A Capitol Offense
Admittedly, a third thing also occurred to us: What a mess our country seems to be right now.
Searching for some honor and decency amid the rubble that was January 6, 2021, we came across these simple words from Vice President Mike Pence: “It’s my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.”
It was a single sentence within a more detailed document, but it speaks volumes about the man who uttered it. And if the vice president putting his allegiance to the Constitution ahead of his allegiance to his president is in any way to blame for the storming of the Capitol yesterday by hordes of Trump supporters, well, then, so be it.
Many of us have, at one time or another, sworn an oath, but rarely are we put to the test like Mike Pence was yesterday. Even more rarely do we rise to the occasion like he did.
President Donald Trump was, of course, unimpressed. “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution,” said the president in a tweet since-deleted by Twitter.
Pence deserved better. He simply isn’t empowered by our Constitution to upend our nation’s electoral process.
Soon after the vice president issued his statement, he and everyone else in attendance at the joint session of Congress were informed that they had company — angry, unruly, riotous company, right there in the Capitol building. They’d come from the Ellipse, just outside the White House and just down the road. And they’d been riled up by an election that they believed was stolen from them by an incurious Congress that had steadfastly refused to investigate it and by a president whose fiery and defiant speech had just stoked their anger.
“We’re going walk down to the Capitol,” Trump said, “and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
What happened next should cause heads to roll among those responsible for securing the Capitol and its grounds. How on earth, in a city that sees protests every day, could there not have been sufficient security there? After all, it wasn’t as if the event hadn’t been planned for weeks.
As Power Line’s John Hinderaker writes, “It is outrageous that security was so lax that rioters were allowed to occupy the Senate chamber, sending senators and Vice President Pence, as I understand it, fleeing. Armed guards should never allow such a thing to happen — that is why they are armed. The entire country has been embarrassed today, not just Republicans.”
As Fox News’s Chad Pergram noted, it was the first time that the Capitol building had been breached in such a way since the British, fresh off their victory at the Battle of Bladensburg, did so in 1814. At least today’s rabble didn’t set fire to the building. We can say that for them.
What began as an awful day with the election of two hard-left mediocrities from Georgia as the Democrats’ 49th and 50th senators got worse — much worse — when a mob breached the Capitol building itself and sent our elected representatives scurrying to safety.
As our Mark Alexander points out, “We hold our side of the political spectrum to a higher standard than the Left’s antifa thugs and other violent cadres, but some of the behavior in Washington today was largely indistinguishable from leftist thuggery.”
Order was restored relatively quickly, given how many people were involved. scumbag/liar-Joe Biden unhelpfully inflamed tensions with a brief and ham-handed address, and President Trump published a one-minute video via Twitter telling his supporters to “go home in peace.” (The video apparently wasn’t conciliatory enough for the censors at Twitter, who’ve since taken it down.)
Trump was also sending very mixed messages. After calling for peace, he declared that “these are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. … Remember this day forever!”
Tragically, one woman, Ashli Babbitt, a 14-year U.S. Air Force veteran, was shot by law enforcement and later died at a nearby hospital. Three others died from what Capitol police described as “medical emergencies.”
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who’s about as staunch a defender of the president as can be found in academia, had this to say regarding the president’s role in mobilizing the mob: “I don’t think there’s ever been a lower moment for the presidency of the United States.”
We get the professor’s point, but this is overwrought. John Adams’s signing of the Alien and Sedition Acts? Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus? Woodrow Wilson’s Sedition Act? Lyndon Johnson’s Gulf of Tonkin Resolution? Richard Nixon’s obstruction of justice? Jimmy Carter’s fecklessness during the Iran hostage crisis? scumbag/liar-Bill Clinton’s shameless finger-wagging and other Oval Office activities? Barack scumbag/liar-nObama’s unleashing of the IRS and other federal agencies on his political opponents? scumbag/liar-nObama’s spying on his presidential successor? And does Donald Trump’s incitement here in any way rival FDR’s imprisonment of 110,000 Japanese Americans?
And we’d be remiss not to argue that this short-lived unrest was far less consequential than the coup d'état organized by the scumbag/liar-nObama regime.
Immediate overreaction is understandable. Take CNN’s Jake Tapper, for example, who used the words “terrorists” and “armed insurrection” to describe yesterday’s events. Even DC Mayor Muriel Bowser used words like “riot” and “law and order” — words that have been conspicuously absent from her vocabulary when describing the lawless actions of antifa and Black Lives Matter.
We should note, too, that as jarring and unique as these events were, they hardly compare to the daily mayhem we see in Democrat-controlled urban centers. Nor is the response equivalent: Democrats who were lightning-quick to denounce yesterday’s violence rarely speak out against their own, while there has been universal condemnation of these actions by Republicans.
All of us lost something yesterday, but all wasn’t lost. Congress, to its credit, got back to work before day’s end, and Vice President Pence’s two-minute speech as they reconvened gave us a reassuring moment.
Donald Trump’s statement, too, was an acknowledgment that some things are ultimately bigger and more important than the presidency. But even then, he couldn’t help himself. “Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out,” he said, “nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th.” Nevertheless. ~ The Patriot Post
After All That, Congress Confirms Biden's Electoral Victory
THOMAS GALLATIN Despite objections from members of Congress and a massive pro-Trump rally in Washington that turned into a mob storming and taking over the U.S. Capitol building for a few hours yesterday, the joint session of Congress officiated by Vice President Mike Pence in the early morning hours Thursday eventually tallied the Electoral College votes certifying scumbag/liar-Joe Biden as the next president of the United States.The official EC vote tally was 306 for scumbag/liar-Biden and lowlife/liar-Kamala Harris to 232 for Donald Trump and Pence. Those number were identical to the 2016 EC tally.
While objections were raised by Republican lawmakers, Pence made it clear prior to the joint session that he would not act to prevent the certification of the vote, writing in a letter, “It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.”
After Congress reconvened following the removal of the riotous mob from the Capitol, Pence forcefully stated, “To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today, you did not win. Violence never wins. Freedom wins, and this is still the people’s house. And as we reconvene in this chamber, the world will again witness the resilience and strength of our democracy, for even in the wake of unprecedented violence and vandalism at this Capitol, the elected representatives of the people of the United States have assembled again on the very same day to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) also condemned the rioters, stating, “Mobs don’t rule America. Laws rule America. It was true when our cities were burning this summer and it is true now. Nobody has the right to become a mob, and we all should stand united in condemning a mob together.”
Yet McCarthy also acknowledged the legitimacy of Republican objections to the EC vote. “I know what we debate today is tough, but it’s just, it’s right. This isn’t the first side of the aisle that has ever debated this issue. I thought about when Madam Speaker said back in 2005, ‘This is democracy at its best,’ when they talked about a presidential election in Ohio. These are the moments that we should raise the issue about integrity and accountability and accuracy in our elections. Do you know what we should do? Not just raise the issues, but work together to solve the problems.”
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), prior to the mob rushing the Capitol, offered his objection to certification and arguing for the creation on an electoral commission as a “credible, impartial body to hear the evidence” with an emergency 10-day audit of the six states in question. “I am not arguing for setting aside the result of this election. All of us are faced with two choices, both of which are lousy,” Cruz stated. “One choice is to vote against the objections. Tens of millions of Americans will see a vote against the objections as a statement that voter fraud doesn’t matter, isn’t real, shouldn’t be taken seriously. A great many of us don’t believe that. On the other hand, most if not all of us do not believe we should set aside the results of an election just because our candidate may not have prevailed. So we endeavor to look to door number three — a third option. For that I look to history, to the precedent of the 1876 election.” (The Cato Institute’s Thomas Berry has an explanation of why that’s the wrong precedent.)
Outgoing Senator Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), who had planned to back calls for an electoral commission prior to the mob storming of the Capitol, had a change of heart. She said, “When I arrived in Washington this morning I fully intended to object to the certification of the electoral votes. However, the events that have transpired today have forced me to reconsider. I cannot now in good conscience object to the certification of these electors. The violence, the lawlessness, and the siege of the halls of Congress are abhorrent and stand as a direct attack on the very institution my objection was intended to protect.”
In the end, it was the sobering words of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that ruled the day, as he gave one of the most significant speeches of his career. While noting the fraud and irregularities of the election, McConnell also observed, “I’ve supported the president’s right to use the legal system, dozens of lawsuits, perceived hearings in courtrooms all across our country. But over and over, the courts rejected these claims — including all-star judges whom the president himself has nominated. Every election we know features some illegality and irregularity, and of course that’s unacceptable. I support strong, state-led voting reforms. Last year’s bizarre pandemic procedures must not become the new norm.”
Yet he further observed, “My colleagues, nothing before us proves illegality anywhere near the massive scale — the massive scale — that would have tipped the entire election. Nor can public doubt alone justify a radical break, when the doubt itself was incited without any evidence. The Constitution gives us here in Congress a limited role. We cannot simply declare ourselves a national board of elections on steroids.”
He warned, “The voters, the courts and the states have all spoken. They’ve all spoken. If we overrule them, it would damage our republic forever.” In closing, he stated, “So I believe protecting our constitutional order requires respecting the limits of our own power. It would be unfair and wrong to disenfranchise American voters and overrule the courts and the states on this extraordinarily thin basis. And I will not pretend such a vote would be a harmless protest gesture while relying on others to do the right thing. I will vote to respect the people’s decision and defend our system of government as we know it.”
Win or lose elections, the institution of the American system of representative government must be upheld or we have no republic. That means dealing squarely with the Left’s bulk-mail balloting fraud. It does not mean lawlessness. Those rioters who stormed the Capitol yesterday were devoid of any respect for our nation, its laws, and the Constitution they claim to be defending. ~The Patriot Post
Big Tech Censors Are at It Again
By now, those who follow the president on Twitter have gotten used to the routine. “As a result of the unprecedented and ongoing violent situation in Washington, D.C.,” said the serious-sounding “Twitter Safety” censor, “we have required the removal of three [of the president’s] Tweets that were posted earlier today for repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy. This means that the account of realDonaldTrump will be locked for 12 hours following the removal of these Tweets. If the Tweets are not removed, the account will remain locked.”
Below that is an admonition that seems utterly lacking in self-awareness: “You may not use Twitter’s services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes.”
Got that? Twitter’s speech police won’t tolerate manipulation or interference in an election. Unless they themselves are doing it. Or perhaps they don’t consider censoring a bombshell news story that’s deeply damaging to their preferred presidential candidate just days before the election to be “manipulating” or “interfering.”
And what’s this “ongoing violent situation in Washington, D.C.” Twitter mentions? Things look downright peaceful there today.
No matter. Jack Dorsey and his speech suppressors seem to be laying the groundwork to silence The Orange Menace once and for all.
“The company then went further,” The Federalist’s Tristan Justice reports, “declaring the Silicon Valley tech giant — which had already censored the president and affiliated campaign accounts at least 65 times over two years without censoring former Vice President scumbag/liar-Joe Biden once — is prepared to permanently kick the president off the platform for posts not even published yet.”
“Future violations of the Twitter Rules,” the company wrote, “including our Civic Integrity or Violent Threats policies, will result in permanent suspension of the realDonaldTrump account.”
Twitter even vowed to consider the president’s speech away from their platform. “We’ll continue to evaluate the situation in real time, including examining activity on the ground and statements made off Twitter,” it said. “We will keep the public informed, including if further escalation in our enforcement approach is necessary.”
Here, we can’t help but set the over-under for President Trump’s permanent expulsion from Twitter at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday, January 21.
Taking a backseat to no one in their efforts to suppress the speech of the opposition party’s president, Facebook and YouTube joined the fray. As National Review’s Brittany Bernstein reports, they’ve taken down the one-minute video President Trump published yesterday — the one that tells his Capitol Hill supporters to “go home in peace.”
“Facebook also announced it would be removing photos and videos illustrating Wednesday’s riot,” Bernstein continued, “claiming such content promoted criminal activity. No such widespread censorship was employed of the left-wing Antifa riots last year, where reporters stood in front of burning buildings and called the demonstrations ‘mostly peaceful.’”
In fact, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook and Instagram will be blocking Trump indefinitely. “We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great,” he explained, adding that the blocking will continue “for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.” Thus a sitting U.S. president may not exercise his own right of free speech in the public square. Astonishing.
If we seem a bit obsessive about Big Tech’s efforts to selectively silence political speech and thereby restrict the marketplace of ideas, it’s for good reason. Media censorship breeds frustration, because it eliminates what we might call a pressure-relief valve. When we as citizens have no voice, we stew and we simmer, and sometimes we boil over. Oftentimes, people riot because they feel they have no voice, and because that’s seen as their only outlet.
Think about it: Democrats have been telling voiceless black Americans that they’ve been brutally oppressed for more than half a century, even after Civil Rights legislation. Are we surprised that they rioted? Wouldn’t you be inclined to riot under those same conditions?
The Founders understood the importance of free speech — and especially free political speech. Because in its absence, and even more so in its suppression, we ultimately get political violence. ~ The Patriot Post
'Canceling' Humanity Itself
ARNOLD AHLERT While Americans remain focused on the mounting death toll precipitated by the coronavirus pandemic, the 1.8 million worldwide deaths caused by it in 2020 pale in comparison to the leading cause of death last year. As the statistic-compiling Worldometer website reveals, a record-setting 42.7 million preborn babies were aborted over the same time period.In 1993, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined the term “defining deviancy down” to aptly describe America’s increasing acceptance of previously unacceptable behavior. He was late to the party. The devolution of American society began in earnest in the 1960s, when the cultural revolution engendered by the Left made radical secularism the centerpiece of its cancerous agenda. In short order, assertions such as “God is dead” and all morality is “relative” began resonating, especially among younger Americans yearning to “do their own thing.”
Unfortunately — or perhaps purposefully — doing one’s own thing was somehow divorced from its logical corollary, as in one should take personal responsibility for whatever consequences arise from that thing. What emerged from the wreckage is what we endure today: Millions of Americans who promote or wallow in collective guilt, institutionalized and orchestrated victimhood, and any number of other mental gymnastics that allow one to place any and all moral failings on anyone else’s doorstep but one’s own.
In short, America is a nation where wholesale rationalization has obliterated even the most modest definitions of right and wrong.
And perhaps nothing better illustrates that devolution better than the politics of abortion. In America, a staggering 61.6 million babies have been aborted since the Supreme Court’s egregious ruling in Roe v. Wade legalized the procedure in 1973. And while even some pro-lifers argue that moral exceptions can be made for rape, incest, and certain threats to one’s health, it is nonetheless undeniable that so many abortions performed in a supposedly civilized society requires a number of dubious rationalizations to precede it. First and foremost is the idea that an intentionally caused death should not be defined as such, but rather as a “medical procedure.”
In 2018, Snopes columnist Bethania Palma illuminated that particular mindset. “Stating that abortion is the ‘leading cause of death’ worldwide (as opposed to a medical procedure) is a problematic pronouncement, because that stance takes a political position, one which is at odds with the scientific/medical world,” she wrote. “The medical community does not confer personhood upon fetuses that are not viable outside the womb, so counting abortion as a ‘cause of death’ does not align with the practices of health organizations such as WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).”
Viability is becoming increasingly “problematic” for the pro-abortion crowd. While fetal viability rates vary, medical technology has made it possible for more and more babies to survive premature births. Yet as such advancements are occurring, certain state legislatures have made it clear that abortion right up to the moment of birth is legal, under auspices that it is justifiable if a mother’s physical or mental health is imperiled.
That the “mental health” exception is flexible enough to drive a tractor trailer through reeks of political calculation. So does the contemptible notion that “personhood” can only occur in a timeframe determined by medical “expertise” — even as human life itself begins at conception. This “clump of cells” argument, in all its permutations, is the essence of a political agenda whereby pro-abortionists seek to alleviate any and all moral misgivings surrounding the purposeful termination of a life.
And not just before birth. In 2013, an article published in the Journal of Medical Ethics by authors Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva asserted that “killing a newborn should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.”
They are hardly outliers. The wholesale cheapening of life has reached the point where Planned Parenthood was caught harvesting baby parts and selling them — yet the whistleblowers who exposed them were convicted of substantially harming the organization, and still face criminal charges for doing so.
This contempt for human life still resonates. On December 30 in Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine signed a bill requiring that the remains of any zygote, blastocyte, embryo, or fetus left over from a surgical abortion be afforded either a burial or cremation. Lauren Blauvelt-Copelin, vice president of government affairs and public advocacy at Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, asserted that such a law is “unconstitutional and medically unnecessary” and “adds yet another barrier for patients who are trying to access abortion services — which is the legislature’s real goal.”
Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life, had a different perspective. “Whether pro-life or pro-choice, everyone should be able to agree that the bodies of babies should never be thrown into the trash,” he stated. “The unborn victims of abortion deserve the same basic decency that we afford to all humans: a dignified burial.”
But Americans don’t agree. And in what amounts to one of the greatest ironies of modern times, those who champion wholesale levels of abortion on demand are invariably the same people who abide the destruction of historical artifacts — because the people those artifacts represent don’t measure up to today’s progressive definition of “morality.”
In other words, those who countenance the wholesale and often capricious elimination of human life — when they’re not busy denying its humanity itself prior to viability — believe they are morally superior to those who codified the idea that human beings are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Going forward? As the revolution engendered in the 1960s has metastasized to the point where it threatens our constitutional republic itself, one can expect that 42.7 million deaths caused by abortion in 2020 alone to be dismissed as misleading, or merely as part of the panoply of “deplorable” values that matter only to “bitter clingers.”
Moreover, Americans may soon discover there is a far more literal meaning of the term “Cancel Culture” than we dare to imagine.
~ The Patriot Post
Woke Ideology Infects Civics and the Military
Our most sacred institutions are under attack, with the Left pushing wokeness in places we once thought beyond the reach of social politics. The American school system has long been a target of the Left. Before the holidays, the American Legislative Exchange Council announced it was considering a move that would allow state legislatures to mandate history and civics standards. This comes on the heels of a federal bill that would fund teacher training and curriculum development in civics. This one-two punch would have a devastating effect on the teaching of history and civics in American schools. Remember how the 1619 Project tried to rewrite history to portray America as being founded on the basis of slavery? Unfortunately, that was just the beginning.
These new programs now being considered would put the teaching of American history and civics squarely in the hands of boards heavily populated by left-leaning if not outright Marxist college professors and career bureaucrats. Acting beyond the reach of lawmakers and parents, these boards would be free to push whatever agenda they choose. And if there is any guess as to what that agenda may be, refer to the aforementioned 1619 Project or the scrapping of Stanford University’s Western Civilization requirement in 1988 that launched the so-called multiculturalism movement.
It should come as no surprise what the woke movement has in store for the teaching of civics and history. Education has long been a battleground for the heart and soul of the country. What is more surprising, and maybe even more alarming, is what is taking place in our nation’s military.
Just before the holidays, Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller accepted without reservation all 15 recommendations proposed by a diversity and inclusion board appointed to improve racial and ethnic diversity and inclusion in the U.S. military. The board was established to examine the culture of the military after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. No word yet on what one has to do with the other, but the power of wokeness rises in part due to its ability to spread its tentacles across all institutions.
Among the recommendations Miller accepted are for military recruiting content “to reflect the current and future racial, ethnic, and gender demographics of the United States,” or, more appropriately, whatever the woke mob says those demographics are or should be.
Further recommendations call for greater diversity among officer ranks, a review of aptitude tests to ensure they do not impact diversity, and inclusion of diversity and inclusion instruction in all professional military education. Miller promised that the military will still maintain its rigorous standards for recruitment and promotion, but there really is no way to guarantee a true merit-based system when ethnic diversity is the cornerstone of an institution.
The military is already having trouble meeting its recruiting quotas, with an estimated 70% of America’s youth unqualified to serve because of obesity, physical and mental health issues, and misconduct. The pandemic notwithstanding, the Pentagon has been struggling to find decent recruits and has entered the digital world where Generation Z lives to reach young people with mobile apps and social media messaging.
How can America be expected to maintain a lethal fighting force when it cannot drum up enough recruits worthy of the uniform or when it is more concerned with appeasing woke social justice warriors at home than facing real threats from China, Russia, and elsewhere? Maybe it’s not supposed to.
After all, woke culture is all about unraveling America in favor of a new social paradigm that is based on the very racist hypocrisy that the Left accuses the country of perpetuating. ~ The Patriot Post
ACKIE GINGRICH CUSHMAN
Republicans Should Learn and Win Again
It’s the first week of January 2021, and the 2020 elections are over. In my home state of Georgia, the votes from the runoff races were being tabulated. There were three statewide races on the ballot: two U.S. Senate seats and one Public Service Commission seat. All three races had incumbent Republicans facing off against Democratic challengers.
Republican incumbent Lauren “Bubba” McDonald Jr. beat Democrat Daniel Blackman in the Public Service Commission race and, as of Wednesday morning, had garnered more votes than either of the incumbent Republican U.S. senators. They should be outperforming him, and the fact that they are not should make you stop and ask: What went wrong in the Senate Republicans’ races?
Incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler has lost to Democratic nominee socialist-Raphael Warnock. This was a special election to fill the two years remaining in the term of Johnny Isakson, the former Republican senator who announced his resignation in 2019 due to health problems.
Lesson No. 1: Self-funding does not always work. Just ask Michael Bloomberg.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp appointed businesswoman Loeffler in December 2019 (from a list of people who had expressed interest in the job, including your columnist). As reported by Greg Bluestein for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Loeffler had promised “that she would funnel $20 million of her own cash into the campaign, a substantial injection meant to ward off challengers from both parties.”
Clearly, this did not work. Loeffler faced Republican and Democratic challengers and has now lost the runoff.
Lesson No. 2: Be yourself.
While President Donald Trump, also a successful businessperson, has always been exactly who he is (like him or not), Loeffler transformed her image from one of a sophisticated, smart, urban businesswoman to that of a baseball hat-, jean-, boot- and vest-wearing “outsider.” My guess is that she hired the best consultants money could buy and heeded their advice. It fell flat with voters in terms of authenticity.
Lesson No. 3: Ongoing organizing is critical.
socialist-Warnock was boosted by strong support from worthless-Stacey Abrams, who had lost to Kemp in 2018 and then — funded by national Democrats — focused on building grassroots organizations to drive voter participation. Republicans need to replicate this infrastructure and invest heavily in organization — and we need our major donors’ support.
Lesson No. 4: Be for something positive.
This past week, our home received a red “Happy Holidays and Happy New Year” card bearing a picture of a reindeer on the outside. When opened, the inside left page of the card read, “To pass their job killing Green New Deal, the radical left needs to elect socialist-Raphael Warnock and socialist-Jon Ossoff. … Vote Early now or on Election Day, January 5th.”
The inside right side of the note concluded with the message “Vote No on socialist-Warnock and socialist-
Ossoff!” Nowhere did the card make any mention of Loeffler or Perdue or any positive reason to vote for them.
This holiday missive was sent out by the Senate Leadership Fund. This group might want to learn from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who has all of his members running every two years, versus the one-third of the members McConnell has running.
This past fall, McCarthy’s House Republicans ran on the theme “Restore Our Way of Life. Rebuild the Greatest Economy in History. Renew the American Dream.” Their message was upbeat, positive and provided voters with a reason to vote for the Republican candidate. Sadly, it’s a novel idea to focus on an optimistic message.
The Senate candidates in Georgia focused on what would happen if Democrats won. They gave the voters little to no reason to come out to vote FOR them — just against the opponent. They were probably told over and over that this was the way to get their base to vote for them, but the base on the Democratic side was given reasons to vote for their candidate. The Democrats were consistently more positive, had a better ground game and were constantly cheering one another on.
My guess is that, instead of learning hard lessons from Tuesday’s outcomes in Georgia, many Republicans will blame other Republicans, such as Trump, Kemp, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger or Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer. Some will blame voter fraud. But as when playing tennis, if the opponents are calling lines that are questionable, you have to make sure you play inside the lines. This means you have to drive positive voting margins to ensure victory.
While blaming others might make people feel better, it will not lead to future wins. For that to occur, we need to get to work, lay out a positive message and organize to drive voter margins. ~ The Patriot Post
CAL THOMAS
The New 'Know-Nothing' Party
House Democrats keep coming up with ideas that are bound to sink their already low approval ratings to new depths, possibly giving Republicans a majority in the 2022 election.
A representative body that has been unwilling to fix problems confronting the country has come up with a new set of rules for the 117th Congress that defy logic and further diminishes the value of humankind. I would have said mankind but Speaker scumbag/liar-Nancy Pelosi’s new House rules package, in an effort to “honor all gender identities,” will now use pronouns and familial relationships that are “gender neutral.” This sounds a lot like a modern version of George Orwell’s “Newspeak,” which Orwell defined as an effort by his fictional totalitarian regime to limit vocabulary so as “to diminish the range of thought.” Apparently, this works for House Democrats.
In their unrelenting effort to be “inclusive,” the new Democrat rules, promoted by scumbag/liar-Pelosi, do away with terms such as “man,” “woman,” “mother,” “son,” and “daughter.” They’d better ban the Bible, too, which includes these words. Genesis tells of how God made “Man” in His image, “male and female.” How behind the times was He? The old words, writes Townhall, “will be swapped by words such as "parent, child, sibling, spouse, etc.” Henceforth, there will be no more use of terms such as “aunt, uncle, mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother-in-law or sister-in-law.”
Shouldn’t House Democrats also remove “In God We Trust” from the wall behind the speaker’s chair and from our money, too? Atheists don’t believe in God. Doesn’t inclusion demand their beliefs also be respected?
The House restrooms are bound to be next, along with doing away with gender-specific changing rooms in the House gym. How comfortable will a female member or staffer be when she (oops, sorry again for that pronoun) walks into a restroom and finds several people formerly called men already there? The House leadership doesn’t have to worry about such encounters. They have their own restrooms. It’s another instance where leadership imposes rules on others without having to impose any on themselves.
What will Rear Adm. Margaret Grun Kibben, the newly installed female House chaplain, be required to say under these new rules? Instead of praying to “Heavenly Father,” perhaps to satisfy gender neutrality, will she have to say, “to whom it may concern”?
A preview of what may be coming occurred last Sunday when Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) delivered the opening prayer. As The Washington Times reported, Cleaver said: “‘in the name of the monotheistic god,’ then added what sounded like ‘Brahma,’ before finishing with ‘and god known by many names by many different faiths. Amen and a-woman.’”
Cleaver’s first name in Hebrew means “God with us.” What were his parents thinking?
House GOP leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA.), mocked the inclusionary mandate as “stupid.” Insane might be a more apt description.
The new rules package is 45 pages long. It also includes a promise to continue fighting COVID-19 and allows members to carry firearms at the Capitol (how did that one get through when President-elect scumbag/liar-Biden wants more gun laws?)
I can hear it now when the House Sergeant at Arms announces the arrival of the president for his (excuse me, “it’s”) State of the Union address. No more “Madam Speaker,” or a future “Mr. Speaker,” perhaps just “Speaker,” followed by the person’s name.
In the mid-19th century there was a political movement dubbed by critics as “The Know-Nothing Party.” It would be a fitting title for today’s House leadership and their ridiculous rules. ~ The Patriot Post
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