A Fond Farewell to Rush Limbaugh
“The day’s gonna come, folks, where I’m not gonna be able to do this. I don’t know when that is. I want to be able to do it for as long as I want to do it and I want you to understand that, even when the day comes, I’d like to be here.” —Rush Limbaugh
Where were you when you heard the sad news about America’s Anchorman? I’d just finished lunch, and I was listening to the radio when Dennis Prager broke the news. For some reason, I just stood there for a couple of minutes. Didn’t move. My eyes welled up. Then I grabbed my phone and checked in with some friends, and I began to think about what we — all of us — had just now lost.
Rush wasn’t a family member, but he sure seemed like it. How many hours had we spent with him over the years? How many times had we said to no one else in our car, You tell ‘em, Rush? How many times had we heard that intro to The Pretenders’ “My City Was Gone” and just started smiling? Heck, we hear it now.
We knew this day was coming, this big, slow-moving freight train of a terminal illness. We had a year to prepare, to steel ourselves, but it didn’t help, did it?
We wrote about Rush last month, just after the holidays, and we marveled at how, even back in 1992, when his Excellence in Broadcasting Network was still in its infancy, Rush had already settled into a groove that would last more than three decades. “The views expressed by the host on this show,” he’d say, “are not necessarily those of the staff, management, nor sponsors of this station, but they oughta be.”
Everyone who remembers the early years of the Clinton administration also remembers the early years of Rush Limbaugh — and also realizes now, more than ever, that none of us are as young as we used to be.
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III was just a man, of course. But he was a larger-than-life man, a force of nature, and the happiest of happy warriors. As Zev Chafets noted in his 2010 biography, he was An Army of One. When the whole world knows you by your first name alone, it means you arrived some time ago.
Rush Limbaugh almost singlehandedly invented talk radio. Think about it: Who was the first person you ever heard talk politics on the radio? Answer: It was either Rush Limbaugh, or you don’t remember. To consider the medium without him is to consider the automobile without Ford, the lightbulb without Edison, the Declaration without Jefferson.
Rush was certainly the first “celebrity” conservative that we’d ever known. But he was a reluctant celebrity. As Patriot Post Founder and Publisher Mark Alexander notes, “Rush was a humble giant and a grassroots Patriot, and his radio success was the earliest inspiration for launching this enterprise. And we continue to fight the Leftmedia’s chokehold on public opinion because Rush Limbaugh led the way. ‘We’re never gonna give up,’ Rush said, ‘We’re not gonna give up on America.’ That was his most foundational and motivational message, and it informed everything else he said over the last 30 years.”
The secret to Rush’s success? “I think I just happen to be saying what a whole lot of people think and don’t have a chance to say themselves.” As for what he said, John Hawkins has pulled together a list of Rush’s 20 greatest quotes — which is, admittedly, a near impossible task covering 30 years of three-hour radio broadcasts.
Ron Locke, our creative director and chief memester, listened to Rush throughout his teenage years. “His masterful deconstruction and refutation of leftist logic with charm and humor saved me from public school indoctrination,” he says. “Rush opened my eyes to America — not the cynical mirage painted by leftists, but the rich vista of our ideas, our heroes, and our heritage. He was a personal hero, and his outsized influence is one of the main reasons I do what I do.”
Our Thomas Gallatin first heard Rush on the radio way back in 1989 while riding with his dad in his old truck on a dusty dirt road in the mountains of Colorado. “At the time,” he recalls, “my father simply said, ‘You gotta listen to this guy.’ And I’ve been listening to him ever since. Rush was a true Patriot, a proud American, and a believer in the power of Liberty, which has served to open wide the doors of hope and opportunity for all. He reminded all of us that America is a special country, the greatest country, because it above all others prizes and celebrates Liberty. I will greatly miss hearing his voice, but I know his legacy lives on.”
Andrew Culper, our social media manager, grew up in a conservative Christian community where, he says, Rush was a staple figure among his parents’ peers. “Over the years I came to know him as the pinnacle pioneer for conservative media that he was,” he says. “Rush was truly one of the most influential figures of our time. He has touched nearly everyone I know, and I am forever grateful for his life and work.”
We here in our humble shop all feel the loss, but only one of us, Managing Editor Nate Jackson, shares the man’s Missouri roots. “I can’t remember exactly when I first heard him,” says Nate, “but as a teen I became a regular viewer of his TV show and loved it. Certainly, over the years, I listened to Rush’s radio show whenever possible, but it wasn’t nearly as often as I’d have liked. Maybe it was being a fellow Missourian, but his humor and insight resonated deeply with me, and I always appreciated his ‘happy warrior’ worldview and approach. Most of all, it was his love of our great country that was infectious. To sum up his legacy for me, there are two men I’d credit with inspiring me to fight for Liberty here at The Patriot Post now for 17 years: My dad and Rush Limbaugh. Godspeed, El Rushbo, and thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
“To every thing there is a season,” said King Solomon, “and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” Now, it seems, is a time to mourn. But one day soon, we’ll set about the task of filling the massive void left by Rush. Perhaps no one understands this better than Mark Steyn, who has guest-hosted for Rush countless times over the years. In a magnificent tribute to his friend and mentor, Steyn calls him “The Indispensable Man.” And to this — this comparison to Washington — Rush no doubt would’ve scoffed. Because that’s who he was.
Steyn covers the enormity of Rush’s impact on both talk radio and conservative thought, and he shares some details about the last days of his good fight: “He stayed on the air until just a fortnight ago — because above all he wanted to keep faith with tens of millions of listeners, many of whom had been listening to him their entire lives and could not imagine a world without him. We are about to find out. I am well aware of the ironies of the headline. My father liked to caution me with the old saw that the graveyard is full of indispensable men. But … Rush remained the Big Voice on the Right, the largest obstacle to the complete marginalization of conservative ideas in our culture. All of us who labored in his shadows owe it to him to continue the fight. To modify Rush’s tag line: Talent returned to God.”
On February 2, the Bee Gees’ hit “Stayin’ Alive” was the bumper music as Rush Limbaugh signed off for the very last time. It was, of course, no coincidence. “Just enough time,” he said, “to say thanks to everybody for being with us today. We gotta get outta here real quickly, because time is slipping away.”
Indeed it is. Thanks for everything, Rush. From all of us. Rest in peace. ~The Patriot Post
Leftmedia Smears Rush After His Passing
While Rush Limbaugh was a man widely admired by conservatives for his God-given ability to effectively articulate their own political perspectives, his greatest detractors, those in both mainstream media and the establishment intelligentsia, could hardly stomach him. Rush was a force they truly couldn’t contend with, so they did their best to belittle him by crafting a false caricature, deriding him as “dangerous,” “bigoted,” “racist,” “sexist,” etc. Of course, Rush took it in stride, often using the personal insults to humorously expose the bankruptcy of the Left’s political and cultural ideology.
It therefore comes as no surprise that news of Limbaugh’s passing served to once again bring out the worst — or as Rush would say, show the true colors — of the leftist political and cultural elites. Here are but a few of the vitriolic statements that have been heaped upon America’s Anchorman.
NPR announced Rush’s death with the following social media message: “Rush Limbaugh has died at the age of 70. The conservative talk radio host was known for propelling Republican candidates and attacking women, Blacks and Latinos.”
The Washington Post’s story asserted that Rush “deployed comic bombast and relentless bashing of liberals, feminists and environmentalists to become the nation’s most popular radio talk-show host and lead the Republican Party into a politics of anger and obstruction.”
According to The New York Times, Rush was a “relentlessly provocative voice of conservative America who dominated talk radio for more than three decades with shooting-gallery attacks on liberals, liar-Democrats, feminists, environmentalists and other moving targets.”
CBS News simply wondered in announcing his death, “Rush Limbaugh, conservative oracle or opportunist?”
CNN’s Brian Stelter called Rush “a conservative media icon whose legacy will always symbolize division.”
Rolling Stone’s headline read: “Rush Limbaugh, Right-Wing Radio Host Who Trafficked in Bigotry and Cruelty, Dead at 70.” The HuffPost’s senior reporter responded with a message on social media: “Rush Limbaugh was a bigot and a misogynist who saturated America’s airwaves with cruel lies and conspiracy theories for decades, transforming the GOP in the process.”
What these headlines and statements serve to prove is one of Rush’s biggest criticisms of what he always called the “Drive-by Media.” They never took the time to actually listen to what he was saying before breathlessly asserting their fallacious talking points, littered with intentional mischaracterizations, and they spread it out there as if it were bona fide fact.
Judging by the massive outpouring of loving tributes from Americans all across the nation, those who really knew the man — because they actually listened to him — know that a great American died yesterday. He was an American who truly deserves honor. His legacy was a continuation of our Founders’ legacy. In the annals of American history, Rush stands tall in the culture war as its greatest defender. Those who hate him only prove the point. ~The Patriot Post
The McConnell v. Trump Dustup
To better understand how the dispute between Donald Trump and now-former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), contemplate how we got here.
Ahead of the 2016 presidential election, I wrote that my vote for Donald Trump was a vote for Mike Pence, who gave the Trump ticket enormous credibility. I believed that a vote for the Trump/Pence ticket would be a vote for our Supreme Court, a vote for national security — standing strong against existential global threats, especially Red China — a vote for securing our borders, and a vote for economic policies that would be based on the principles of free enterprise.
I voted as I always have — as likewise do most grassroots conservatives — first and foremost for American Liberty and the candidate who would abide by his oath “to support and defend” our Constitution, the candidate who would best defend Liberty against the statist leaders of the socialist liar-Democrat Party.
I have always been a policy voter, not a personality voter, and I was certainly not disappointed with the Trump administration’s policies. Trump followed through with his campaign centerpiece commitments — and indeed his success is in large measure due to the political craftsmanship of McConnell.
Despite my considered reservations about Trump at the time of his GOP nomination, what appealed to me most about his emerging leadership style was that he was a bomb dropper. As I wrote shortly after he took office in 2017: “The day he arrived in DC, he dropped a bomb on the status quo in Congress and its special interests. He dropped a bomb on the regulatory behemoths and their bureaucratic bottlenecks. He dropped a bomb on the trade and national security institutions and alliances that failed miserably over the previous eight years. And he dropped a bomb on all the pundits and mainstream media outlets.”
That resonated with me and tens of millions of grassroots Americans who were, and remain, fed up with the Beltway status quo. The Republican Party’s conservative base was, and remains, Trump’s base, devoted to what he endeavored to accomplish.
A quick review of what we have written over Trump’s four years in office reveals aggressive and thoughtful support of his administration’s policies. You will also find the occasional well-reasoned criticism — most notably of Trump’s unmitigated ability to undermine his administration’s agenda, primarily with reckless and chaotic communication. I believe that chaotic communication during the ChiCom Virus pandemic largely accounted for his failure to win reelection — that combined with the Left’s massive bulk-mail ballot fraud.
Fast-forward to the disgraceful Capitol riot on 06 January. I have strongly rejected claims that anything Trump said that day is responsible for “inciting” a riot. I believe that the fringe fraction of 1% of “Trump supporters” who resorted to the riotous thuggery were, in fact, “Trump wreckers.”
But in the context of all Trump had claimed since the election, it is no stretch to suggest that context attracted the deranged and fringe personality-cult elements who invaded the Capitol after his remarks that fateful day. Their narcissistic lack of self-awareness has done more to undermine the long list of Trump administration policy successes and advance the leftist agenda than anything liar-Democrats could have hoped to achieve.
Nothing Trump said that day justified the scumbag/liar-Pelosi/ scumbag/liar-Schumer impeachment charade, a theatrical farce. But as I mentioned to our team, Trump’s references to Mike Pence were disgraceful. Moreover, I was far more concerned about what Trump did not say and do as his team was updating him real time on the Capitol violence — nothing.
In his 1.5-minute statement hours after the riot started, Trump could not suppress mentioning the claims that inflamed the revolting outliers: “We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side. … There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us. From me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election.” He concluded, “We love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home, and go home in peace.”
Moments later Trump reiterated on social media, “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly and unfairly treated for so long.”
It was a week later that Trump finally denounced the violence, saying: “Mob violence goes against everything I believe in and everything our movement stands for. No true supporter of mine could truly endorse political violence. No true supporter of mine could ever disrespect law enforcement or our great American flag. No true supporter of mine could ever threaten or harass their fellow Americans. If you do any of these things, you are not supporting our movement. You are attacking it and you are attacking our country.”
But that was too little and much too late to contain the enormous political damage done to his administration’s legacy — and by extension to every one of us who have supported him for the last four years.
For the record, regardless of what Trump said on 06 January, it is the riotous Capitol jackasses, and other fringe elements across the nation that identify with their actions, who are directly to blame for the damage inflicted on all conservatives. But Trump’s “stolen election” protests were, and will remain, irrevocably tied to the Capitol riot, and by extension all of us who have supported him. As seasoned conservative political analyst Paul Mirengoff observed, “This impeachment was not a ‘witch hunt,’” as Trump claimed.
Arguably, the most effective and loyal of all Trump’s supporters was now-former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. It was McConnell who masterfully paved the way for Trump’s Supreme Court appointments before Trump was even the nominee in 2016, and he laid the groundwork for virtually all of Trump’s legislative policy agenda over the last four years, including his enormous tax cut bill.
And it is McConnell who is paying the highest political price for that support in the wake of the riots — and that is what erupted in the heated and probably irreconcilable dispute between McConnell and Trump this week.
After Trump was acquitted on 13 February, McConnell, who voted against conviction on the grounds that impeaching a former president was outside the bounds of the Constitution, then castigated Trump for his months of highly charged “stolen election” claims that preceded the Capitol riot. McConnell followed that with a Wall Street Journal op-ed summarizing his Senate floor remarks: “His supporters stormed the Capitol because of the unhinged falsehoods he shouted into the world’s largest megaphone. His behavior during and after the chaos was also unconscionable, from attacking Vice President Mike Pence during the riot to praising the criminals after it ended.”
Of course, Trump fired back with guns blazing: “The Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political ‘leaders’ like Sen. Mitch McConnell at its helm. McConnell’s dedication to business as usual, status quo policies, together with his lack of political insight, wisdom, skill and personality, has rapidly driven him from Majority Leader to Minority Leader, and it will only get worse.”
Some are accusing McConnell of “betraying Trump” once he left office. However, I do NOT believe that McConnell has changed his views on Trump — I believe he did his best to advance the conservative agenda in the Senate DESPITE the obstacles Trump created, primarily with his chaotic communications, which were indisputably and irreparably destructive to his own presidency and agenda. I would add that though Trump blamed McConnell for the “Georgia disaster” and losing the Senate majority, few Republicans on the ground in Georgia would agree. Trump’s inability to motivate his base in Georgia, demoralizing them with election-fraud claims, is what cost the Senate majority.
The current dustup notwithstanding, the real issue with McConnell and the Senate ahead of the midterm elections is that it is time to pass the gavel to the next generation of younger and more dynamic Senate Republicans, as the House has done.
Moving forward, the real proof of who Donald Trump is will be reflected in his support for qualified Republican candidates who can win in states he won in 2020. Can he back those candidates without simultaneously waging chaotic and caustic fratricidal attacks against Republicans, undermining any opportunity to retake control of the Senate and House? This will be the ultimate “Trump Test” that will define his legacy.
liar-Democrats are betting on Trump undermining Republicans. And despite claims they don’t want him around, they most assuredly do.
~The Patriot Post
Still Just 11 Million Immigrants?
“Immigrant communities and their advocates are celebrating a change in tone at the White House and a new plan to resolve the legal status of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants.” —ABC News, February 3, 2021
“A citizenship path for the roughly 11 million immigrants living illegally in the U.S., including those with Temporary Protected Status and people brought to the U.S. as children, known as Dreamers, is included in a comprehensive immigration plan socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden announced on his first day in office.” —Bloomberg News, February 12, 2021
“The legislative text of the ‘U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021’ will reflect the immigration priorities that President socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden unveiled on his first day in office. His proposal includes an earned pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, expands the refugee resettlement program and deploys more technology to the Southern border.” —NBC News, February 15, 2021
“The White House on Tuesday reaffirmed that President socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden backs a controversial plan to create a pathway to citizenship to at least 11 million illegal immigrants — as the White House and congressional Democrats are expected to formally unveil a sweeping immigration bill as soon as this week.” —Fox News, February 16, 2021
“He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time.” ―Thomas Jefferson (1785)
Perhaps the most successfully perpetrated lie of our modern era is the one contained in all of the above quotes from our hopelessly corrupt media, namely that there are 11 million illegals living in the United States. When this writer addressed the subject — five years ago — columnist William Campenni revealed the source of the orchestrated groupthink that endures to this day. “Call any journalist, pundit, anchor, strategist or lobbyist and ask: 1. How many illegal immigrants are in the United States? 2. What is your source for that number? Almost without exception he or she will answer: 1. 11 million. 2. The Pew Research Center,” he explained.
Pew gets its number from the Department of Homeland Security. In December 2003, that agency estimated between eight million and 12 million illegal aliens resided in the United States — and that 700,000 more enter each year and remain here. Nonetheless, a Pew Research column published in June 2019 stated that the number of illegals in the United States as of 2017 had declined to 10.5 million, constituting a “14% drop from the peak of 12.2 million in 2007.”
DHS isn’t the only agency tasked with estimating the number of illegals in the United States. The U.S. Census Bureau is also involved, and the way these entities do their calculations is laughable. “The Census and Pew use methodology that would embarrass an honest statistician,” Campenni reveals. “It goes like this: the number of illegal aliens equals the total number of immigrants and aliens minus the number of immigrants and legal aliens. But since we don’t know the number of total immigrants because it includes an unknown number of illegal aliens, we’ll make a guess. The fancy name for this process is called the ‘Residual Method of Estimation.’”
One of the reasons the number of illegals remains largely unknown is because an unknown percentage of illegals have refused to answer census-related surveys. And because the political climate is polarized, an informal bipartisan consensus that used to put the number of illegals avoiding participation between 25% and 30% has now bifurcated, with leftist groups asserting that figure has dropped to as low as 5%.
Yet the number of illegals in America is not just about those sneaking across the border. In 2017, the DHS admitted that 700,000 foreigners did so in 2016, even as the agency revealed its tracking is suspect. At the time, Inspector General John Roth stated that’s because it requires “pulling data from dozens of systems and databases, some of which are not integrated and do not electronically share information.”
One can be forgiven for wondering whether that is by accident — or design.
A 2020 research study led by Mohammad M. Fazel-Zarandi, a researcher at Yale and MIT, has even more ominous implications. It puts the number of illegals residing in the United States at somewhere between 16.5 million and 29.1 million.
What if it’s the higher estimate — or a number higher than that? Despite more than a decade’s worth of well-publicized border surges, Americans are supposed to believe just as many illegals have died, or repatriated themselves, as have snuck into the nation or overstayed their visas. They’re also supposed to ignore the current surge, one so large that socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden’s administration has reinstated the Catch and Release program. That contemptible agenda is about turning illegals loose in America — during a life-threatening pandemic — without testing them for the coronavirus unless they have obvious symptoms.
President socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden apparently couldn’t care less. “I have determined that the declaration of a national emergency at our southern border was unwarranted,” he stated in a letter sent to House Speaker scumbag/liar-Nancy Pelosi last week. Immigration activists are also pushing socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden to repeal Title 42 health rules that give the CDC the power to order border agents to fast-track deportations of migrants. That commonsense policy is aimed at preventing them from spreading coronavirus to border agents, detention centers along the border, and among the rest of the U.S. population.
Former acting ICE Director Tom Homan, who estimates the number of illegals is approaching 4,000 crossings per day, warns that if Title 42 is rescinded, the number for border crossings “will be astronomical.”
He also believes it’s exactly what the Biden administration wants because of “all the promises socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden has made and he continues to make.” Homan adds, “And you know, so this isn’t by accident. This is by design. This is an open-border strategy. He has bowed to the Left. We lose the border.”
For an entire liar-Democrat Party and half a Republican one, open borders leading to the deconstruction of American institutions, traditions, culture, and language is a feature, not a bug. Thus, the “U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021” will move forward.
And what about the next amnesty after this one? Apparently it hasn’t occurred to many Americans — who have been conditioned to believe one is either “compassionate” (pro-amnesty) or “bigoted” (anti-amnesty) — that the amnesty granted to 2.7 million illegal aliens in 1986 was supposed to be a one-and-done deal. That blatantly broken promise incentivized at least four times that number of illegals to sneak into America or overstay their visas in expectation of a similar deal.
When they, too, are granted amnesty? The next deluge of border-busters and visa-overstayers seeking the next round of amnesty will be unprecedented.
Former President Ronald Reagan once stated that “a nation without borders is no nation at all.” For a Ruling Class completely beholden to the globalist agenda — and utterly indifferent to the needs of millions of their fellow Americans — that’s precisely the point.
All the numbers in the world notwithstanding. ~The Patriot Post
scumbag/liar-Andrew Cuomo Is Taking on Water
If nothing else, scumbag/liar-Andrew Cuomo can say he outlasted the Andrea Doria.
On July 25, 1956, the ill-fated Italian ocean liner struck an eastbound ship in the North Atlantic some 300 miles from New York. She listed for 11 hours before capsizing and taking 46 souls with her.
Cuomo, New York’s Emmy Award-winning governor, is himself listing, but it’s been a full week since he was caught trying to cover up the true death toll caused by his calamitous policy of shoving the state’s coronavirus-positive elderly folks back into nursing homes, where the deadly contagion could spread unchecked.
Some 15,000 long-term care residents have died in New York — nearly double the 8,500 previously disclosed by scumbag/liar-Cuomo and his team. And last week, his top aide, Melissa DeRosa, committed what we refer to in politics as a gaffe — which is to say, an accidental telling of the truth — when she apologized on a conference call with fellow liar-Democrats about having refused to release the actual death count due to their fear of Donald Trump using the information against scumbag/liar-Cuomo.
“Basically, we froze,” she told the lawmakers on the call, because “the dog ate our homework” seemed somewhat evasive.
Finally, though, even scumbag/liar-Cuomo’s longtime lickspittles on the Left are getting sick of him. CNN, somewhat late to the party, announced that it’ll no longer allow Andy’s brother Chris to cover him anymore — which is a low-down dirty shame, because they had such a sweet comedy schtick going.
“The early months of the pandemic crisis were an extraordinary time,” CNN says in its CYA statement, which it released to The Washington Post but apparently no one else. “We felt that Chris speaking with his brother about the challenges of what millions of American families were struggling with was of significant human interest. As a result, we made an exception to a rule that we have had in place since 2013 which prevents Chris from interviewing and covering his brother, and that rule remains in place today.”
And then the kicker: “CNN has covered the news surrounding Governor Cuomo extensively.”
Uh-huh. Extensively.
“More lies are a possibility,” writes Bob McManus in the New York Post, “although even his own party seems to have had enough of them. /liar-Democratic Attorney General Letitia James just blew a whistle on the nursing-home coverup — and there’s talk in the veto-proof Legislature of rescinding scumbag/liar-Cuomo’s pandemic emergency powers as a rebuke. scumbag/liar-Cuomo could man up, ditch a couple of toady staffers… But this isn’t a straight-arrow governor. He prefers political bribery and bullying to candor and conciliation; his lodestar is expedience, and he is a master at reading a political chessboard. So expect a purely political, wholly self-serving response.”
Happily for those of us on the side of decency, the feds appear to have taken an interest in all this. According to The Albany Times Union, “The FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn have launched an investigation that is examining, at least in part, the actions of Gov. scumbag/liar-Andrew M. Cuomo’s coronavirus task force in its handling of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities during the pandemic. … The probe by the U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of New York is apparently in its early stages and is focusing on the work of some of the senior members of the governor’s task force.”
If ever there were a case of bad things happening to a bad person, this is it. scumbag/liar-Cuomo, when he’s under fire, tends to be both sanctimonious and utterly unrepentant — even ugly. His recent behavior toward New York Assemblyman Ron Kim, a progressive Democrat, is a case in point. Kim says he was “bathing his children at home” when Cuomo “called me directly on Thursday to threaten my career if I did not cover up for Melissa [DeRosa] and what she said. He tried to pressure me to issue a statement, and it was a very traumatizing experience.”
As far as we’re concerned, the Bad Ship scumbag/liar-Cuomo can’t capsize soon enough. ~The Patriot Post
America Should Still Be a Cultural Melting Pot
“Woke-ism, multiculturalism, all the -isms — they’re not who America is,” stated former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “They distort our glorious founding and what this country is all about. Our enemies stoke these divisions because they know they make us weaker.”
How dare he! was essentially the collective response from mainstream media pundits, for whom the term “multiculturalism” — an impossibly self-contradictory concept when one stops to think about it — has become the unassailable representative term for equality. CNN’s Keith Boykin blasted Pompeo by erroneously asserting, “This country was built on multiculturalism. That’s why a descendant of Italian immigrants like you could become secretary of state. You should know this history. If you don’t, you should never have been secretary of state.”
Well then, why wasn’t Pompeo speaking in Italian? The truth is, America was not built on “multiculturalism,” rather it is a melting pot where many different people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds blend in and assimilate to the dominant American culture. In so doing, the culture may be enriched and expanded, but it’s never eliminated.
Multiculturalism, on the other hand, seeks to destroy the idea of a dominant uniting culture by erroneously asserting that all cultures are essentially of equal value, irrespective of their distinct values and traditions.
“Among the many irrational ideas about racial and ethnic groups that have polarized societies over the centuries and around the world, few have been more irrational and counterproductive than the current dogmas of multiculturalism,” the brilliant Thomas Sowell once wrote. “[It], like the caste system, paints people into the corner where they happen to have been born. But at least the caste system does not claim to benefit those at the bottom.”
One particular inner-city Philadelphia elementary school serves to prove Sowell’s observation correct. Christopher Rufo, writing for City Journal, notes, “The William D. Kelley School has long been one of the most troubled in the district. The school’s student population is 94 percent black and 100 percent ‘economically disadvantaged.’ Academically, it is one of the worst-performing schools in Pennsylvania. By sixth grade, only 3 percent of students are proficient in math, and 9 percent are proficient in reading. By graduation, only 13 percent of Kelley students will have achieved basic literacy.”
However, the school administration, imbibing from the bankrupt and irrational ideology of multiculturalism, has “abandoned traditional pedagogy in favor of political radicalism” and “has embraced the philosophy of ‘anti-racism’ … promising to ‘[dismantle] systems of racial inequity.’” Rufo adds, “The local teachers’ union produced a video denouncing the United States as a ‘settler colony built on white supremacy and capitalism’ that has created a ‘system that lifts up white people over everyone else.’” So, instead of working harder to ensure that its students are actually educated, the school administration has chosen to indoctrinate with the propaganda of hopelessness.
A New York City public school has recently been exposed for promoting this “anti-racism” ideology, as parents of students attending East Side Community School received a graphic in which they were encouraged to become “white traitors” and “white abolitionists.”
At the heart of multicultural “woke” consciousness is the ironically dubbed “anti-racism,” which in practice actually promotes genuine racism. Indeed, “anti-racism” might better be classified, as Pompeo keenly observed, as anti-Americanism, because it dubiously rewrites all of American history and culture as one founded on the racism of white supremacy and slavery. Anti-racism advocates for the destruction of America’s “systemic racism” — or, to put it more accurately, the dismantling of American Liberty and free-market economy to be replaced with an equity-based system (communism), wherein one’s social status is determined by one’s position on the Left’s victimology hierarchy.
~The Patriot Post
GARY BAUER
Goodbye, Rush
By now you have probably heard the heartbreaking news that Rush Limbaugh passed away yesterday from the consequences of the lung cancer he had been battling. His wife, Kathryn, opened his radio show yesterday to make the announcement.
I don’t need to tell you that Rush was one of a kind. He touched millions of lives and was, in many ways, the heart and soul of American populist conservatism. They say no man is irreplaceable, but he came as close to fitting that definition as possible.
Our condolences go out to his wife, Kathryn, his brother, David, to the rest of his immediate family, and to all those who knew and loved him.
In the days ahead, many things will be said and written about Rush Limbaugh. I was honored to speak with him at an event in California a number of years ago. In 2000, when I found myself in some controversy after exiting the Republican presidential primaries, Rush graciously interviewed me on his show so I could present my side.
If I had to pick one thing that made him so countercultural to the left and such a vital force, it would be his unapologetic, enthusiastic, heartfelt love for the United States of America, its history, its accomplishments, and the goodness of its people.
Rush was a patriot from top to bottom. That shouldn’t be rare, but, unfortunately, it is rare in far too many places these days.
God bless you, Rush. You fought the good fight and kept the faith. We will pick up your mantle and fight on!
Trump vs. McConnell
Make no mistake about this: If you are disturbed about a split in the Republican Party, Mitch McConnell caused the public break that is taking place right now.
Trump and McConnell have had their differences for some time. McConnell opposed Trump during the 2016 nomination battle. He and then-House Speaker Paul Ryan did their best to steer Trump away from the populist message that elected him.
He has gone to the Senate floor repeatedly to suggest that Donald Trump was responsible for what happened at the Capitol building on January 6. He dismissed concerns about election fraud and other irregularities. Then he wrote an opinion piece in Monday’s Wall Street Journal again taking aim at Trump.
So, McConnell has attacked Trump multiple times and undermined his agenda. Finally, Trump responded Tuesday with a powerful and blistering statement.
Every conservative in Washington has had to work with Mitch McConnell for years. His knowledge of Senate rules has made him an influential force on many issues we care about. He was strong on judicial nominations, and Supreme Court nominations in particular.
But Trump is right. If McConnell is the face of the Republican Party going forward, we will lose more Senate seats and it will be a long time before we get the White House back.
Donald Trump’s support in the Republican Party has held steady over the last few months. Polling shows that he is by far the party’s most popular figure.
In contrast, Mitch McConnell’s approval rating has plummeted in his home state of Kentucky. Three months ago, he won reelection by a whopping 20-point margin, as Trump won the Blue Grass State by an even bigger 26-point margin.
But the latest poll shows McConnell’s approval rating is just 41% in Kentucky. And nationally, McConnell’s ratings are even worse.
Going Forward
In 2008 and 2012, many pundits gleefully danced on the grave of the Republican Party only to see it come back forcefully in 2010, 2014, and 2016.
But what is the Republican Party that McConnell, scumbag/rino-Romney, Sasse, rino-Murkowski, Cassidy, and Burr seem to imagine? What is its message? Why was Donald Trump able to do what scumbag/rino-Mitt Romney and rino-John McCain could not? How did he attract 75 million voters?
Trump added to the traditional Republican message of lower taxes, constitutionalist judges, and a strong military a full-throated defense of America, our founding, and our values.
He exposed the rotten trade deals that sent blue-collar jobs overseas. He shattered the myth that communist China was just a trading partner and not an enemy.
Trump didn’t just mouth platitudes about the sanctity of life and religious liberty. He fought hard for values voters — the real base of the Republican Party.
Donald Trump understands that we have bigger problems than the marginal tax rate and whether or not the Chamber of Commerce is happy.
Trump accomplished a lot in four years. He could have accomplished even more if there were more senators in the GOP like him instead of the establishment types who constantly resisted and undermined him.
Respectfully to Mitch McConnell: Do you really believe that you and others can destroy Donald Trump and that his voters will turn out for you in 2022 and 2024? That’s insane!
socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden’s Bumbling Town Hall
If you’ve ever wondered why we don’t see more press conferences from President socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden, you saw why Tuesday night. His CNN town hall was one gaffe after another.
Asked how he was going to help unite the nation, one of his big talking points, Biden offered rambling and contradictory remarks, even suggesting that “the nation is not divided.”
socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden suggested that one of the problems plaguing the COVID-19 vaccination efforts is that many blacks and Hispanics don’t know how to get online. What!?
For whatever reason, socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden frequently talks down to minority Americans. Remember when he told a black talk-show host, “You ain’t black”? Or when he asked a black journalist if he was a junkie? Remember his comment about black women stocking shelves? But he always gets a pass from the media.
socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden bizarrely claimed that there weren’t any vaccines when he took office. Well, the Trump administration was administering one million vaccinations a day, and socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden himself got two doses before he took office!
Asked about efforts to combat racism in America, socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden outrageously smeared veterans and retired police officers, suggesting they were behind a rise in white supremacy.
And to top it all off, he made excuses for communist China.
Referring to his recent phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden said that he brought up Hong Kong and the oppression of the Uighurs. But then socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden said this:
“The central principle of Xi Jinping is that there must be a united, tightly controlled China. And he uses his rationale for the things he does based on that… Culturally, there are different norms that each country and their leaders are expected to follow.”
It’s really not clear what exactly socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden was trying to say, but genocide is not a matter of “cultural norms.”
The issue is not that China has different cultural norms. It’s that communists have unacceptable cultural norms.
Communists are always aggressors in foreign policy because they are threatened by free people. Communists always suppress human rights and religious liberty because the state is their god and the people have no rights beyond what little the state gives them.
Once again, we have been reminded why Barack scumbag/liar-nObama’s secretary of defense warned that socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden was wrong on nearly every major foreign policy issue throughout his career. The Patriot Post
CAL THOMAS
The Rush Limbaugh I Knew
The man who picked me up at an airport too many years ago to recall the date asked if I had ever heard of a guy named Rush Limbaugh. When I said I had not, he turned on the car radio and said, “listen.” After 15 minutes I was hooked.
Limbaugh, who died of lung cancer on Wednesday at age 70, spoke my values. He didn’t tell people what or how to think, as his detractors often charged, but reflected what many conservative Americans already believed. He often used humor and satire to drive home his points and he was so good at it that he attracted a huge audience. More than 600 radio stations carried his three-hour program.
He was loved by millions who had never met him. When I finally met him, I was surprised at his humility. Don’t laugh. He was an entertainer, as well as a commentator, and he understood that to hold the attention of an audience one must do both. In person he was not who you heard on the radio.
Several years ago, Rush invited me to dine at his Florida home. He sheepishly asked if I drank wine, perhaps thinking because I am perceived as “religious” I might not. I responded, “I know someone who turned water into wine so, yes, I’ll have a glass.” He laughed and we were off and running as friends.
I once introduced Rush at a function in Washington. I said, “Larry King is credited with saving AM radio, but Rush Limbaugh made it worth listening to again.”
As his wife Kathryn noted in her on-air announcement of his passing, Rush was a generous man. He raised millions of dollars for wounded soldiers, their widows and police officers who died while doing their duty. He often held radio-thons for leukemia research and donated unknown amounts of money to other causes.
At his wedding to Kathryn in 2010, he built up suspense by hinting, but never saying, who the special entertainment would be. After the ceremony, the invited guests walked to the hotel theater. A curtain emblazoned with question marks surrounded the stage. Rush announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, Elton John.”
In the middle of a 45-minute set of his greatest hits, John stopped and said his liberal friends asked him why he would play for Limbaugh, whom many of them hated (though probably few listened to him, as was usually the case). He said something about the importance of friendships and invited Rush and Kathryn to London to visit him and his partner. I don’t think that happened, but it was a kind gesture.
Until the end he expressed a positive and optimistic spirit. In recent weeks he did something I had not heard him do before. He spoke about his faith and mentioned that it was in Jesus Christ. Not only did it thrill fellow believers like me, but it brought a torrent of calls and messages to his show from people he had never met who said they were praying for him. On air he was clearly touched.
I never heard him complain about his illness. He always spoke of being blessed beyond any dream of success he might have foreseen.
Life — and his radio slot — will go on. Such things always do. But no one has the talent Rush had — no one.
His loss is a loss to the conservative movement and to the country, but his ideas will continue, because as he liked to joke about himself, he was always “99.9 percent right.”
On his website is posted a tribute that includes these words: “The Greatest of All Time.” With apologies to Muhammad Ali, that is an accurate epitaph. Rest in peace, dear friend. ~The Patriot Post
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