“The Judge Is Correct!”

SEPTEMBER 30, 2022 BY SCOTT JOHNSON at Power Line

THE STAR TRIBUNE JUDGES JUDGE GUTHMANN

A week ago Ramsey County District Judge John Guthmann called out the Star Tribune by name in  a press release he authorized regarding the Feeding Our Future case. This is the key passage bearing on the Star Tribune:

On February 26, 2022, the Star Tribune reported on a federal investigation of FOF. The article included the following false statement: “In April 2021, Ramsey County District Judge John Guthmann told the department it didn’t have the authority to stop payments and ordered the department to resume payments.” Since February, that Star Tribune quote has been repeated or paraphrased on many occasions by many other media outlets. The same media sources reported that, in her April 4, 2022, testimony to the Minnesota Senate, the Commissioner of the Education stated that the MN Department of Education tried to stop payments to FOF, only to be ordered by Judge Guthmann to resume payments. That is false. Then, when federal indictments were announced this week, many new reports were published. On September 22, 2022, Governor Tim Walz told the media that the Minnesota Department of Education attempted to end payments to FOF because of possible fraud, but that Judge Guthmann ordered payments to continue in April 2021. That is also false.

As the public court record and Judge Guthmann’s orders make plain, Judge Guthmann never issued an order requiring the MN Department of Education to resume food reimbursement payments to FOF. The Department of Education voluntarily resumed payments and informed the court that FOF resolved the “serious deficiencies” that prompted it to suspend payments temporarily. All of the MN Department of Education food reimbursement payments to FOF were made voluntarily, without any court order.

In stories published over the past week — here (by Kelly Smith and Jeffrey Meitrodt, September 23), here (by Jeffrey Meitrodt, September 26), and here (by Kelly Smith and Stephen Montemayor, September 27) — Star Tribune reporters have taken up the issue as though they weren’t a party to it, dealt with it inadequately, and muddied the waters.

No one has responded on behalf of the Star Tribune as an institution. All in all, a pathetic display.

Today the Star Tribune takes up the issue in the editorial “Hungering for clarity after food fraud.” Citing Governor Tim Walz’s outburst calling for an investigation of the judge that was the proximate cause of Judge Guthmann’s statement, the editors write:

That outburst inspired a belated pushback from the judge, who promptly issued a formal statement calling the governor’s remarks, MDE statements and media reports about his order “false.”

One would never know that the judge’ press release called out the Star Tribune for being the progenitor of the false statement. Again, one would not know that the Star Tribune is a party to the issue. The editorial nevertheless proceeds to adjudicate the issue and find that Judge Guthmann was correct before muddying the waters:

The judge is correct; he did not formally issue an order for MDE to resume payment. MDE’s suspension of reimbursements to FOF was not the question before the judge on April 21, 2021. That hearing concerned only a separate FOF complaint about delays in MDE’s approval or rejection of its applications for new distribution sites.

David Schultz, a Hamline and University of Minnesota professor and political observer who reviewed but is not involved in the case, told an editorial writer that it looked like a classic administrative law case in which lawsuits are filed to force government agencies to issue permits or licenses or, in this case, approve partner sites promptly.

“I don’t see anything that says the court compelled MDE to resume payments,” he said.

In recent days, Walz and MDE retreated from their claim that Guthmann formally ordered payments. Still, as recently as Tuesday, Ellison asserted in a WCCO Radio interview that the court “ordered payment.” On Wednesday, a spokesman from his office told an editorial writer that if Ellison called the judge’s action an order, he misspoke.

Longtime observers of state government struggle to recall a precedent for this kind of blunt contradiction on an important factual point among senior public officials. It’s the type of blunder that threatens to further undermine public confidence in the ability of government to oversee and distribute taxpayer dollars properly. The allegation that criminals can defraud a well-intended public relief program for the poor is damaging enough.

It’s true that during the oral argument at the much-discussed hearing, FOF pressed the reimbursement issue. It’s also correct that transcripts show the judge’s skepticism about MDE’s legal justification for stopping payment. But he made it clear that FOF would have to file a separate complaint that would have to be separately litigated for him to rule on the payments issue. He later ruled against MDE only on the application decision delays.

Judge Guthmann is correct. The Star Tribune got it wrong. The error was large and consequential, though the Star Tribune has yet to acknowledge the error directly or to answer for it. On this point they are in the company of Walz and Ellison, who are at least frankly political players.

The editorial doesn’t stop there. It continues:

Former [Ed.: DFL] Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner, who also isn’t involved in the case, told a Star Tribune reporter this week that although there was no formal order from the judge, she could see why MDE could take Guthmann’s comments during the hearing to mean that the agency would be hard-pressed to stop payments.

“The bottom line is that Judge Guthmann did not order them to continue payments. At the same time, it is understandable why the Department of Education felt like they had to continue paying,” Gaertner said. “A fair reading of the federal regulations seemed to require it, and more importantly though, they had to feel constrained to not in any way interfere with the FBI investigation.”

By the time the question of the payments again came before Guthmann, MDE had voluntarily resumed dispensing large sums to FOF rather than continuing to fight the legal battle. Ellison and MDE have said they feared tipping off FOF to the existence of the FBI probe that MDE’s concerns had by then inspired. The attorney general continues to point out, correctly, that it was MDE and the state that initially blew the whistle on FOF and worked with the feds to secure the indictments.

Still, MDE leaders acknowledged to the Star Tribune in May that, had they required extensive receipts and other paperwork, they may have been able to end the department’s relationship with FOF.

Why the decision was made to continue the payments and why stronger state oversight wasn’t in place are among the critical unanswered questions in this tangled affair. Minnesotans deserve answers to those questions — and accurate, clear communication from their elected officials.

There is much more that could be said, but I will leave it at this. In its call for “answers” to critical questions and for “accurate, clear communications,” the Star Tribune should be invited to look in the damned mirror.

“CALIFORNIA WE WON’T COME”

SEPTEMBER 30, 2022 BY STEVEN HAYWARD at Power Line:

CALIFORNIA DIDN’T GET THE MEMO

California apparently didn’t get the Biden Administration memo about the good news of falling gasoline prices. Here’s the price chart for my local gas station on Monday:

And here’s the same station today:

(Fortunately, I drive two diesel cars, which both get better mileage than equivalent gasoline cars.)

I asked the station manager about it, and he told me their wholesale supplier has hiked prices *four times* this week. I don’t know if there is a refinery down somewhere, but California’s unique gasoline requirements (California can’t import gasoline used in any other state—we insist on having our own bespoke gasoline blend for no good reason) is a prime culprit in the matter.

I recall once asking Arthur Laffer why California is governed so badly. His response: “That’s like asking why pretty girls are mean: because they can.” Of course, a lot of mean pretty girls age badly and become fat, ugly, and unmarried. Sort of like California government these days.

“The truth is that the verse you are teaching is contradicted by other verses in the Quran”.

September 30, 2022

Islam: The Omitted Verses

By Allan J. Favish at American Thinker:

I have a son in the seventh grade in the William S. Hart Union High School District in Santa Clarita, California.  I hope that I don’t have to spend my golden years deprogramming my son from false information being conveyed by the schools.  I am trying to avoid this by keeping informed about what the schools are teaching.

My son told me that he is being taught about Islam in his history class.  He said that he was taught that a verse in the Quran numbered 2:256 states: “Let there be no compulsion in religion, for the truth stands out clearly from falsehood.”  My son told me that he was not taught about any other verses of the Quran which contradict verse 2:256.

I sent an email to my son’s history teacher stating that my son is not being taught about the contradictory verses, several of which I quoted.  Verse 8:38 states: “Tell the disbelievers that if they desist, their past will be forgiven.  But if they persist, then they have an example in those destroyed before them.”  Verse 9:29 states: “Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day, nor comply with what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, nor embrace the religion of truth from among those who were given the Scripture, until they pay the tax, willingly submitting, fully humbled.”  Verse 9:33 states: “He is the One Who has sent His Messenger with true guidance and the religion of truth, making it prevail over all others, even to the dismay of the polytheists.”

I explained in my email that there is debate among scholars about whether the more totalitarian and violent verses of the Quran abrogate the more tolerant verses of the Quran. The Quran itself sets forth the doctrine of abrogation, whereby the chronologically later verses of the Quran abrogate earlier verses which are contradictory.  The earlier and more tolerant verses were written when Muhammad was in Mecca and without a powerful army.  The later and more totalitarian and violent verses were written when Muhammad was in Medina and had gathered a powerful army.

I further stated that although it appears that the more totalitarian and violent verses take precedence, we do not need to wait until that debate is resolved to properly teach our children about Islam.  The very fact that the more totalitarian and violent verses exist is sufficient reason to teach them to our children.  It is even more important to teach the more totalitarian and violent verses with the more tolerant verses given that the more totalitarian and violent verses may take precedence over the more tolerant verses,

I assured my son’s history teacher that I am not blaming him because I assume that he did not design the curriculum.  I also stated:

The children should be taught the truth.  The truth is that the verse you are teaching is contradicted by other verses in the Quran.  You are not teaching the contradictory verses.  To be taught the truth, the children need to be taught about the contradictory verses.  They also need to be taught about the rule of abrogation in Quranic interpretation, and at the very least, taught that there is a scholarly debate about how it applies.  In the most favorable light Islam is a contradictory mess that has justification for totalitarian violence and for peaceful coexistence.  In the most unfavorable light, it is a doctrine of totalitarian violence with Islam reigning supreme.  If the children are to be taught about Islam, they need to learn all of the facts.  Anything less is indoctrination in a false version of Islam.

In his reply, my son’s history teacher stated:

Thank you for the insight on this.  Since our current history textbooks are pretty outdated and do not provide many supplemental materials, I got this assignment from the University [sic] California Irvine History Project.  The UCI History Project provides lessons aligned with the California state standards for K-12 students in California.  Our district is currently in the process of selecting a new 7th grade history textbook and if approved by the school board, we will start using it next school year.

The UCI History Project includes a section entitled 7th Grade Curriculum Resources that has a subsection entitled Spread of Islam, Primary Source Set: “How did Islam spread to multiple cultures?” that is in a downloadable Microsoft Word document.  In this subsection on page 3 it quotes the “no compulsion in religion” language from Quran 2:256.  There is no quotation from the contradictory verses.

There is a citation to “The Islam Project” and a defective link to the project.  The correct link is www.theislamproject.org and in a subsection of that website it states:

The Qur’an specifies, “Let there be no compulsion in religion” (2:256).  This verse states that no person can ever be forced to accept religion against their will.  It tells Muslims never to force people to convert to Islam.  Anyone who accepts Islam under pressure might not be sincere, and conversion in name only is useless to them, and harmful to members of the faith community.

Prophet Muhammad set a precedent as the leader of Madinah.  Under his leadership, the Muslims practiced tolerance towards those of other religions.  They were parties to the Constitution of Madinah and to treaties with the Muslims, discussing religious ideas with the Jews, Christians and polytheists (believers in many gods).  The Qur’an records some of the questions that they put to Muhammad about Islam.  Later Muslim leaders were required to be tolerant, based on the authority of both the Qur’an (in this and many other verses), and the Sunnah, or example of Muhammad.  With few exceptions, Muslim leaders have adhered to it over time.

The Islam Project does not provide any of the Quran verses which are contradictory to verse 2:256.

I expect that I will be working as many hours during my son’s school years preventing him from needing deprogramming,.  I can’t replace the time I am losing and will continue to lose.  But I will lose the time, because I will never lose my son.

Allan J. Favish is an attorney in Los Angeles.  His website is allanfavish.com.  James Fernald and Mr. Favish have co-authored a book about what might happen if the government ran Disneyland, titled  Fireworks!

The Lefty World Of LIZ TRUSS Rises In London

 SEPTEMBER 29, 2022 BY JOHN HINDERAKER at Power Line:

ET TU, IMF?

Conservative electoral victories across Europe have the continent’s left-wing establishment nervous. New British Prime Minister Liz Truss and her chancellor have announced a program of tax cuts intended to incentivize growth in Britain’s economy. Who knows? It has worked before, it may work again.

But the International Monetary Fund isn’t waiting to find out. It demands that the U.K. change its announced policy to conform to liberal norms. The Telegraph reports:

The International Monetary Fund has urged Liz Truss to reverse the decision to abolish the top rate of income tax, in a highly unusual attack on the economic policy of a G7 country.
***
The IMF said it was “closely monitoring recent economic developments in the UK and are engaged with the authorities” and warned that the fiscal stimulus risked undermining the Bank of England’s efforts to curb inflation.
***
A spokesman for the Washington DC-based organisation said Mr Kwarteng’s announcement in November would “present an early opportunity for the UK Government to consider ways to provide support that is more targeted and reevaluate the tax measures, especially those that benefit high-income earners”.

It is an extremely rare intervention by the IMF over a developed country’s economic policy.

Extremely rare indeed. The IMF’s stated concern is that cutting currently-exorbitant taxes on high earners will increase Britain’s budget deficit. But the Truss administration has announced a number of proposed tax cuts, of which this is just one. So why single it out? Also, if deficits are the issue, how about spending restraint? The IMF could have said (if it was determined to intervene in British politics) that the tax cuts need to be balanced by spending cuts. But that isn’t what happened. The IMF was sticking up for liberal policies, not for fiscal responsibility.

One might also note that the IMF had no apparent problem with our own government’s shoveling trillions of dollars in borrowed money out the door under the flimsy pretext of covid relief.

The IMF move drew an angry reaction from senior Tories on Tuesday night. Lord Frost, the former Brexit minister and an ally of Ms Truss, told The Telegraph: “The IMF has consistently advocated highly conventional economic policies. It is following this approach that has produced years of slow growth and weak productivity.

“The only way forward for Britain is lower taxes, spending restraint, and significant economic reform. Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng are rightly focused on delivering this and they should tune out the criticism from those who are still in the intellectual world of Gordon Brown.”

Well put. The IMF is one cog in a left-wing international establishment that constantly has its thumb on the scale in favor of liberal policies that don’t work for the majority, but that enrich the left-wing international establishment. That basic fact explains much of what goes on in contemporary politics.

The Ivy League? America’s Fascist Cancer Corps!?

SEPTEMBER 29, 2022 BY STEVEN HAYWARD at Power Line:

THE DAILY CHART: BREAK UP THE IVY LEAGUE?

What if we applied anti-trust principles against concentration in industry and market collusion to higher education? We might very well conclude that the ivy league should be broken up. The figure below, from Nature magazine, shows that a tiny handful of universities produce the large majority of college professors today. What this means for intellectual diversity, and the competition of ideas and methodologies, is pretty clear, since most academic departments at elite universities mimic one another, never mind the left ideological conformity that is hardening further every day.

Getting To Know Dem Minnesota Better!

SEPTEMBER 29, 2022 BY SCOTT JOHNSON IN CRIME, FBI, MEDIA, MINNESOTA

IN FREE LUNCH FRAUD: ANALYZE THIS

I’m scheduled to join Jon Justice on KTLK this morning at about 8:35 to discuss the massive $250 million free lunch fraud. The $250 million represents the payment of federal funds administered by the Minnesota Department of Education. The show can be live streamed here. I want to compile related materials for listeners in this post.

United States Attorney Andrew Luger announced charges against 47 defendants in six indictments and three criminal informations at a press conference on September 20 (video below). Two additional defendants have been charged since then.

Luger presented the factual background with illustrative exhibits at the press conference. At the same time the Department of Justice issued this press release summarizing the charges and posted PDFs of the indictments online. The indictment of ringleader Aimee Bock and 13 other defendants, for example, is posted here. The press release includes Luger’s salient quote: “This was a brazen scheme of staggering proportions.” The emphasis should be on “brazen.”

The Minnesota Department of Education administered the free lunch programs in which the funds were paid out to perpetrators of the fraud. Some $200 million of the funds were paid out in 2021 after the MDE had detected the fraud. Aided and abetted by the Star Tribune, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison have sought to shift the blame for the continuing payments to Ramsey County Judge John Guthmann and to the FBI. Indeed, Governor Walz called for an investigation of Judge Guthmann. Judge Guthmann responded this past Thursday in this press release that called out both Walz and the Star Tribune. The key document supporting Judge Guthmann’s press release is the transcript of the April 21, 2021 hearing before him in the lawsuit brought by Feeding Our Future against MDE. This is the key passage of the press release:

[T]he Department of Education voluntarily resumed making payments to FOF. The Department of Education was not ordered by the court to do so. After the Department resumed voluntary payments, counsel for the Department of Education wrote the court asking that FOF’s motion for sanctions based on non-payment be denied as moot because the Department voluntarily resumed payments. In a later court filing related to FOF’s separate motion for sanctions based on the failure to approve or deny 144 applications for new food delivery sites, the Department of Education advised the court that FOF’s serious deficiencies were resolved as of June 4, 2021. Of the 144 applications, 143 were denied, resulting in FOF’s separate administrative appeal.

On February 26, 2022, the Star Tribune reported on a federal investigation of FOF. The article included the following false statement: “In April 2021, Ramsey County District Judge John Guthmann told the department it didn’t have the authority to stop payments and ordered the department to resume payments.” Since February, that Star Tribune quote has been repeated or paraphrased on many occasions by many other media outlets. The same media sources reported that, in her April 4, 2022, testimony to the Minnesota Senate, the Commissioner of the Education stated that the MN Department of Education tried to stop payments to FOF, only to be ordered by Judge Guthmann to resume payments. That is false. Then, when federal indictments were announced this week, many new reports were published. On September 22, 2022, Governor Tim Walz told the media that the Minnesota Department of Education attempted to end payments to FOF because of possible fraud, but that Judge Guthmann ordered payments to continue in April 2021. That is also false.

As the public court record and Judge Guthmann’s orders make plain, Judge Guthmann never issued an order requiring the MN Department of Education to resume food reimbursement payments to FOF. The Department of Education voluntarily resumed payments and informed the court that FOF resolved the “serious deficiencies” that prompted it to suspend payments temporarily. All of the MN Department of Education food reimbursement payments to FOF were made voluntarily, without any court order.

On Tuesday morning Ellison submitted to an interview by WCCO’s Vineeta Sawkar (audio below). You can feel the flop sweat break out on Ellison’s forehead as Sawkar ever so slightly pressed him on his nonfeasance in shutting down the fraud. Citing Ellison’s own timeline on the scandal, she asked who knew what when. (Ellison’s timeline links to the 66-page affidavit of FBI Special Agent Travis Wilmer supporting the search warrants that were executed all over the Twin Cities in January.)

Responding to Sawkar, Ellison hemmed and hawed, pleaded attorney-client privilege, referred to cooperation with the FBI investigation, and repeatedly alleged compulsion by Judge Guthmann’s mythical “order” to continue payments. Ellison proclaimed at 13:30 of the audio clip: “This is a success story.”

https://omny.fm/shows/the-morning-news-with-vineeta-sawkar/attorney-general-keith-ellison-discusses-who-knew/embed

Question Ahead!

September 29, 2022

DeSantis: MAGA Understudy or Saboteur?

By Brian Parsons at American Thinker:

Since my foray into politics, I have come to understand that our system comprises insiders and outsiders and that Donald Trump was the consummate outsider.  He was opposed by the system on both sides of the political aisle.  Admittedly, I counted myself amongst the opposition. It was only when faced with a choice of yet another Clinton, whom we were told held a 95% chance of victory, that I felt a throw-away vote for Trump was in order. To my surprise, the bastard actually won. He wasn’t supposed to win.

Having come up through the ranks of the Ron Paul Revolution, I was keenly aware of a system whose entire existence is to perpetuate itself.  Politics has been referred to as theater, and I would consider that an accurate description.  As in theater, politics employs playwrights, directors, actors, stage managers, set designers, etc. We call them by different names, campaign managers, consultants, pollsters, activists, and politicians themselves. The goal of telling a story and arriving at a predetermined resolution aligns.  Nothing is happenstance.

In 2012, Mitt Romney was a made man.  Before he ever declared his candidacy, he was crowned the frontrunner by a captured press. They sold the public on the foregone conclusion that an LDS candidate from deep blue Massachusetts was the most electable candidate in the deep red Bible belt.  Having squeaked Romney through the 2012 primaries, the party went out of their way to deny the insurgent Ron Paul a speaking opportunity at the Tampa convention that he had earned utilizing a legitimate delegate acquisition strategy. Then they went out of their way to ensure that it never happens again by changing the game’s rules.  It’s not all that different from what both parties are doing now by trying to change Electoral Act loopholes that Mike Pence claimed didn’t exist in January 2021. 

Similarly, Hillary Clinton was a made woman in 2016.  It wasn’t until the contents of her leaked emails and in former DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile’s book, Hacks, that we were made aware of an arrangement to trade the party’s presidential nomination for paying off the DNC’s debts. Favorability extended beyond press coverage and went as far as burying Bernie Sanders’ insurgent campaign. They also notoriously preloaded the Clinton campaign with debate content.

It’s difficult to wrap one’s mind around what happened in 2020, but the post-mortem all but gives up the jig. There is little question that Joe Biden is in the sunset years of his career, and to suggest that his mind and speech are dulled would be an understatement.  While Donald Trump performed two and three stadium-filling campaign stops daily, Biden called a lid by lunch after speaking to a handful of unenthusiastic voters in chalk-outlined COVID circles.  Without rehashing the totality of the carnage to follow the election, the results belie the statistical probabilities and don’t match the electoral patterns we’ve established for 245 years.  Then the insiders gave us an outline of how they made Biden President in Time magazine. Joe Biden was a made man.

If politics is theater, then Washington, D.C. is Broadway.  It is the pinnacle of political destinations.  It demands the highest-paid actors, and its sponsors demand the largest returns.  It is because of this that the casting of the leading role is so tightly controlled.  To understand who the chosen lead is, merely look at who gets the airtime.  Who is sold to the public by corporate donors as the best person for the role?  In 2012, it was Mitt Romney.  In 2016, it was Hillary Clinton.  In 2020, it was Joe Biden.  Who will it be in 2024?

If I’m a betting man, Ron DeSantis stands unopposed.  Despite seven governors rejecting COVID lockdowns, it was DeSantis alone as the model for COVID response, even though DeSantis did issue lockdowns.  Despite seven governors banning indoctrination in the classroom, DeSantis received the bulk of the airtime with a phony “Don’t Say Gay” campaign.  Despite twenty-five U.S. states allowing the permitless carry of firearms, Florida still does not.   Despite abortion being all but banned in twelve conservative states, the best DeSantis mustered was fifteen weeks. When it came time to tackle immigration, DeSantis was left borrowing from Texas’ border to grab headlines in Martha’s Vineyard.

DeSantis’ red flags are harder to find than most, but there are a few head-scratchers.  At a time when conservatives are pushing back against a totalitarian, global climate agenda, DeSantis established Florida’s first Chief Resiliency Office to tackle climate change.  His first appointee was Julia Nesheiwat, a member of both the World Economic Forum, as well as the Council on Foreign Relations.  In addition, DeSantis signed climate resilience legislation that was strongly promoted by left-wing insurance lobby Zurich Advocacy and the World Economic Forum.  The same organization was happy to announce its presence at DeSantis’ inauguration. For a guy who likes to rail on Davos, passing Davos-inspired legislation and hiring their people raises some eyebrows.

DeSantis is not a foreigner to the good old boys’ club either, having come up through the Ivy Leagues at Yale and Harvard.  He was a standout baseball player at Yale, as was our forty-first President George H.W. Bush, whom their field is named after. DeSantis was also a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity at Yale, just as notable members George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh were. For a fraternal organization, that’s an impressive list of notable Republican membership. 

In a conversation about MAGA politics, DeSantis is the lone heir apparent of the MAGA movement in rhetoric and airtime.  While his good looks, charisma, and forthright temperament make him an attractive choice for the lead role as President of the United States, his résumé takes a backseat to the publicity.  A deeper dive into the casting crew raises eyebrows as well.  To date, DeSantis has raised more than $142 million for a statewide race, largely from a small but wealthy national insider audience.  Speaking of a national audience, it cannot be discounted that every time Trump endorsed a Republican primary candidate around the country, DeSantis has shown up to speak on their behalf and co-opt the MAGA brand while remaining at arms-length from Trump himself.

The RNC would give everything in its arsenal to quash the MAGA brand.  They already have.  This is a playbook that we’ve seen before when the RNC set out to shut down the Tea Party movement of the early 2010s.  They stuffed the movement full of phonies like Scott Brown and Pat Toomey so that they might steer the ship of American conservatism in their own moderate direction. They were successful.

Suppose Ron DeSantis is a legitimate heir to the MAGA movement. In that case, I see one of only two options moving forward: Donald Trump declines to carry the torch forward, maybe out of age or tiring from the unending harassment from the D.C. regime, and passes the torch to Ron DeSantis. Donald Trump carries the torch he lit, and DeSantis gets in line, preparing for twelve years of MAGA dominance.  In politics, as in theater, nothing is happenstance.

This America Is A Society Of…?

Dennis Prager: Parental Authority is the Basis of Civilization

Parental Authority is the Basis of Civilization

Parental Authority is the Basis of Civilization – The StreamThis is a society that has taken as a given that there are more than two sexes; that has Jewish and Christian clergy sign emails with “preferred pronouns”; that will praise the Disney Corporation for dropping all references to “boys and girls” from its theme park announcements.stream.org

[…]This is a society that robs its youngest of sexual innocence. Teachers — nearly all of them women, the sex that society has always regarded as the natural guardians of sexual innocence — now routinely sexualize young people with discussions of sexual behavior and by having drag queens perform for them.

This is a society that has taken as a given that there are more than two sexes; that has Jewish and Christian clergy sign emails with “preferred pronouns”; that will praise the Disney Corporation for dropping all references to “boys and girls” from its theme park announcements.

This is a society in which refusing to say that men give birth can lead to social banning and the loss of one’s job and income.

This is a society that encourages violent crime. It elects prosecutors who allow violent criminals to avoid having to pay bail. Its elites advocate defunding police. It keeps raising the dollar amount of stolen goods that constitutes a felony. In short, America is now a society in which the dominant message to would-be criminals is that crime pays.

This is a society in which fewer and fewer young people are marrying, fewer are having children, and more are having children without being married, usually without a father in the life of the child.

This all began with the demise of moral authority — and moral, social and intellectual chaos is the inevitable result. . .

[ . . .]

Today, elementary schools and high schools work to diminish all parental authority. The most obvious example is hiding from parents that their 10-year-old says he or she is not their biological sex. And should a parent tell his or her 10-year-old, “This is not so, you were born a boy and you are a boy” or “You were born a girl and you are a girl,” those parents run the risk of having the child taken away from them, not to mention severe condemnation from doctors, psychotherapists and social workers.

One result of the breakdown of parental authority is that we probably have more child-parent alienation than at any time in American history. There are millions of parents whose adult child will not talk to them — many of them because of the way the parent voted (if the parent voted for former President Donald Trump, not if the parent voted for Hillary Clinton or President Joe Biden).

The bottom line is this: when parents don’t rule the home, chaos will rule society. And chaos always breeds tyranny. So, the choice is stark — either we have strong parents, or we will have a strong state.

(Article sent by Mark Waldeland.)

Will The GREAT DEPRESSION Capture America AGAIN?

 SEPTEMBER 28, 2022 BY JOHN HINDERAKER at Power Line:

MISTER, CAN YOU SPARE A DIME?

Times are tough, although the elites that run our country probably haven’t noticed. But for most of us, the rising costs of gasoline, electricity, manufactured goods and groceries, along with a decline in the value of our savings and the prospect of paying for trillions in new federal deficits, are alarming.

How worried are Americans? This worried: Rasmussen finds that 57% of Americans are expecting a depression:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 57% of American Adults believe it’s likely that, over the next few years, the United States will enter a 1930s-like Depression, including 21% who think a depression is Very Likely. Thirty-two percent (32%) don’t think a depression is likely, and another 12% are not sure.

You might think that those who believe a depression is likely are alarmist, and, as an inveterate optimist, that would normally be my view. But with the most incompetent, out of control, and downright anti-American administration in history holding the reins, anything could happen. Especially if our government continues to pursue a grotesque vision of wind and solar energy powering our economy. That will never happen, but a serious effort to make it happen could indeed result in a 1930s-style depression, or worse.

Still, to look on the bright side, it is hard to imagine the Democratic Party faring well in November if more than half of Americans think the Democrats’ policies have led us to the brink of a depression.

“President Trump has offered to negotiate a peace deal to end the conflict between Ukraine and Russia”.

September 29, 2022

President Trump offers to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine

By Olivia Murray at American Thinker:

Although I still harbor serious concerns about some of President Trump’s actions — primarily his promotion of the jab — I can’t help but love his uncanny ability to subjugate his political persecutors and opponents, many of whom are half his age. He’s earned a reputation for being a “master troll” — and his latest offer proves the moniker isn’t a fallacy.

But not only that, it also illustrates that his political acumen remains unparalleled in the modern era: President Trump has offered to negotiate a peace deal to end the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

In just one, brief post to Truth Social, President Trump painted the political establishment into a corner when he referenced the hostilities and said, “Both sides need and want it [peace deal]. The entire World is at stake. I will head up group???”

There are several facets to this, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll only expound upon a few.

Since February of this year, when the most recent round of Russia-Ukraine hostilities kicked off, the entire political left has united behind a Ukraine under Russian assault. Mainstream media dutifully focused their spotlights on stories of bombed-out maternity wards and murdered children; Hollywood elites like Sean Penn and Ben Stiller travelled to Kiev and brought Zelensky into the fold of stardom; and Congress hosted the embattled president before a joint session, and as of last month, has gifted him over $54 billion from the American citizenry’s treasury.

Undoubtedly, the role of Hollywood and the media was to garner public support for the massive transfer of wealth from hard-working Americans into the hands of Ukraine and beyond. It’s no secret that Ukraine is a blackhole of corruption — anyone remember Hunter Biden and Burisma? — even the Inspector General charged with ensuring the money was used for war efforts wasn’t sure where it all went.

Regardless, they all made the case: ‘Ukraine is a hellscape, you can’t put a price on humanity, we must do whatever it takes to secure peace’ — and therefore, sending billions of dollars to a foreign country was justified.

On the surface, Trump’s proposal is a perfectly executed troll job. Given the circumstances and the narrative created by operatives on the left (peace at any cost), turning down offers of diplomacy (especially from someone who also possess an uncanny ability to negotiate peace) is unlikely to be viewed favorably by a vast majority of Americans, less than a month and a half before the mid-terms — but of course, we already know that’s what they’re going to do. He just threw the Democrats more rope to hang themselves, and from that, we all benefit.

Secondly, trolling as masterfully as Trump is in itself, political wizardry. His post ended with question marks, the ball is in their court. The burden is on them — the warmongers in Congress and the White House — to either turn down the help of a man who has real world experience and success securing peace between countries with historic animosity, in the context of a narrative they created, or allow for the brokering of a truce, relieving global stressors. Of course, peace isn’t really the goal though, and President Trump just magnificently exposed that.

Us conservatives have been through a lot, but watching Trump take low-rent internet trolling to a level of such artistic form is glorious. There’s something so beautiful about watching our Commander-in-Chief remain steadfast in his posture against the political establishment — have we ever had a president who really stuck up for us?

The national fabric so distinctly unique to the American character is largely due to the giants among men so prevalent during America’s founding era. Although fallible and finite, these men were providentially used to birth a new nation, one conceived in radical liberty and founded upon the sacredness of God-given rights. Despite their shortcomings — of which there were many — they still accomplished great things, and President Trump is a kindred spirit.

Image: The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons