be flatly unconstitutional, a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.  ‘Equity’ is not equality.  It’s the opposite of equality.  It’s favoring one group over another and, I humbly submit to you, we’ve had enough of that.  You can’t cure racism with more racism.

The diversity narrative also makes people say and do the craziest things.  Someone on TikTok claimed the reason she’s obese and can’t lose weight is because of white people, something they did on the Indian subcontinent a century ago.  Well, that’s a stretch, to say the least.  A government-funded report concluded that the study of “physics was racist, in part because it rewards students for getting the right answer….”  The absurdity of this is easy to see.  Would you rather have the airplane you’re flying in be designed by people who know how to get the correct answers to physics problems or people who don’t?  Why on earth would you want to make excuses for people who don’t know their stuff and turn them loose in the world to design airplanes and other things with life and death consequences?

As for doing crazy things, we were treated to another hate hoax, recently.  Rachel Richardson is a black volleyball player at Duke who claimed she was the victim of racial taunts and threats from a spectator while playing a game at Brigham Young University in August.  However, the police investigated and reviewed surveillance video, but found no evidence to corroborate her story.  Predictably, the media and the NAACP had all piled on, but they went silent after the police findings came out.

Here’s my question: If the diversity narrative is so good and racial prejudice in America is so bad, why do people keep having to make stuff up to make their case?  Isn’t there something wrong with a narrative that promotes segregation, violates equal protection, and makes people tell big fat lies?

There are lots of other things wrong with the diversity narrative.  I’ll tell you about some more of them tomorrow.

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

Visit The Daily Skirmish and Watch Eagle Headline News – 7:30am ET Weekdays

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Karl Marx’s Gravest Miscalculation

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By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

The roots of socialism’s tragedies can be found in Marx’s famous Manifesto.

I recently had occasion to re-read Karl Marx’s seminal Communist Manifesto. It had been nearly twenty years since my first reading of the text in graduate school and I remembered little beyond class antagonisms, Marx’s materialism, and the exploitation of the proletariat. But the ongoing crisis in Venezuela led me to once again reflect on the Socialist and Communist Philosophy underneath the unfolding crisis.

At a mere 60 pages, the Manifesto is surprisingly light compared to most canonical philosophy. After expounding on the history-shaping role of class antagonisms and the formative nature of production within society, Marx gets into the details of what it takes to form a new Socialist society.

It is in the second section of the Manifesto that Marx notes ten measures required for bringing about a Socialist State. These include the abolition of private property and the abolition of inheritance rights. Marx then calls for the centralization of both production and credit in the hands of the State.

Even more, he calls for the State to wield an “exclusive monopoly” on all credit and all means of production. Number six on the list asserts that all communication and “transport” is to be centralized and controlled by the State. Whereas, measure eight notes that there is an “Equal obligation of all to labor” with “industrialized armies” established for the carrying out of necessary labor.

Marx recognizes that these measures cannot be achieved peacefully.

“Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property,” he writes.

In other words; by force. Force is concentrated in the hands of the State and then leveraged to bring about a new Socialist order.

What rights do individuals have to protect them from all the power Marx’s Socialist State wields? Beyond the rejection of the right to property, the right to free speech, the right to non-State controlled information, the right to choose one’s labor, or the accumulation of individual wealth, Marx says nothing about what rights citizens of this new State do have.

Marx offers only a vague allusion to a “vast association of the whole nation” that somehow negates the needs for constitutionally guaranteed rights or democratic processes.

What is worse is that Marx’s Socialist State is so singularly powerful that there is no recourse for citizens once power has been centralized. Marx’s expectation of the relinquishing of power into this “vast association” is not given a mechanism by which it is supposed to happen. The crucial step by which Marx’s Socialist power becomes one of the people rather than one of the State is not even spelled out on paper.

The disturbing reports coming out of Venezuela’s significant and widespread human rights violations was not Socialism misapplied, misexecuted, or misunderstood.

It was, step by step, the implementation of Marx’s Socialist State as called for by Marx himself.  From the early attack on private property and the redistribution of wealth to the nationalization of communication, energy, finance, and industry, we see Marx’s call to centralize power to the State. Marx’s belief that the Socialist State would not wield that power simply for power’s sake was a grave miscalculation.

Marx’s call to centralize so many key functions to the state so empowers the state that there is no check or balance to that power. We cannot be surprised that Marx’s State does not wield that power to the benefit of any but itself; to the sustaining of the system that so feeds it. There is no ideology that will protect a people from abuses of unchecked power. History has tended to show that ideology is irrelevant. Where power has been amassed and unchecked, it has been abused. These are facts of human nature so embedded in history that they ring more true than any other.

Venezuela’s call to forced labor on farms is not some unforeseeable response to unforeseeable food shortages. Both the famine and the call to forced labor, Marx’s “industrial armies’’ are explicit in the text, embedded in the ideology.

So long as we continue to point fingers at all causes beyond the philosophy itself, we allow society to continue its romance with Socialist and Communist Ideology. We fail to see where the ideas themselves set the stage for the retraction, rather than expansion, of human freedom and flourishing. We fail to see Venezuela before Venezuela happens.

AUTHOR

Ann Bailey

Ann Bailey is a Philosophy PhD and adjunct professor with over twenty years experience teaching, including the homeschooling of her own children.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘Medical Safeguarding’ Of Kids ‘Should Not Be A Political Issue,’ Detransitioners Argue In Letter To Attorney General thumbnail

‘Medical Safeguarding’ Of Kids ‘Should Not Be A Political Issue,’ Detransitioners Argue In Letter To Attorney General

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By The Daily Caller

A group of individuals — previously identified as transgender and desisted from their perceived identity — submitted a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland calling for the end of “gender affirming” care for minors, according to a letter published Friday.

The letter is signed by the group Detrans United and seven individuals, including outspoken detransitioner, Chloe Cole. Cole began hormone treatments at the age of 13 and obtained a double mastectomy at age 15. She desisted from her transgender identity and speaks out against medical transition for minors.

The letter to Garland denounced the alleged “uncontrolled medical experiments being performed on children in hospitals in the name of ‘gender affirming care.’”

“The medical safeguarding of children should not be a political issue,” the letter reads.

I am announcing a new organization created by myself and fellow detransitioners called Detrans United. We were inspired by the criminal letter written by the AAP and APA to AG Garland to make our first initiative a letter written on behalf of detransitioners. OUR LETTER: pic.twitter.com/Fq0sePLRLV

— Chloe Cole ⭐️ (@ChoooCole) October 7, 2022

The detransitioners’ letter to the attorney general serves as a response to a letter from the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, and Children’s Hospital Association endorsing the “gender affirmation” model and calling on the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute those speaking out against it.

The detransitioners argued in the letter that the “gender affirming” endorsements “run counter to the recommendations of other countries, such as Sweden, Finland, and the U.K., who have conducted systematic reviews of evidence and concluded, unanimously, that the risks and uncertainties outweigh any known benefits.”

“We also cannot ignore the harms being carried out against countless children in the name of ‘gender affirmation’ that constitute much more than mere threats—we bear the literal scars of this medical violence,” the letter continues.

As individuals who pursued “irreversible hormone treatments and surgeries” because they “uttered the word ‘gender,’” the letter briefly describes the hardships of speaking against gender ideology. Detransitioners claim that unlike the “joyful and supportive communities that welcome all who transition” there is “no such loving community” awaiting them.

“Instead, we are routinely harassed and browbeaten into silence for being an inconvenience to popular narratives about ‘gender,’” the letter reads.

The Biden Department of Justice declined to comment on whether the department plans to investigate on behalf of “gender-affirming” medical institutions.

AUTHOR

CHRISSY CLARK

Education reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: Journalists Vow To Continue Exposing Child Sex Change Procedures Despite Calling For DOJ To ‘Prosecute’ Them

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Florida, In 32 Days You Vote For A Builder Or Bullsh**er—Choose Wisely thumbnail

Florida, In 32 Days You Vote For A Builder Or Bullsh**er—Choose Wisely

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By The United West

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis leads a three day rebuilding of hurricane ravaged bridges.

Construction on the Pine Island bridge has been completed today – just three days after construction began.

Happy to have the state step in and help get our Pine Island residents back on their feet. pic.twitter.com/a8GqPoHtP1

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) October 6, 2022

We have flown in engineers to expedite construction on the Sanibel Causeway.

Sanibel suffered extensive damage and we need to get the island connected to the mainland as soon as possible.

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) October 6, 2022

Governor’s run their own state not the President.

And it was so nice that Biden acknowledged @GovRonDeSantis for what he’s done here in Florida. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/9giUv5gDbz

— Sara (@skb_sara) October 6, 2022

Here are a few more tweets to help understand what Governor DeSantis is really doing for the people of the Sunshine state:

Today we opened two additional Disaster Recovery Centers in Sarasota and Lee County. They are open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily with more than 10 agencies on site to help with #HurricaneIan recovery.

 

To find a location, visit: https://t.co/VHcvDqDX3R

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) October 6, 2022

The media won’t show you this.

Governor DeSantis has done an amazing job for Floridians thus far following Hurricane Ian.

Florida needs him for another 4 years! 👏🏻 pic.twitter.com/lDXhccTtv2

— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) October 7, 2022

I spent time with folks from Lee County who were displaced by the storm. I listened to their stories and, while they have been knocked down, they are resilient.

They also have a deep appreciation for all the relief efforts underway. pic.twitter.com/OSIwwmmCal

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) October 6, 2022

Operation Blue Roof is working to provide free temporary roof coverings with fiber-reinforced sheeting to help reduce property damage until permanent repairs can be made.

 

To get more information, call 1-888-ROOF-BLU or visit https://t.co/jtyA8CED3H

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) October 7, 2022

I was at Pelican Alley in Nokomis today as they reopened for the first time since Hurricane Ian.

Glad to see businesses across Southwest Florida get back open and on their feet. pic.twitter.com/HHY3vJ5daN

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) October 7, 2022

Spent time with Operation BBQ serving food to folks in Port Charlotte.

 

Floridians are resilient – we will get through this together. pic.twitter.com/myfKeTQZvH

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) October 4, 2022

With our October gas tax holiday underway, Florida went from 17th least expensive gas in the nation to #5.

Hope you enjoy the savings while the holiday is in effect! pic.twitter.com/szlz7ePvSY

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) October 6, 2022

pic.twitter.com/x5CXICyGNk

— Jose Galan ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@jgalan707) October 7, 2022

.@CaseyDeSantis and I are praying for the Lane family and the @PolkCoSheriff community during this difficult time.

Florida backs the blue – the perpetrator of this crime will be brought to justice. https://t.co/S07Vl2nkIG

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) October 4, 2022

pic.twitter.com/glXB6sbE8s

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) October 4, 2022

While Charlie Crist works on a three day suntan. 

Charlie Crist’s campaign is based on name calling not his record in Congress or his voting consistently in support of every Pelosi/Schumer/Biden policy, e.g. open borders, grooming children for sex with pedophiles, pederasts and perverts, getting oil from a dictator in Venezuela, pro-abortionist, pro-defund the police, pro-higher taxes, pro-BLM and voted for policies which have lead to a nationwide economic recession and bull stock market.

Here’s Charlie saying I don’t want your vote. We agree, we won’t be voting for him.

This tweet says it all about Charlie and his Democrat Party.

Remember when the U.S. was energy independent, the border was secure, gas was $2 a gallon, and the world wasn’t on the brink of nuclear armageddon?

— Michael Seifert (@realmichaelseif) October 7, 2022

©TheUnitedWest.com. All rights reserved.

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Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: Washington Edition

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By The Daily Skirmish – Liberato.US

Federal prosecutors are considering charges against Hunter Biden for failing to report income and lying about his drug use when purchasing a firearm.  We were warned weeks ago the investigation was narrowing to these two topics and leaving behind all the corruption involving Burisma, violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and all the rest of the questions about Hunter Biden’s international business dealings and his father’s involvement therein.

Hunter Biden is not the only Washington figure raising eyebrows.  Anthony Fauci is another.  Senator Rand Paul set the stage in June when he asked Fauci during a hearing about royalty payments received by NIH scientists.  From 2010 to 2016, Paul said, 1,800 NIH employees received $193 million in royalties, but NIH refused to reveal their names.  This makes it impossible to determine whether there are any conflicts of interests.  For example, did scientists on vaccine review committees receive payments from vaccine manufacturers?  We don’t know, because NIH won’t divulge the information.  Fauci said during the hearing NIH employees are not required to disclose such information, not even on their financial statements.  That’s a problem – public servants possibly on the take while making important public policy decisions and we don’t even get to know about it?  I feel better already, don’t you?

As for Fauci himself, his net worth nearly doubled during the pandemic, to over $12 million dollars.  He is the federal government’s most highly paid employee – making more than the President – but what’s troubling is that part of his wealth came from prizes outside groups award to bureaucrats.  Bureaucrat prizes?  Who knew that was going on?  Fauci received a prize worth almost a million dollars from an Israeli foundation for “speaking truth to power” and “defending science” during the Trump administration.  The ins-and-outs of this have not been reported, but it raises the possibility Dr. Fauci was not following the science but was chasing the money when he contradicted himself on numerous occasions and gave the Trump administration fits.  Should public servants win awards from outside groups for policy decisions the bureaucrats are supposed to be making in the public interest?  That spells trouble, it seems to me.  Congress should take a close look at that one and either put guardrails around the practice or eliminate it all together.

Other swamp creatures have been in the news, recently.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was slapped with a Hatch Act violation for urging viewers to vote Democrat in a magazine interview.  The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from participating in political campaigns.

The wife of the White House Chief of Staff just got a U.S. Special Envoy position at the State Department – nice work if you can get it.   Another White House adviser has a brother who is a lobbyist.  General Motors paid the lobbyist $350,000 to go after federal electric vehicle subsidies.  The Energy Department is now lending General Motors $2.5 billion dollars for lithium battery production.  See how this works?  Pretty incestuous.

Speaking of incestuous and high net worth, how did Chelsea Clinton come to be worth $30 million?  The daughter of a former president brought in $9 million for serving on the board of an Internet investment company.  She earned over $600,000 as a special correspondent for NBC News eight years ago and more from another board membership.  No doubt part of her wealth comes from appreciation of her ‘luxury fortress’ apartment in Manhattan, now worth $10 million.  And she got all this just because she is the daughter of a former president.

No wonder Donald Trump wanted to drain the swamp.  And no wonder he was run out of town for trying it.

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

RELATED PODCAST: Countdown to Biden’s resignation has begun

FLORIDA: Governor Ron DeSantis has Double Digit Lead Over Crist But Don’t Get Complacent — VOTE! thumbnail

FLORIDA: Governor Ron DeSantis has Double Digit Lead Over Crist But Don’t Get Complacent — VOTE!

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By Royal A. Brown III

Our great Governor Ron DeSantis has a double digit lead in his campaign to continue as our Governor over Charlie Crist whose core values are all Socialist/Marxist.

Some of the totally false, negative TV commercials against Governor DeSantis (most likely funded by Soros and other outsiders) are truly lame including the ones from a group calling themselves Story of Us which falsely portray Governor DeSantis as a bad person hurtful to Dreamers and even Cuban refugees.

As for harm to Cuban refugees this is just an out and out lie.

Governor DeSantis’s stands against illegal immigration and in this he is the righteous one. Even Hispanics stand against illegal immigration.

First of all the so called “Dreamers” are illegal aliens who should have been deported but were illegally protected by Obama with an Executive Order and thanks to Democrat in Disguise (DID) Paul Ryan then Speaker of the House no action was taken. However, on October 5th, 2022 the Fifth Federal has ruled that the entire DACA program is illegal.

And of course the lamestream media tried and failed to falsely blame Governor DeSantis for not responding to Hurricane Ian in time or deal with the consequences of this natural phenomena. Watch this to understand why DeSantis is our Top-Gov:

Governor DeSantis: I want Lee County to see lineman everywhere

2 days later: pic.twitter.com/nFoujmcacd

— Brendon Leslie (@BrendonLeslie) October 5, 2022

First Poll Released Since Hurricane Ian Shows DeSantis with Double-Digit Lead as Ballots Start Going Out

By George Upper  October 5, 2022

There’s still more than a month to go before Election Day, but in Florida it looks like the governor’s race is Gov. Ron DeSantis’ to lose, according to the most recent polling in the state.

NBC News reported that voters were beginning to receive vote-by-mail ballots throughout the state, even as many Floridians continue recovery efforts following Hurricane Ian’s landfall last week.

The Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy survey, released yesterday, showed the incumbent DeSantis with a comfortable lead over his Democratic rival, former Rep. Charlie Crist.

[ … ]

Crist is currently behind DeSantis by 11 points, according to the poll, which puts him well outside the margin of error of 3.5 percent. That’s not a lock — nothing is, really — but it’s about as close to one as we’re likely to see this year.

The poll was completed on the same day that Ian made landfall, Sept. 28, and reflects DeSantis’ preparations for the natural disaster, but not necessarily his actual response.

Read the full article.

©Royal A. Brown III. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Progressive, Legacy Media Try to Blame DeSantis for Hurricane’s ‘Catastrophic Consequences’ · The Floridian (floridianpress.com)

Anti-DeSantis Attack Ad Mocked For Promoting Freedom In Florida: ‘Honestly, Did Ron DeSantis Write This Commercial?’ | The Daily Wire

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Election Integrity Whack-a-Mole

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By The Daily Skirmish – Liberato.US

Our elections are a mess and they won’t be fixed any time soon.  Some recent stories will show you what I mean.

The use of private money to enable government election workers to conduct get-out-the-vote drives for the Democrats was heavily criticized in the 2020 election.  The use of Zuckerbucks, as they are known, has been outlawed in some states, as a result.  But elections officials in Milwaukee are back at it, using money tied to new Democrat donors and partnering with a Democrat activist group to get out the vote for Democrats this time around.  The Wisconsin Republican Party has sued.

Then there’s the perennial problem of dirty voter rolls, which the Democrats resist fixing at every turn.  Federal law requires states to maintain accurate lists, but many do not.  Several counties in Minnesota have just been sued for failing to remove duplicate registrations from their rolls.  In New York, more than 3 million voters – almost one out of four – lack a driver’s license or Social Security number to prove their identity.  This results in duplicate registrations which can facilitate fraud.  Cheaters need actual extra voter records of people who don’t vote in order to cast phony ballots in their name.  So who the heck are these unidentified people and should they really be on the rolls?

The Wisconsin Elections Commission told election workers they can fill in missing information to complete absentee ballots, then count them, even though state law requires the voter be contacted to cure the ballot.  This prompted a lawsuit which the Democratic National Committee is seeking to join to have the law declared voter suppression.  That’s a head scratcher.  Why would the Democrats want to count incomplete absentee ballots that could well be fraudulent?

More Democrat funny business with absentee ballots took place in New Hampshire where the state Democratic Party was mailing out absentee ballot applications to 39 towns.  The applications inaccurately claimed the voters had requested them and the return addresses were either wrong or were for entities that didn’t even exist.  Voters were being disenfranchised and the state Attorney General ordered the Democratic Party to cease and desist.

Then there’s outright fraud.  A former Democrat congressman in Pennsylvania was sentenced to 30 months for orchestrating schemes to stuff ballot boxes for Democrat candidates for several years.  He admitted to bribing a Democrat elections official to add votes to Democrat candidate totals.  Four people in North Carolina pled guilty for their role in absentee ballot fraud in the 2016 and 2018 elections.  The scheme involved collecting blank or incomplete absentee ballots, filling in candidate choices, and forging the voter’s signature.  More cases are pending.

A federal judge upheld Georgia’s new election integrity laws, including voter ID and citizenship checks.  Stacey Abrams had been going around for years claiming Georgia’s laws are voter suppression.  The judge disagreed.  The case is also notable because here we have yet another court upholding voter ID, which is only common sense and another head-scratcher as to why the Democrats would oppose it.  You gotta ask yourself why the Democrats keep trying to do away with voter ID.  They used to say they want everyone to vote, but that’s so absurd you haven’t heard that line out of them for awhile.

A citizens group in Michigan sent the Democrat City Clerk in Flint a letter demanding she comply with a state law requiring party parity in the number of election inspectors.  Flint has 92 percent Democrat inspectors and only 6 percent Republican.  The City Clerk resigned rather than comply with the law.  The same group filed a complaint to get the state out of ERIC, a supposed multistate voter roll maintenance operation which is actually a thinly disguised get-out-the-vote drive for Democrats.  The state turns over confidential voter information to ERIC, which may not even be legal, thus outsourcing a core government function – maintaining the voter rolls – to a black box that won’t answer questions or file annual reports which is funded by Democrat-aligned money.  Something’s wrong with this picture.

There are a thousand holes to be plugged before we can say with confidence our elections are secure.  It’s a never-ending process of whack-a-mole, especially with the Democrats hell-bent on poking new holes at every opportunity.  But we have no choice; we have to keep banging away at it.  So don’t get mad at the Democrats’ election shenanigans, get involved. 

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

Kanye West: ‘Everyone Knows BLM Was a Scam,’ and ‘Now It’s Over’ thumbnail

Kanye West: ‘Everyone Knows BLM Was a Scam,’ and ‘Now It’s Over’

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By Discover The Networks

Breitbart News reports that billionaire rap mogul and fashion entrepreneur Kanye West has declared that Black Lives Matter (BLM) was always just a “scam,” saying that the movement is now “over.”

On Tuesday, Kanye posted a haiku-like obituary for the domestic terror, racial supremacist BLM movement to his Instagram account, taking at least partial credit for its demise:

Everyone knows that

Black Lives Matter was a scam

Now it’s over

You’re welcome

West’s bold declaration comes as BLM is under fire for allegedly misappropriating millions of dollars in fundraising.

BLM Global Network Foundation (GNF) exec Shalomyah Bowers has been accused of siphoning off more than $10 million from donors, funneling the money to his consulting firm after he joined the board of the foundation.

Earlier this year, BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors admitted to using the group’s $6 million property to host private parties after she had previously resigned from the organization. Cullors previously came under fire for purchasing a $1.4 million compound in an upscale Los Angeles neighborhood.

The new documentary Uncle Tom II exposes BLM as one in a long line of socio-political movements orchestrated by white Marxists intent on manipulating black Americans to foment racial strife.

This week, Kanye also triggered leftist hysteria by wearing a “White Lives Matter” sweatshirt while promoting his fashion line in Paris.

Black Lives Matter (BLM)

175 Known Connections

BLM Activist Says Looting Is a Form of Reparations

In August 2020, BLM activists in Chicago held a rally to express their solidarity with the 100+ individuals who had recently been arrested after a night of mass looting and criminal activity. One BLM organizer who spoke at the rally, Ariel Atkins, said: “I don’t care if someone decides to loot a Gucci or a Macy’s or a Nike store, because that makes sure that person eats. That makes sure that person has clothes.” “That is reparations,” she continued. “Anything they wanted to take, they can take it because these businesses have insurance.” In a similar spirit, In a similar spirit, a social media post for the rally encouraged people to come out and “support the people arrested last night for protesting another police shooting & taking reparations from corporations.”

To learn more about Black Lives Matter, click here.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Discover the Networks column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Biden Regime Working on Government Model for Woke Policy for Companies

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By The Geller Report

This is the very definition of fascism: a regime that exalts race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe strong regimentation of society and the economy, and forcible suppression of opposition.

Biden administration wants federal government to be diversity, equity model for the nation

By Peter Kasperowicz | Fox News

The Biden administration is working on a “national strategy” for establishing diversity, equity and inclusion policies for the government that officials hope can be used as a template for companies and other organizations throughout the country.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) last week convened the first meeting of the Chief Diversity Officers Executive Council, a group that includes diversity officers from several federal agencies. The council will work to “implement and sustain” a government-wide plan for encouraging policies that support diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) in government hiring and employment.

However, the OPM also said it wants to ensure the government is “our country’s model of excellence” when it comes to implementing DEIA policies.

The council is staffed by Dr. Janice Underwood, the director of OPM’s Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility. The OPM said Underwood’s role on the council effectively makes her the government-wide chief diversity officer, but Underwood said the council also has an eye on influencing organizations beyond the government.

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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NY Judge Rules Polygamy On Same Level as Couple Relationships

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By Jihad Watch

Come on, you didn’t really think there were any lines?

The whole point is to eliminate marriage and the family. The shoes will go on dropping until there’s nothing left. Nothing but the Left. Because that is the whole point of the exercise.

The case is W. 49th St., LLC v. O’Neill. It’s the usual mess of New York City’s absurd tenant protections with an alternative lifestyle twist.

The decision is yesterday’s West 49th St., LLC v. O’Neill, decided by New York Civil Court Judge Karen May Bacdayan. Scott Anderson and Markyus O’Neill lived together in an apartment; Anderson was on the lease, and O’Neill was not. After Anderson died, O’Neill would have had the right to renew the lease if he were “a non-traditional family member,” but Anderson was married to Robert Romano. The apartment building company therefore argued that O’Neill was just a roommate, but the court concluded that there needed to be a hearing about whether Anderson, Romano, and O’Neill were actually in a polyamorous relationship:

As was repeatedly pointed out, there’s no reason to draw the line at two. If all that matters is love and everything else is a detail, why cavil at a number? Any number. It’s three now, but why not three thousand? Love is love, you know.

“In sum, the problem with Braschi and Obergefell is that they recognize only two-person relationships. Those decisions, while revolutionary, still adhered to the majoritarian, societal view that only two people can have a family-like relationship; that only people who are “committed” in a way defined by certain traditional factors qualify for protection from “one of the harshest decrees known to the law—eviction from one’s home.”

Those decisions, however, open the door for consideration of other relational constructs; and, perhaps, the time has arrived. As Justice John Roberts foretold in his Obergefell dissent:

“Although the majority randomly inserts the adjective ‘two’ in various places, it offers no reason at all why the two-person element of the core definition of marriage may be preserved while the man-woman element may not.

Since then we’ve eliminated the existence of the sexes. All that’s left is the detail of the number.

New York City’s eviction court – the venue of a landmark same-sex relationship decision long before Obergefell v Hodges – is now the source of a legal opinion that comes down clearly on the side of polyamorous unions.

The decision came in the case of West 49th St., LLC v. O’Neill, decided by New York Civil Court Judge Karen May Bacdayan, concluded that polyamorous relationships are entitled to the same sort of legal protection given to two-person relationships.

In June [2020], Somerville, Massachusetts, passed an ordinance allowing groups of three or more people who ‘consider themselves to be a family’ to be recognized as domestic partners. The neighboring town of Cambridge followed suit, passing a broader ordinance recognizing multi-partner relationships. The law has proceeded even more rapidly in recognizing that it is possible for a child to have more than two legal parents.”

“Why then,” posited the judge, “except for the very real possibility of implicit majoritarian animus, is the limitation of two persons inserted into the definition of a family-like relationship for the purposes of receiving the same protections from eviction accorded to legally formalized or blood relationships? Is ‘two’ a ‘code word’ for monogamy? Why does a person have to be committed to one other person in only certain prescribed ways in order to enjoy stability in housing after the departure of a loved one?”

What’s the counterargument? There isn’t one. If nothing is sacred, why should a number be?

AUTHOR

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Would You Like Transgender Surgery with That?

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By The Daily Skirmish – Liberato.US

Castration: Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which an individual loses use of the testicles: the male gonad. Surgical castration is bilateral orchiectomy, while chemical castration uses pharmaceutical drugs to deactivate the testes.

The crass commercialism of the transgender lobby is on full display this week with revelations three medical trade associations, including the AMA, are asking the Justice Department to “investigate and prosecute” anyone who threatens violence against doctors and hospitals for providing transgender drugs and surgery to minors.  These commercial associations claim doctors and hospitals are receiving harassing emails and threats of personal violence from a vast conspiracy of individuals and entities who object to mutilation of children for profit.  News to me.  But I have heard of firebombings and dozens of other actual attacks against pregnancy centers and pro-life groups that the Justice Department refuses to investigate.  Maybe when the vast anti-transgender conspiracy produces actual attacks on the same scale the Justice Department might get interested.

These trade groups can’t stand the fact truthful information contrary to their financial interest is being presented to the public.  “The attacks are rooted in an intentional campaign of disinformation, where a few high-profile users on social media share false and misleading information…,” the associations claim in their letter.   Translation: these merchants wish people like me would just shut up so they can make more money.

Some 300 highly profitable pediatric gender clinics have opened around the country in the last few years.  There’s gold in them thar gender confusions.  “Like most professionals, physicians and surgeons also seek to maximize their income,” a California psychologist said.  Demand is up, but you have to ask yourself what’s driving it.  The answer is social contagion and an aggressive political Left manipulating confused young people every step of the way.   Now the Left is putting the pedal to the metal.  Just a few weeks ago, it was hateful to suggest that hospitals were performing transgender surgery on minors.  But now, the New York Times proclaims hundreds of such surgeries are being performed and it’s glorious.

If it really is all that grand, why are sellers taking steps to hide it?   Vanderbilt University Medical Center took down the webpages for its adult and pediatric gender clinics after doctors at the hospital were caught on video talking about how lucrative breast and genital removals are, calling them a “big moneymaker”.  They also threatened hospital employees who wouldn’t get with the program.

That’s not all the transgender lobby is hiding.  A detransitioner recently said his doctors didn’t warn him transgender drugs and surgery could have serious side effects.  Now he’s living with numbness in his chest, genital atrophy, and tremors.  Why would doctors make full disclosure?  There’s money to be made by hiding any potential complication.

Proponents of all this also don’t want you to know some of the money ends up benefitting Democrat Party affinity groups and causes.  A group that promotes transgenderism for 2-year-olds received over $250 million in federal funds for, among other things, training 90,000 educators about such topics as the emergence of transgender identity in toddlers.  The group has spent almost $2 million on lobbying efforts since 2018, making contributions to such Democrat/Left-aligned groups as the NAACP, Human Rights Campaign, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.  So, you see, in the Left/Democrat world, one hand washes the other.  It’s one of their insidious machines.

But there’s no arguing with success.  Three weeks ago, I told you that the California legislature passed a bill to have the state take legal custody of minors who travel from other states seeking transgender drugs and surgery.  That bill is now law and takes effect January 1st.   None dare call it the new California Gold Rush.  Oklahoma, on the other hand, hit the transgender-industrial complex right in the pocketbook, passing a law prohibiting Oklahoma University Children’s Hospital from receiving federal COVID relief funds until it stops providing transgender services to minors.

It’s time to move in Oklahoma’s direction.  What we have here is a manipulative political Left ginning up false demand and a greedy transgender-industrial complex only too happy to meet it.  It’s time to protect children from these financial predators.

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

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Many in West Misunderstand Iranian Women’s Protests

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By Center For Security Policy

For the third consecutive week, demonstrations are taking place across Iran following the murder of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old from Iranian Kurdistan, by the so-called morality police in Tehran. Amini collapsed at a detention center, where the police had detained her for violating the strict law forcing women and girls to cover their hair with a hijab or headscarf.

Of course, by now, most of the world knows what the role of the morality police in Iran is. Basically, they roam the streets in their vehicles, monitoring about 40 million women and girls and punishing them if they violate the oppressive rules. Can you imagine a group of powerful men stopping women and girls in the middle of the road to examine their outfits, hair, the length of their clothes and even how much makeup they are wearing?

Denouncing the killing of Amini, thousands of women and girls in Iran have shown unparalleled courage, burning their headscarves or cutting their hair to show their rage.

This is not the first time women have expressed their rejection of an oppressive regime that imposes a specific dress code and punishes them with imprisonment, torture or even death if they violate these strict teachings.

Their bravery has impressed the world and inspired millions of people around the globe to march in solidarity with this movement. Worldwide rallies have expressed support for the free people of Iran in their struggle against their autocratic regime. Pro-Iranian women’s rallies spread from the US to England, France, Germany and Australia. Even the women of Afghanistan, who are suffering from similar religious fascism, expressed their solidarity with the Iranians.

People posted hundreds of videos online of people in Iran and abroad burning thousands of scarves as a symbol of oppression.

The White House quickly imposed sanctions on the country’s morality police. According to the New York Times, it also approved activating satellite links and other internet services to help the protesters communicate, despite the Iranian attempts to block internet access in the country.

Since the beginning of the protests, Western media outlets have praised the bravery of the female demonstrators and sought to anticipate the fate of the Iranian regime if the protests were to continue.

However, many in the West have suggested that the headscarf is a tool of Islamic oppression and have portrayed the events as a protest against Islam and religious restrictions. That is where they have gone wrong. Reducing the Iranian women’s struggle and uprising just to removing their hijab is unfair to them.

The West needs to understand that these women are fighting for their freedom of choice, freedom of faith and freedom to determine their future and lifestyle. That narrative could include several countries around the globe.

Since 2014, Iran’s women have been posting photos and videos on their social media accounts of themselves not wearing a hijab. The practice was part of an online protest campaign called “My Stolen Freedom,” which inspired several other movements, including “White Wednesdays” and the “Revolutionary Street Girls.”

The concept of women covering their hair by wearing a veil or hijab for religious purposes has been practiced by all three major monotheistic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — as well as other faiths and cultures.

Read more.

Originally published by Arab News

AUTHOR

Dalia Al-Aqidi

Dalia al-Aqidi is an award-winning international journalist and a commentator covering foreign affairs, terrorism, radical Islamism, and terrorist groups. She has spent over three decades reporting from the capital cities of the Middle East, Europe and Washington D.C. writing , producing and hosting live presentations on television and radio in English and Arabic. A Muslim born in Baghdad, Iraq, Dalia has been fighting terrorism and oppression through her entire adult life-whether it be through reporting, often putting her in war zones and terrorist attack locations, or through her collaboration with the U.S. Intelligence community.

EDITORS NOTE: This Center for Security Policy column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Italy: A great example of why I take mainstream media coverage of populism with a grain of salt

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By MercatorNet – Navigating Modern Complexities

The major newspapers seem to believe that the superiority of their political opinions is a self-evident fact that needs no explanation.

There was a time when journalists from respected media outlets like the BBC, the New York Times and the Guardian, at least made a sincere effort to distinguish between reporting the facts and reporting one’s political opinions. But that era is long over. We now live in a world in which journalists blithely dismiss political movements they disagree with as “extreme,” “hard-right,” and “fascistic,” as though the superiority of their own political opinions was a self-evident fact that needed no explanation.

This is perhaps nowhere more clear than in the response of Western mainstream media – in particular media that embrace progressive-leftist positions – to the prospect that Giorgia Meloni will be Italy’s first-ever female prime minister. From the tone of that response, one would think that Meloni was advocating the abolition of democracy, the abrogation of rule of law, or some sort of Putin-style military incursion into neighbouring territories.

Here is a sample of mainstream coverage of Giorgia Meloni’s election:

  • BBC: “Ms Meloni is widely expected to form Italy’s most right-wing government since World War Two. That will alarm much of Europe…”
  • CNN: “Giorgia Meloni claims victory to become Italy’s most far-right prime minister since Mussolini.”
  • El País: “The strong result for the extreme-right obliges the EU to be smart in how it manages its relationship with Meloni.”
  • The Guardian: “Giorgia Meloni is a danger to Italy and the rest of Europe.”
  • New York Times: “The country’s hard turn to the right has sent shock waves across Europe after a period of stability in Italy led by Mario Draghi.”

Meloni, president of the conservative Fratelli d’Italia, or “Brothers of Italy”, party, swept to victory in Italy’s recent elections, and is now poised to become Italy’s first ever female prime minister. She is undoubtedly a controversial figure, and her style can be a bit shrill.

She defends a range of positions that are now viewed with disdain by many Western politicians and journalists, such as the primacy of the natural family, the importance of maintaining a birth-rate above replacement level, the ideal of heterosexual marriage, the sanctity of human life, the value of national identity and culture, the positive value of religion, the opposition to transgender operations for children, and the rejection of illegal immigration.

On the other hand, being a bit shrill or abrasive hardly makes a political leader a threat to democracy or a harbinger of political instability. And let’s not forget that the positions defended by Meloni were perceived as perfectly normal in many parts of the West a few decades ago, so it is hard to see why they would now put her outside the pale of civilisation or make her a serious “threat” to Europe.

The media’s intense hostility to Meloni, and by extension, the popular movement that brought her to power, can be explained by one simple fact: her opinions on “hot button” issues have put her directly at odds with the progressive-leftist movement that now dominates social media, mainstream media, EU bureacracy, and the Biden Administration. And that, for many self-styled progressives, puts her far beyond the moral and political pale.

One does not have to support Italy’s newly elected prime minister or her opinions to understand that mainstream media’s coverage of her is nothing short of reactionary. Progressive-minded journalists seemed unwilling or unable to understand how opinions different to their own could end up resonating with a sufficient number of Italians to propel the leader of a conservative, pro-life party into power.

Indeed, the crude, reactionary coverage of Meloni’s victory was quite reminiscent of the coverage of Trump’s election – a mix of perplexity and indignation at the prospect that a large number of voters might actually hold opinions radically at odds with those of progressive-leftist journalists and politicians. The only explanation that occurred to progressive-leftist analysts, in both cases, was that the voters in question were either ignorant or manipulated.

If journalists report on political elections almost exclusively as ideological cheer-leaders, dismissing opposing opinions as part of a “hard right” agenda that menaces the future of democracy, then they are not doing their jobs. They are not actually attempting to understand social reality as it is, nor are they attempting to empathise, even remotely, with voters who wear “the other shirt.” It becomes impossible for them to understand the motives and points of view of their fellow citizens, and it becomes impossible for them to respect the opinions of citizens who see the world differently from themselves.

When journalists become completely tone-deaf to opinions at odds with progressive-leftist principles, or automatically dismiss such opinions as anathema to liberal democracy, their coverage of political events loses any appearance of impartiality and their work becomes largely irrelevant to a large swathe of the citizenry. Once journalists enter into “campaign” mode, many citizens tune out or treat their pronouncements with a grain of salt.

And rightly so.

This article has been republished with permission from the author’s Substack, The Freedom Blog.

AUTHOR

David Thunder

David Thunder is a researcher and lecturer at the University of Navarra’s Institute for Culture and Society. More by David Thunder

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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My Grandparents’ Greatest Gift Was Their History

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By Matthew Hausman, J.D.

They believed in both their history and destiny as Jews. Loss of personal and collective Jewish identity in the USA pained them.

As the war in Ukraine drags on longer than anyone thought possible, it seems Jewish history has become one of the unintended casualties. Though warfare against civilians should always be condemned, the willingness of many Jewish organizations and congregations to declare ardent solidarity with Ukraine glosses over the unspeakable atrocities suffered by Jews there over the course of centuries.

In echoing President Biden’s moral pronouncements about a conflict many believe was greenlit by his foreign policy weakness, some Jewish supporters have proclaimed their supposed Ukrainian roots and loyalties. But such claims are revisionist fantasies that ignore how their ancestors were persecuted with forced ghettoization, pogroms, and massacres in the Pale of Settlement and beyond. Most who didn’t flee were ultimately slaughtered during the Holocaust by German forces and Ukrainian collaborators.

Jews are not ethnically or culturally Ukrainian any more than they are truly Russian, Polish, or Scandinavian – regardless of where their forebears ended up. They have a distinct national and ancestral character, as well as a dynamic history that saw their progenitors migrate after the Dispersion to many foreign lands, carrying with them idiosyncratic beliefs, traditions, language, and blood connections.

While Jews experienced occasional periods of prosperity in Ukraine, they were more commonly consigned to ghettos and subjected to harassment and persecution. Hundreds of Jewish communities were annihilated by Bogdan Khmelnytsky’s cruel hordes during the Cossack uprising of 1648, and thousands more Jews were butchered a century later by Ivan Gonta and thereafter in the bloody pogroms that marked the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Between 1917 and 1921, Ukrainian forces massacred well more than one-hundred thousand Jews during the Russian civil war, a horror that was eclipsed twenty years later when the Nazis murdered a million or more Jews there with the aid of many local confederates.

It says more about the historical tolerance for Jewish suffering that Khmelnytsky, Gonta, and prominent Nazi collaborators are considered national heroes by many in Ukraine today.

And yet, some American Jews unreservedly proclaim solidarity with Ukraine (in accordance with Biden administration posturing), seemingly ignorant (forgiving? o)f the abuse inflicted on their people in the country they now champion.

It seems the more Jews become acculturated to their host societies, the more they tend to lose meaningful connection with their past. Although this disconnect often occurs passively as Jewish educational standards erode among the non-Orthodox, it is just as often an affirmative act of denial of collective Jewish consciousness and personal family history. Indeed, those who forget their family narratives find it easier to disregard the larger connection to their people.

The loss of personal and collective Jewish identity greatly concerned my maternal grandparents, with whom I was quite close into adulthood.

My grandfather, Herschel Zvi, was born into a family of blacksmiths in the Ukrainian shtetl of Voroshilovka, near the city of Vinnytsia. He was the eldest of eight children born to Moshe Mordecai and Chava Medved, and his first languages were Yiddish and Hebrew. He had a traditional cheder education supplemented by tutors to teach him the Slavic languages necessary for conducting business (Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish). The Cossacks may have hated Jews, but they needed them to shoe their horses. When he was old enough, his parents sent him to the Slabodka Yeshiva for a year or two but called him home to run the business when his father left for America to earn money for the family.

When Moshe Mordecai returned a year or so later, my grandfather decided to leave because the business was not big enough for both of them; but that wasn’t the only reason. My grandfather experienced Jew-hatred most of his life to that point, and he recognized the ominous significance of the brutal pogroms that rocked Kishinev in 1903 and 1905. So, he and some cousins determined they had little future as Jews in Ukraine and decided to leave. Some emigrated to Brazil and others to Eretz Yisrael, while my grandfather came to the United States. Those who stayed behind suffered greatly under the Soviets, and his youngest brother Yankele was sentenced to a gulag in Siberia for engaging in capitalist activities (he manufactured and sold fishhooks and other sundry metal goods). Ironically, Yankele’s exile saved his life as most family members who remained behind were killed by the Germans and their collaborators in 1941, some at Babi Yar.

Among the relatives who also came to the States was his first cousin, Pinni Potok (renamed Fanny on her immigration papers), who would become his wife. My grandmother was from Brailev, another shtetl near Vinnytsia, but unlike my grandfather’s family, hers was Hasidic and she received her name from their Rebbe. Apparently, my great-grandmother, Hinda Etel (for whom my mother was named), had one child prior to losing several others before their third birthdays. While pregnant with my grandmother, she and her husband, Yankel, sought a bracha from their Rebbe, who predicted the baby would be a girl and instructed them to name her “Pinni” after Rav Pinchas of Koretz and dress her in a kittle until her third birthday. The Rebbe said this would assure her long life, and indeed she lived 96 years in good health.

My grandmother’s family left Ukraine when she was nine after surviving multiple pogroms. As the family journalist, she assigned me the task of recording her stories (I’m still working on the transcripts all these years later), and one particularly chilling account still resonates with me to this day. Also born to a family of blacksmiths, my grandmother related how whenever pogroms were anticipated, shtetl neighbors would bring silverware to be sharpened so they would have weapons to defend themselves when the Cossacks came to rape, murder, and pillage. Pogroms were always expected on Easter and Christmas, but they could occur at any time for any reason. These events seared her memory so deeply that she could never go to sleep until she made sure all the silverware drawers were closed.

My grandfather came to the US through New York’s Ellis Island and ended up in Bridgeport, Connecticut, but my grandmother’s port of call was Galveston, Texas. Her family was included in the “Galveston Plan,” which was instituted and financed by the philanthropist Jacob H. Schiff in 1907 to rescue Jews from the deadly pogroms sweeping the Russian Empire and settle them throughout the Mississippi River Valley. Fanny spent ten years in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, before joining other family in Philadelphia, where her mother’s cousin was a rabbi, shochet, and mohel. Though she and my grandfather were cousins, they never met until he visited her family in Philadelphia. After a courtship of only a few days, they married and returned to Bridgeport, where my grandfather parlayed his blacksmithing skills into a metal manufacturing business.

Politically, my grandparents were distinct from many of their peers in that they never embraced the Democratic Party and rejected all forms of socialism. Both firmly believed Roosevelt was antisemitic, an observation confirmed for them during World War II when he refused to rescue Jews from genocide – at the same time a special army unit was tasked with saving great works of European art. It seems artwork mattered more under FDR’s watch than saving Jewish lives.

During the 1930s and 1940s, my grandfather closely followed all news from the British Mandate and supported the Revisionist Zionists. He greatly admired Jabotinsky and met him when he was on a fundraising junket in the United States. Substantial funds and materiel were shipped to Israel through Bridgeport before and after 1948; and my grandparents were eyewitnesses and participants as members of an activist community that honored the past and anticipated the future.

They clearly believed in both their history and destiny as Jews.

Towards the end of his life, my grandfather wondered whether he’d made a mistake coming to America instead of following those cousins who emigrated to the Jewish homeland. He was alarmed by increasing assimilation and intermarriage rates after only two generations and wondered how many of his descendants would retain their Jewish identity. In his view, the loss of observance and historical fluency were part of the same dialectic that had blinded so many Jews to the impending Holocaust in Europe.

If he were still alive, he’d be heartbroken to see liberal Jewish organizations disparaging tradition, denigrating Israel in the name of “social justice,” or rationalizing leftist and minority antisemitism. And he would lament the ignorance of those who negate their personal history by claiming to be Ukrainian, Russian, German – or anything other than Jewish. He firmly believed the adage that “those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.” As a fitting corollary for today, however, I think he’d also say that “those who forget where they came from are doomed to oblivion.”

©Matthew M. Hausman, J.D. All rights reserved.

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America in Name Only

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By Cherie Zaslawsky

As much as I admire the great patriots who fought so hard to wrench our nation out of the hands of the usurpers, patriots such as General Michael Flynn, brilliant attorney Sidney Powell, My Pillow mega-mogul Mike Lindell, and more recently, famous filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza whose documentary 2,000 Mules presents indisputable evidence of vote fraud in the swing states that illegally tipped the scales in Beijing Biden’s favor, I can’t help feeling that many of us remain in denial about our current situation, including former President Trump. We shake our heads at the steady stream of violations of our constitutional protections, wondering how these flagrant abuses can take place in America.

For example, how is it possible that our own DOJ has locked up dozens of innocent men and women for attending a peaceful demonstration in our nation’s capitol, and left them to languish in squalid conditions in the D.C. Gulag for nearly two years, many still awaiting their trials? What happened to Habeas Corpus?

And in what world does our own FBI get to raid President Trump’s luxurious home, ransacking every room, pawing through Melania’s lingerie, taking Trump’s passports, spending nine hours combing every inch of Mar-a-lago, and quite possibly planting “evidence” and/or surveillance bugs along the way?

But the shocks keep coming—one of the latest being the witch-hunt targeting some forty “Trump associates” who’ve been subpoenaed and/or had their cell phones confiscated.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson viewed a subpoena and was stunned by its unlawfulness. In his words:

What it [the subpoena] demands is both unlawful and without precedent in American history. …Now keep in mind, that any claim you make as an American citizen about electors—any claim you make about American politics period—is protected explicitly under the First Amendment. That’s our core freedom…[Emphasis mine]

In fact, all of the above assaults on our rights are unprecedented and despicable, but not, as some may think, merely a matter of political revenge.

A SHATTERINGLY INCONVENIENT TRUTH

The painful truth is that there is nothing out of the ordinary about these abuses, including the January 6th political prisoners being detained without due process—without being charged, and without being granted their right to a speedy trial. Nor should we be surprised that Trump, his associates, and the MAGA millions Biden decried in his ghoulish tirade demonizing patriots, are under attack.

What we’re conveniently forgetting is that between November 3rd, 2020 and January 6th, 2021, we didn’t merely experience a stolen election, we went through a Color Revolution—a takeover of our nation by forces hostile to it—and not just the DemComms, but the ChiComms and other globalist enemies of liberty as well. So that now, America as we’ve know it exists only in our memories.  Oh, we see the vestiges of America all around us, and we can and should do everything in our power to resuscitate our vanquished Republic. But that shining city on the hill has been snuffed out. It’s just that we still see traces of its light, like the light of a distant star that is no more.

And while the shift from our Republic to the increasingly dystopian reality we’re currently living in seemed to happen almost overnight, the minions of Satan have been paving the way for this takeover of America for decades. Following the subversive advice of Antonio Gramsci and his follower Rudi Dutschke, they planned the Marxist “long march through the institutions” to alter and control American culture. And as iconic conservative journalist Andrew Breitbart famously remarked, politics is downstream from culture. We’re just experiencing the dramatic climax of these long-term efforts, as when a house suddenly crumbles after years of termites eating away at its supporting beams and wooden foundation.

So when I say there is nothing out of the ordinary about the January 6th patriots being brutally and unjustly treated, I mean that this is what Communists typically do to political prisoners. We the People are now under the thumbs of fascistic totalitarians who thrive on inflicting sadistic cruelty on others.

A PLETHORA OF TRAVESTIES

I’m at pains to imagine a more blatant travesty than the spectacle of Beijing Biden standing in Independence Hall, flanked by uniformed military and ominously bathed in blood-red background lighting while giving a clenched fist tirade damning at least half the country.

But we do have some contenders.

There’s the raid on President Trump’s exclusive Mar-a-lago villa for one.

And the tragedy of innocent Americans being held and tormented in unconstitutional detention in the D.C. Gitmo.

And how about the sudden spate of some forty subpoenas from Brandon’s nefarious DOJ targeting Trump associates? Or the 34-year prison sentence the DOJ’s dangling over the head of brilliant patriot Steve Bannon, President Trump’s chief strategist in 2017, co-founder of Breitbart, currently host of Bannon’s War Room? Or our courageous Frontline doctor Simone Gold who was recently released from prison for using her First Amendment rights?

What do these outrages have in common? These indignities all sing the same tune: patriots are the enemies of the State; the 2020 election results may not be questioned; none of the State’s official narratives may be questioned; Trump is radioactive; and your betters are in control now, peasants!

JANUARY 6TH PATRIOTS IN THE D.C. GULAG

Of all the Leftists’ relentless attacks on the MAGA millions since Obiden took office, the one that leaves me sickest at heart is the unconstitutional imprisonment and torture of the January 6th patriots who answered President Trump’s call to rally in D.C. on that fateful day. As painful as it is to read their stories, we must do so, and do all we can to help bring them out of their dungeons into the clear light of day. For how can we hold our heads up while they languish in the DC Gulag?

Here are just a few of these tragic tales:

  • Ryan Samsel: Since his arrest, Ryan has been held in a Washington DC prison. On March 21, 2021, he was awakened by correctional officers and his hands were zip-tied.  Then they walked him to an unoccupied cell where he was brutally beaten by the officers. Ryan Samsel lost an eye in the beating.  His face was smashed, his skull fractured.  The next day the guards beat him again.
  • Ronald Colton McAbee: a sheriff’s deputy who was at the Capitol on the 6th, tried to help Rosanne Boyland, who died that day. As WND reported on September 6th: MCAbee was maced repeatedly “for removing his face mask to take his medication. The Tennessee man was then left in a cell covered in the spray for over eight hours of torture, unable to de-contaminate and rinse off his burning skin.” He’s been in the D.C. Gulag for over a year and his trial isn’t scheduled until September 2023—a year from now!
  • Jake Lang: a 26-year-old hero, saved the lives of two innocent demonstrators on January 6th by rescuing them from beneath a pile of people as they were being crushed and suffocated.

This brave young man has been locked in solitary confinement for over seventeen months! He describes January 6th as: “The day when free men and women stood unarmed against tyranny and were brutalized, beaten and even murdered on the steps of our own Capitol.”

  • Sean McHugh, patriot, business owner, father of four, who came with a megaphone. Immediately, the alleged FBI asset Ray Epps glommed onto Sean, urging him to tell people “the plan”—that they were going into the Capitol at 1pm whether Trump was done speaking or not. Here’s a quote from McHugh’s open letter:

“I’m a January 6th political prisoner being held in the DC-Gulag. My name is Sean McHugh. I’m being held in very inhumane conditions in the DOJ’s effort to try and make me plead guilty under duress.” And though McHugh left early, long before a breach in the police line occurred, he’s been “detained” in the D.C. hellhole for over a year now, while instigator Ray Epps strolls around free.

  • Thomas Robertson: An off-duty Virginia police officer who claims he was let inside the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, by Capitol Police officers who told him merely to stay inside the ropes was sentenced to more than seven years in prison. Former Rocky Mount Police Sgt. Thomas Robertson, a U.S. Army veteran, also was sentenced to three years of supervised release after his prison term by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper.

THE USURPING ÜBERMENSCHEN FLEXING THEIR MUSCLES

One of the most outlandish affronts to American patriots has got to be the shocking FBI raid on President Trump’s home, the exquisite Mar-a-lago.  Along with the FBI agents were three Department of Justice lawyers whose demeanor was described by an eyewitness as “arrogant.” Who do they think they are? Why didn’t they first subpoena whatever documents they were looking for? What was the fictional “probable cause” this warrant was based on? And how dare they rifle through our beloved First Lady Melania’s wardrobe! The point, gentlemen? I mean, barbarians!

Remember, those orchestrating this outrage are the same America-hating Leftists who orchestrated the Russia hoax—their Show Trial #1 under Robert Mueller and pals—followed by not one but two phony impeachments of President Trump, and now they’re conducting Show Trial #2, spiced up with a pre-dawn raid of his elegant mansion, as if he were a dangerous criminal about to destroy evidence of a heinous crime. We’re being treated to Marxist theater on steroids.

FBI Special Agents spent hours in Trump’s private office, rummaging through his private property that they had absolutely no right to lay their filthy hands on. His attorneys had all along been in full cooperation regarding possible classified material being stored at Mar-a-lago. They too were blindsided by this surreal show of force against Trump and his legacy.

But I forget, we’re not in America any more. In our Marxist/Fascist/New World Order vassal state, our masters can do with us as they like.

In fact, that’s the message.

They just showed their utter contempt for the most popular president in modern history, and by extension, the 80 million or so voters who elected him for a second term in 2020. If they can push Trump around with their surprise attack, invade his privacy with no probable cause, abscond with his passports and who knows what else, mess with his wife’s wardrobe, infest his home with hidden surveillance bugging, and possibly plant incriminating “evidence” to use against him, what can’t they do to the rest of us?

This was a display of raw power, calculated to publicly humiliate its target—a kind of symbolic rape—the violation of the rights, the dignity, and the privacy and personal property of the man Americans elected for the second time to be their Commander-in-Chief in the White House, and who rightly belongs there now, as our President.

Esteemed attorney and author John O’Neill, who clerked for Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist back in the day, has this to say regarding the raid at Mar-a-lago: “That they sent 30 some FBI officers from a special unit in Washington to raid a president’s home without warning in the wee hours of the morning is much more like the Stasi, or the Gestapo, or the KGB than it is like any American FBI. This is a black mark on the history of the United States. The raid was illegal, almost certainly, because the requirement for a warrant as opposed to a subpoena, was not met.”

Trump’s truly colossal blunder—the one I blame him for unreservedly—was his failure to take bold, constitutionally valid action after the Dems stole the election out from under him. Though the stakes couldn’t have been higher, he apparently failed to grasp the cost of his throwing in the towel. Now it is not just the January 6th innocent patriots who are paying the price for his abandoning the ship, he himself is feeling the burn. More to the point, We the People are paying the price, and it’s only going to get worse unless and until we can take our country back.

WANNA BET ON WHAT COMES NEXT?

If the Cabal/Deep State/NWO elites/Dems and Obiden play true to form, they will charge Trump with a crime and sentence him to prison along with the January 6th political prisoners.

After all, they only have to get him out of the way for a couple of years—say till 2025 or so. That way it will be easier for them to steal the 2024 election. DeSantis, if he runs, would win, but is unlikely to match the drawing power of Trump, whose courageous and spot-on truth-telling and inspirational love of our country and its people won him a permanent place in the hearts of millions of Americans. DeSantis, not likely to command a Trumpian landslide, would be easier to cheat out of a win.

Or, if the DemComms don’t want to risk the national outrage that would ensue if they sent Trump to prison, they may push forward with a third faux impeachment; if they got him convicted, they could claim he was ineligible to run. Never mind the pesky fact that you can only impeach someone who’s in office. Details, details…

One thing is certain: our elite masters fear the groundswell of patriotism and enthusiasm Trump inspires. They want us downtrodden, impoverished, miserable and resigned—like the typical masses under Communism—not feisty, energized and optimistic—like Americans.

THE BITTER TASTE OF TYRANNY

Every time we’ve seen Communist takeovers, mass genocide follows. That’s the playbook our “betters” are reading from, and those paying attention may already see the signs of the mass starvation and poverty to come—not to mention the tragic results of the apparently intentionally genocidal Covid injections.

But how could this happen in America, you ask?

It couldn’t.

While we’re still on the landmass of America, we’re no longer citizens of the Constitutional Republic created by our illustrious Founders. In fact, Benito Biden was actually correct when he called America-loving patriots enemies of the State—that is, patriots stand in opposition to the tyranny the Marxist/globalist oligarchy inflicted on our nation through the coup d’état of 2020.

Of course, in a Communist regime, the leaders can and do often imprison their perceived enemies on fake or trumped up charges, hold them indefinitely, and not infrequently, even murder them.

And in a Communist regime, if the Politburo (in our case, the Dems & pals) want to drastically reduce the population, they starve the peasants.

THE WRITING ON THE WALL

Have you read about the mysterious fires annihilating large food packing plants all over our country? Have you seen the container ships stalled in our harbors with no truckers permitted to load the goods and deliver them as usual? Have you read about Bill Gates buying up a huge percentage of American farmland at fire-sale prices since farmers are being ordered to kill all their cattle, hogs and chickens, and to stop growing their crops, and thus are forced to sell their suddenly unproductive farms?

The disaster awaiting us may still be invisible to many, as we can still shop at Publix or Safeway or Trader Joe’s, though some items are missing and prices are skyrocketing. Today, in one of our local SF Bay Area “upscale” grocery stores, a single Hass avocado goes for $4.99, as does a head of lettuce; a loaf of multigrain bread costs $7.99. Enough Pacific salmon to feed four people clocks in at $70, and price increases are the norm across the board.

Worse yet, Pacific Gas & Electric, California’s hated utility monopoly, raised the price of gas in our utility bills to nearly double—now over $2 per therm. And for those of us clinging to our gas-fueled cars, we’re lucky to find gas in California for under $7 a gallon. How does this bode for the future? How will the working and middle classes feed and support their families?

Decades ago there was already talk of future “third-worldization” in store for America. The global elites’ plan for their One World Government calls for the end of sovereign nations—especially any nation dedicated to liberty and enjoying prosperity. That’s partly what Agenda 21/ Agenda 2030— the U.N.’s version of Build Back Better and the WEF’s Great Reset—are all about. Actually, these are all names for the same “Programme” as the U.N. calls its dystopian plans.

America has all along been the jewel in the crown—the sought-after prize of the psychopathic elites. She’s now imprisoned along with the January 6th patriots rotting in that filthy D.C. jail. It isn’t hard to read the writing on the wall to figure out what happens if we do nothing. The wild card is what happens as we endeavor to take our country back, bit by bit. At this stage, every victory, no matter how small, matters. For we are not only fighting for America, we’re also taking our personal stands in what is surely an epic battle—perhaps the epic battle—between good and evil that is rapidly intensifying before our very eyes.

© 2022 Cherie Zaslawsky – All Rights Reserved

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