Transnational Elite Determined to Kill Liberalism

Transnational Elite Determined to Kill Liberalism 1

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It’s really quite a coincidence, isn’t it, that prosecutors and courts deeply committed to the transnational elite are finding that all their opponents are criminals who must be arrested and banned from running for office. 

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And it only happens when it looks pretty likely that they are about to win office! 

Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader, was found guilty of embezzlement by a criminal court in Paris on Monday and immediately barred from running for public office for five years, jeopardizing her plans to compete in France’s 2027 presidential election.

The verdict was a major blow to the perennial presidential ambitions of Ms. Le Pen, an anti-immigrant, nationalist politician who has already mounted three failed bids. Looking grim and murmuring “incredible,” she walked briskly out of the courtroom before the judges had completed reading her sentence.

She did not address the dozens of camera crews that awaited her outside the courtroom, but she was expected to speak on French television later on Monday evening. She had spoken of her “serenity” before the hearing but there was little evidence of that.

Ms. Le Pen is the clear front-runner in opinion polls for the 2027 election. Her ineligibility is certain to provoke strong protests from her own party, but also more broadly, there are likely to be claims that French democracy is being denied. The presiding judge, however, said that nobody was entitled “to an immunity in violation of the rules of the law.”

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Luckily, we in the West live in countries deeply devoted to democratic principles, and it is inconceivable that prosecutors and judges would invent BS charges, stretch the boundaries of legality past breaking, or threaten the stability of their political systems by exceeding their legitimate power.

Right? 

RIGHT?! 

And we have checks and balances–you know, things like appeals. Right?

The court also sentenced Ms. Le Pen, 56, to four years in prison, with two of those years suspended, and a fine of 100,000 euros, or about $108,000. She has long denied any wrongdoing in the case, which involved accusations that her party, the National Rally, illegally used several million euros in European Parliament funds for expenses between 2004 and 2016.

She is widely expected to appeal the verdict, which would put most of her sentence on hold, but not the ban on running for public office. The court ruled that her electoral ineligibility is effective immediately. As a result, only a successful appeal before the 2027 deadline to enter the race would allow her to run.

That is not impossible, but it will be difficult. The appeals process is slow in France, and even if a new trial took take place before the 2027 election, it is unclear whether the prosecution’s case would be overturned.

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Oops. I guess not. 

I AM glad to see that the courts are so diligent that they dug up and found accusations of questionable spending–something unheard of in politics because the rules are so well-defined–that go back a decade or two. As with the charges in New York against President Trump, only the diligence of creative prosecutors can protect citizens from the rare politician who can be shown, with great effort, to have bent a rule. 

Transnational Elite Determined to Kill Liberalism 2Authoritarian countries like Russia and China have ruling regimes that jail political opponents, ban them from running for office, censor political opponents, silence opposition news sources, and use propaganda outlets as megaphones for their Narratives.

So, unlike what we have in the free-wheeling West, where everything goes, opposition parties thrive, and government officials restrain themselves from abusing their power. 

Anybody familiar with history can see the obvious pattern being repeated. Tired, failing regimes that have lost their legitimacy are striking out at their political opponents, sacrificing the very few remaining shreds of credibility to hang onto power. When regimes are young, then tend to rely on authoritarianism to establish power and, at least in many cases, loosen their grip on power to maintain and expand their sense of legitimacy. 

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Think South Korea or Taiwan, or for that matter the UK as parliamentary democracy developed. The classic case is Rome, which went from kings to a Senate with roughly divided powers in the Consuls and Tribunes. The freer systems prosper, with a good working balance between order and freedom. Innovation, expansion, and cultural supremacy develop. 

Then, the ruling elite becomes greedy, demanding more and more power and resources. 

In Rome, the system became tired and trended toward political suppression, eventually resulting in authoritarian rule. 

That path is being followed in the West. The ruling elite has turned on the people, and this is the result. To retain their grip on power, they return to authoritarianism. 

They are killing what made the West great. Look at how the elite is rushing to destroy Elon Musk, the Edison and Tesla of our time. As he struggles to make humanity interplanetary, they struggle to rein him in and destroy him. 

Europe is lost. The Germanic hoards of the 21st century are already inside the gates. The US is getting there. And the comfortable elite grasp at the few years of power still left to them. 

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Posted in Republican News

BREAKING: Marine Le Pen Found Guilty of Embezzlement, Barred From Running for President

BREAKING: Marine Le Pen Found Guilty of Embezzlement, Barred From Running for President 3

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BREAKING: Marine Le Pen Found Guilty of Embezzlement, Barred From Running for President 4

I’m just going to lay this out here before we get to the court case.

Le Pen beats all other presidential candidates with ease in final poll before expulsion court hearing

Marine Le Pen stands poised to win the 2027 presidential election in France unless the courts disqualify her from running, new polling published just hours before a court hearing to determine her future has shown.

On Sunday, a new Ifop survey for Le Journal du Dimanche showed Le Pen leading in every run-off scenario, making her the undeniable frontrunner and obvious candidate of the right-wing National Rally.

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The thing about the court case was not that a French politician was accused of something hinky to do with money – that’s hardly breaking news. No, what raised eyebrows was prosecutors insisting that a guilty verdict in this court case must be accompanied by an immediate FIVE-YEAR BAN from holding public office, meaning it takes effect during the appeal process.

EXCUSEZ-MOI?

Poof. There goes the front-runner if she’s found guilty, unlike, apparently, any French politician before her.

…Should the French court follow a similar path, Le Pen’s supporters — and perhaps many undecided voters — will likely view this as yet another case of overreach by an increasingly politicized judiciary.

Le Pen’s dominance isn’t marginal. Against an array of political opponents, she leads former Macron-appointed prime ministers Édouard Philippe (20–25 percent) and Gabriel Attal (around 20 percent), as well as far-left grandee Jean-Luc Mélenchon (12–13 percent), with ease.

She appears to be far more palatable to the wider electorate than others on the nationalist right, including Reconquête leader Éric Zemmour, who is polling at around 5-6 percent.

So, she’d wipe the floor with all of the establishment EU-blessed figures, which is what French polling is saying at the moment.

This morning?

Le Pen and her peeps are guilty.

National Rally (RN) party leader Marine Le Pen has been found guilty of embezzlement of public funds and was banned from running in elections with immediate execution.

On the morning of March 31, the judge at the Paris court also handed down guilty verdicts to eight other current or former members of Le Pen’s party who, like her, previously served as MEPs in the European Parliament.

According to the court, the politicians set up a system between 2004 and 2016 to funnel €2.9 million from the EP to the headquarters of the RN in Paris.

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The court must know how this looks because it issued a ‘This was about the crime, not the politics‘ statement and warned the sentencing part of the proceedings were going to take some time.

…The court stressed that “no one was judged for having done politics”, but that it was about a “system” of embezzlement of public funds.

The BBC had an update just a bit ago…

Breaking

We’ve just had it confirmed that Marine Le Pen has been banned from running for office for five years.

This means she will not be able to contest the French presidential election in 2027.

…with an addendum just a few minutes later.

More Details of LePen’s Sentence

As we’ve reported, a French court has given Marie Le Pen a five-year ban on running for office with immediate effect. This means she is barred from running in the 2027 French presidential election race.

She has also been given a four-year prison sentence, of which two will be suspended. The other two can be spent with an electronic tag rather than in custody.

Le Pen has also been given a €100,000 (£82,635) fine.

She will very likely appeal the jail sentence, so this sentence will not apply now.

The appeal process in France is apparently quite convoluted and time-consuming, which also explains why ‘prosecutors’ were so insistent on an immediate ban from running for any political office. That timeline works out great for legally keeping LePen out of everyone’s hair. Oddly enough, she’s allowed to keep her parliamentary seat.

…She is almost certain to appeal, and neither the prison sentence nor the fine would be applied until her appeals are exhausted. Appeals in France can take months or even years.

But her five-year ban from running for office kicks in immediately, via a so-called “provisional execution” measure requested by prosecutors, and will be lifted only if any appeal is upheld before the election. She retains her parliamentary seat until her term ends.

There was no immediate comment from Le Pen on the ruling. Her right-hand man, RN president Jordan Bardella, said: “Today it is not only Marine Le Pen who was unjustly condemned: It was French democracy that was killed”.

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Bardella is the heir presumptive with LePen removed.

As you might imagine, with everything happening between Germany, Romania, etc., the headlines are pretty volatile, and opinions are wildly split.

BREAKING: Judge rules Marine Le Pen ineligible to run for president in 2027 in latest blow to democracy in Europe

Shock verdict shows “power is shifting to the judges” in the latest attack on democracy in the EU

A judge has ruled Marine Le Pen is ineligible to run for office, along with eight MEPs from her National Rally party, after they were found guilty of misappropriation of EU funds. The move is the latest attack on democracy in the EU, with judges increasingly deciding elections in Europe. Le Pen has also been sentenced to four years in prison, with two years suspended.

Notably, the news comes right as Le Pen leads the polling for French presidential elections in 2027, as Remix News reported earlier today.

The court estimated that the total losses amounted to €2.9 million, as a result of “paying by the European Parliament people who actually worked for the far-right party.” Le Pen was found to be responsible for €1.8 million in damages herself. The judgment also concerns 12 assistants. The prosecutor’s office initially alleged that €7 million had been used in this way.

Investigators accused Le Pen of managing the illegal use of European subsidies between 2004 and 2016, when she served as an MEP. They stated that instead of working in Strasbourg, assistants were to work for Le Pen’s National Rally party in a domestic capacity.

…Other commentators have expressed surprise at not only the verdict but also the decision to exclude her from elections.

Pierre Lellouche, a lawyer and former Deputy of the French National Assembly, appeared on CNEWS to point out that the current prime minister, François Bayrou, faced the same charge and suffered no consequences.

“Then, last but not least, there is the case of (François) Bayrou, the current prime minister, who has been prosecuted for exactly the same thing, i.e., for abuses of party funding declared as parliamentary assistants in Europe, at the EU parliament. Bayrou emerged from this affair without being in the least concerned. In fact, the public prosecutor’s office has once again referred the matter to the courts, but even so, we’re dealing with a double standard here. It’s a bit surprising.”

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So, considering France’s sitting prime minister was ‘prosecuted’ for this exact thing with zero consequences, it sounds on the surface like a matter of ‘the system,’ as the court calls it, only being acceptable for approved crooks who belong to the right club. Not all crooks in the system qualify.

WE’RE DEALING WITH A DOUBLE STANDARD HERE

The presiding judge has just released a statement regarding their decision to impose the immediate ban on any candidacy by Le Pen:

Here’s how the presiding judge Bénédicte de Perthuis explained her decision, via AFP:

“The court took into consideration, in addition to the risk of reoffending, the major disturbance of public order if a person already convicted… was a candidate in the presidential election.”

Fairly reeks of their favorite phrase, ‘saving democracy.’

Am I reading that right?

‘Is France still a democracy?’ 

…The dramatic judicial intervention into the French presidential campaign is threatening to deny to voters the choice of the candidate who is ahead in all opinion polls. On the news channels this lunchtime, the question was being posed: is France still a democracy?

According to what I have learned of the European Union’s definition by watching the political lurching and machinations on the continent these past couple of years, it most assuredly is.

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Granted, I am looking at this through American eyes, but, man, do I have a cynical squint on right now.

Next up, wondering what the average French citizen in the street thinks of it.

They’re normally not too shy about letting anyone know how they feel.

But, boy – I hope they’ve got those fire trucks filled.

Posted in Republican News

Scott Jennings Signing Up for Another 3 Years at CNN

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Scott Jennings Signing Up for Another 3 Years at CNN 6

Scott Jennings is sticking with CNN. 

Thank God. 

Like you, most of my exposure to cable news from any station comes through clips on X, and my favorite ones are almost invariable clips of Scott Jennings in the midst of a political debate on CNN. 

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I have long feared that Fox or another network would try to poach him from CNN because he is a standout talent. He and Harry Enten are the best things going on the failing network, and it’s hard to see how CNN can retain a single viewer outside the friends, families, and employees (maybe) of the company and its “talent.” 

A while back I wrote one of my occasional “things I like” columns about Scott, and he and I correspond a bit. He’s a smart and funny guy and has infinitely more patience than I. Where I would have to restrain myself from throwing a coffee cup at some lefty for lying through his teeth, Scott calmly slices and dices their hypocritical arguments with that disarming southern twang and logic bombs. 

Fox would have been the natural (and wrong) place for him to wind up if he were poached, and the last thing Fox needs is yet another conservative talking head. 

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Scott’s no troll, and his goal isn’t to “own” the libs but to reach the audience, many of whom watch CNN by habit and rarely hear anything but the same pablum that gets pushed out by all the Pravda Media. It speaks well of CNN that he is a regular on their panels, and I would love to see a Crossfire show with him and Van Jones, who is Scott’s liberal alter-ego. They get alone, are both smart, and have dramatically different points of view. 

CNN, what do you say? I would watch it. 

Scott bridges the gap between the MAGA folks and the older establishment Republicans–he has put his time in Washington and retains credibility with them–but he has drifted Trumpward as Trump has proven himself to be a far better and more canny leader than those of us who were skeptics expected. 

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Scott does have an advantage that his interlocutors on the channel do not: he uses his brain and doesn’t stick to the talking points that are always distributed to talking heads before they go on the air. I used to do a “crossfire”-type debate segment on a Minnesota TV show and I was always struck that my debate partner came in with pages of talking points emailed to her. 

Scott isn’t hobbled by the need to regurgitate. He sticks to reality, not spin.

CNN viewers need a bit of reality to penetrate their bubble. 

Posted in Republican News

Yes, The Left Supports Domestic Terrorism; Liberals Remain Silent About It

Yes, The Left Supports Domestic Terrorism; Liberals Remain Silent About It 7

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Yes, The Left Supports Domestic Terrorism; Liberals Remain Silent About It 8

Somebody is going to get killed. And, let’s face it, that is exactly what the people funding and promoting these Tesla terrorist campaigns want. 

I am getting very, very tired of the Democrats and liberals who keep saying, “I don’t approve of violence, but…” If you don’t approve of violence, start pressuring your legislators, leaders, and allies in the Pravda Media to denounce it and go after the violent and destructive protesters. Otherwise, you are part of the problem. 

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No, no, no. It really IS the liberal establishment who are promoting and enabling this violence. For all the talk about “stochastic terrorism” when a conservative says “men are men, and women are women”–we are accused of GENOCIDE for repeating what every biology textbook in work history has said until 5 minutes ago–nobody says a peep when Democrats call for Elon Musk to be murdered, Tesla owners to be harassed, property to be destroyed, or Tesla owners beaten up. 

That was idealism. Just as the murderous and destructive riots of 2020 were “social justice.”

The Brownshirts thought they were making Germany safe for Germans. They didn’t pat themselves on the back for being evil–they were idealists. So was Stalin, and Mao’s cultural revolution brigades. And the Baader-Meinhof gang. And so on. If idealism can justify this sort of political violence, then every totalitarian government is justified. 

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The people keying Teslas and stopping people on the streets to attack them are not the paid shills of the Democrat establishment–these are the mentally deranged people they are appealing to–but ActBlue is funding the Tesla Protests, and an organization called Indivisible is backed by leftist billionaires and funding most of these protests. 

The whole point is to kill Tesla and to hope that Tesla’s founder is killed as well. They are trolling for their Luigi Mangione, whom you will recall was cheered for his assassination and is a cult hero of the left now. 

Liberals’ reaction to the Trump assassination attempts was to tut-tutt, say “What did you expect?” and go back immediately to calling him Hitler and calling him an existential threat. 

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On X and especially BlueSky, the liberals all complained about how bad a shot Crooks was. The center-left conveniently forgot all about the events, and you may have noticed that Biden put the man who was in charge of protective details–the man who failed twice to do his job adequately–in charge of the entire Secret Service. 

He didn’t fail upward. He was rewarded. And we still know almost nothing about Thomas Crooks. 

Every Democrat using ActBlue to contribute to Democrats is also helping fund the masterminds of this campaign, because ActBlue raises money for them as well and takes a cut of your donations. 

As for claiming ignorance or believing all this is organic, sorry, but you either know or are trying very hard not to know that this is the workings of Democrat strategists. All the evidence is out there. We keep telling you. But you don’t want to believe, so you don’t. 

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Between approximately 3-12 to 3-17 the names depicted in the Fox News story board below were illegally and dangerously swatted (along with members of their immediate families, including their children). 

I thought by now we’d have arrests at local levels or at least statements from the DOJ and 

@AGPamBondi

 regarding on-going investigations into these very dangerous terrorist acts that place lives needlessly at risk. 

I guarantee, it is very easy to track down these type phone numbers and get after whoever initiated these calls (and maybe who’s behind them). I simply ask for these acts of terror to be taken as extremely serious and that our law enforcement professionals led by 

@FBIDirectorKash

 & 

@FBIDDBongino

 let those who are perpetrating them know, their days are numbered. Thanks

I am so, so tired of the BS, the hypocrisy, all the fake outrage. The very people who defended Lloyd Austin when he got servicemembers killed in Afghanistan, left tens of thousands of allies behind, and $80 billion in military equipment for the Taliban and then went AWOL are now outraged at Pete Hegseth. 

Scott Jennings lays out the plain facts to Dems calling for firings over Signalgate —

JENNINGS: “The bar for firing people like this is really high from the last administration when after the Afghanistan withdrawal, which was a disaster, people died.”

“No accountability was made  after the drone strike that vaporized those poor kids and that family.”

“No accountability after the secretary of defense went AWOL. No accountability.”

MEAGHER: “But Austin did a press conference and called for a review.”

JENNINGS: “Did a single Democrat ask for his resignation?”

**Change the subject**

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Liberals, do you really need to wait for a New York Times editorial or an article in The Atlantic to give you permission to actually deplore deranged leftists who attack women and families in their cars? Destroy private property? 

Where is your outrage? Where was your outrage when Biden welcomed in foreign gang members to murder, rape, and terrorize ordinary citizens? You know, the kind of outrage you show when Trump tries to deport Tren de Aragua, who commit much of this mayhem?

NEW: Joe Rogan calls out Democrats for paying people to show up to rallies and protest Tesla

“For a lot of losers, a lot of people who don’t have things going well in their life, and I’ve been a loser at many points in my life, if someone offered me $400 bucks to show up somewhere of course I’d go. I’d call people Hitler, I’d hold up that stupid sign, if you found me when I was 21, 100% I’d take that money.

They were giving up $1000 bucks for people to protest Tesla. They had rules of engagement, are you organizing gangs? Are you paying money to people and telling them how to engage in violence? I thought this was peaceful protesting. I don’t see many violent pro-Tesla people. So who is this violence for? The police?”

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I don’t get it. Seriously, I don’t. Is it just that these issues aren’t presented in the news sources? True enough, but these are the people who told you Biden was sharp as a tack, that Biden could amend the Constitution by tweet, that the border was secure while 10-12 million illegals streamed across the border, that inflation was transitory, that Trump colluded with Russia, that COVID had nothing to do with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, that the vaccine would prevent infection and transmission. 

At some point, one has a responsibility to quit trusting the liars. 

The attacks on Tesla owners are an intended result of this campaign, just as the George Floyd riots were an intended result of all those politicians who egged them on. 

Only liberals can stand in the way of these attacks. Conservatives can oppose them, can demand arrests, can jail the people who are caught. But liberals are funding the protests, pushing the violent rhetoric, egging them on, and sending donations to the groups and politicians who are their authors. 

If you want moral authority to criticize conservative policies, at the very least, quit supporting the worst people on your side. 

No conservative will take you seriously if you simultaneously proclaim the importance of “norms” while supporting Brownshirts. It sounds like BS to us. 

Posted in Republican News

What We Leave Behind Matters

What We Leave Behind Matters 9

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What We Leave Behind Matters 10

        BILL’S PLACE, Pennsylvania — Technically this place is no longer on a map — the realignment of the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the 1960s ended its tiny dot. However, for over 30 years, if you were traveling up and down the Lincoln Highway along the Bedford-Fulton county line, you were greeted with billboards bearing this charming rhyme:

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        “You may be from Massachusetts

        You may be from Tennessee

        Even from the state of Washington, it matters not to me

        Tourist friends, we’re glad to greet you

        And to help you on your way

        Our hope is when you leave us

        That you’ve had a worthwhile stay

        Bill’s Place, Pennsylvania”

        The Bill in Bill’s Place was William C. Wakefield, an Everett, Pennsylvania, man whose gimmicky way to attract tourists in the early days of the great American road trip on the country’s first coast-to-coast highway opened his door to the American dream.

        The dream became a successful business that lasted almost 40 years — because shortly after he put up the billboards, the cars started pouring in and never stopped until the day the business closed.

        Wakefield started the business with $150, $110 of which was used to construct a 10-by-100-foot stand as a means to be able to afford to resume his studies at Pennsylvania State University. He had tried three times to afford classes, according to the local newspaper.

        The first day he made 37 cents. But he was not deterred.

        Wakefield put up a tent behind the stand and lived there for quite a while until business started to take off. First, he added a 6-foot porch, and then a diner, a gas station and, before too long, a gift shop with knickknacks, toys and chinaware pendants that read “Bill’s Place Pennsylvania.”

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        He married and had two sons, George and Bill, in quick order. By the time the boys were 6 years old, they were pumping gas.

        His best business moment happened thanks in part to his success selling postcards. It was because he did such a brisk business with them that tourists always followed up with a request for him to mail them. At first, it was annoying, but ever the entrepreneur, Wakefield came up with his greatest gimmick of all: a post office. And not just any post office, the country’s smallest post office, with the postmark Bill’s Place.

        It was not only tiny in size — it was a 10-square-foot shack — but it was also tiny in population: Wakefield, his wife, a hired hand and his two boys.

        Word spread quickly and everyone wanted to stop at the country’s smallest post office. And, of course, they wanted to buy a trinket, gas up and eat at the diner.

        Bill’s Place became so iconic that he convinced a salesman from Rand McNally who had just happened to stop for gas to pinpoint it on all Rand McNally maps. I can remember it on my father’s old folded-up travel maps in the car that I loved to pore over as a child.

        Wakefield also built a lookout perch that sat high on Ray’s Hill for tourists to climb to take in the breathtaking scenery of three Appalachian states below and seven counties.

        When the turnpike first opened with an interchange at Breezewood, Wakefield’s business boomed even more. When the commonwealth decided to reroute it to add larger tunnels, the end was inevitable. Where Bill’s Place was is now essentially gone. It is basically just the side of the mountaintop. Wakefield had sold just a few years before its demise to the Paul Miller family of Jeanette.

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        Where Bill’s Place once sat was a tavern during the stagecoach period. There was a large stable that offered accommodations for the horses. It was also a toll house for those heading east-west long before the invention of the automobile.

        Bill’s Place wasn’t just a place to set a spell, browse, laugh or create silly memories with your family in the same way Bill Wakefield wasn’t just a guy looking to make a buck. He was a good citizen in his community, volunteered, led the business district, and raised two sons, including William Wakefield II, who died a few years ago. He clearly learned from his father’s knee what serving your community meant.

        When the younger Wakefield passed, his obituary was a tribute to all his parents taught him about work ethic, giving back, the importance of education and embracing life to its fullest. He joined the military while studying civil engineering and participating in ROTC at Penn State.

        Wakefield II had a career in the Army Corps of Engineers, became an airborne ranger and served two tours in Vietnam, earning numerous awards for exemplary service. He coached soccer and basketball for his children for dozens of years. He was married for 49 years and in his lifetime visited over 107 countries on all seven continents.

        His final resting place is at Arlington National Cemetery — his father would be proud.

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        You have to wonder how many other lives Wakefield Sr. touched or inspired when he showed them the fruits of embracing the American dream or the consequences of hard work. Or how many his sons’ lives touched as well.

        That’s the thing about leading a life of example. Wakefield has been gone for decades, and Bill’s Place has as well. Yet the examples through the lives they lived still live on today through the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren whose parents shared an imprint of their visit that day at Bill’s Place and passed it on to their family and friends.

        All you have to do is take a ride due west on U.S. 30 until you hit Iowa, and you’ll see a little bit of Bill Wakefield when you see the signs for Wall Drug hundreds of miles before you hit their iconic store in South Dakota. Thirteen years after Bill Wakefield placed his little signs along the Lincoln Highway in 1923, Dorothy Hustead started enticing road trippers to visit their out-of-the-way store — and make their mark on American culture by employing the same tactic Wakefield employed when she came up with a catchy and simple jingle:

        “Get a soda

        Get a beer

        Turn next corner

        Just as near

        To Highway 16 and 14

        Free ice water”

        Nearly 100 years later, Wall Drug is now an icon — you’d like to believe that maybe Bill Wakefield had something to do with it.

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        Salena Zito is a CNN political analyst, and a staff reporter and columnist for the Washington Examiner. She reaches the Everyman and Everywoman through shoe-leather journalism, traveling from Main Street to the beltway and all places in between. To find out more about Salena and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Posted in Republican News

Abundant Grace and the Elder Brother: Sunday Reflection

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Abundant Grace and the Elder Brother: Sunday Reflection 12

Note: I am on vacation this weekend. I hope you will enjoy this reflection from 2019, written outside the Lenten season. I also have Lenten reflections on this passage below, including one from 2019.

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This morning’s Gospel reading is Luke 15:1–32:

Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So to them he addressed this parable. “What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.

“Or what woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it? And when she does find it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost.’ In just the same way, I tell you, there will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Then he said,
“A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father, ‘Father give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’ So the father divided the property between them. After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings and set off to a distant country where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation. When he had freely spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he found himself in dire need. So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens who sent him to his farm to tend the swine. And he longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed, but nobody gave him any. Coming to his senses he thought, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have more than enough food to eat, but here am I, dying from hunger. I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.”’ So he got up and went back to his father. While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him. His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son.’ But his father ordered his servants, ‘Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Take the fattened calf and slaughter it. Then let us celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.’ Then the celebration began. Now the older son had been out in the field and, on his way back, as he neared the house, he heard the sound of music and dancing. He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean. The servant said to him, ‘Your brother has returned and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ He became angry, and when he refused to enter the house, his father came out and pleaded with him. He said to his father in reply, ‘Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns, who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf.’ He said to him, ‘My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’”

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The lesson of the prodigal son is one of the most compelling of Jesus’ parables because it fits our desires so perfectly. We commit the same sins as the younger son does; in fact, this is a very incisive retelling of Original Sin — the rejection of the Father and the wish to inherit His kingdom as though he were dead. We reject His authority and go out to make the world as we see fit rather than through His will.

And that turns out about as well as one would expect. The younger son makes ruin of his life, realizes and repents of it. As fallen sons and daughters of the Lord, we eventually feel our sins so keenly that we become desperate for forgiveness. We hope to receive at least some crumbs of the table when we return in repentance to the Father, not the fatted calf. That kind of reception is too gracious for us to imagine — and yet Jesus promises us exactly that, if we return as the younger son does.

It might surprise people to consider that the younger son is actually our idealized conception of ourselves. Too often, we are the elder brother — the son who complied out of fear alone, sitting in judgment on others, and jealous to the point of rage over the Father’s love for others. The father forgives the elder son too, but not without a soft rebuke for his stubbornness and scrupulosity. This son also sins in his own way, also seeks to supplant the Father as judge, but unlike the younger son neither recognizes his sin nor repents of it.

In the historical context in which Jesus preached, it’s not difficult to understand which audience Jesus intended for both parts of this parable. The younger son would have been the rank-and-file Israelites who had been lost in sin; the elder brother would have been the temple authorities that used the law as a weapon to protect their own privilege and deny the love of God to others.

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But this goes farther than just the historical context, because we find the same tension within ourselves. At different times, we might be the dissolute son thumbing his nose at the Father, or the repentant younger son seeking His forgiveness. In fact, we might swing back and forth repeatedly between these two states, and in between — when we’ve momentarily humbled ourselves and repented — suddenly become the elder brother, willing to cast out those who acted in the same manner as we did. In those moments, we become so determined to follow the law that we forget that the Father who wrote it is the one true judge.

Today’s readings give us guidance on navigating these waters. If any one New Testament figure embodies the elder brother, it is Saul of Tarsus who later became the apostle Paul. Saul persecuted and pursued Christ’s church, being present at and likely directing the martyrdom of Stephen, among others unnamed. He was determined to impose the law by force and ensure that those who crossed it in his judgment could not be saved. Paul writes to Timothy that he was among the worst of sinners — “a blasphemer and a persecutor and arrogant.” Yet Christ forgave and anointed him, in part, to show the boundless nature of the Lord’s forgiveness. “I was mercifully treated, so that in me as the foremost [sinner], Christ Jesus might display all his patience as an example[.]”

In our first reading from Exodus, we see the grace that Jesus taught in action. The Israelites have decided to dethrone God just as the younger brother does in Jesus’ parable, relying on their own material wealth to create an idol for the worship that belongs to God. After building the golden calf for idol worship, the Lord tells Moses that His people have blasphemed and must be destroyed. Moses, an elder brother of sorts in the faith, does not run down the mountain to smite everyone in His name. He implores the Lord for mercy on Moses’ younger siblings in faith. The Lord blesses Moses for his love of his family and withholds His judgment, forgiving the blasphemy against Him.

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Jesus calls us to be both the younger and elder son, or more accurately, recognize that in the end there is no difference. Sin is our rebellion against God, our attempt to dethrone Him and exploit His inheritance to satiate our own selfish desires. Both the younger and elder son do this in different ways and for different purposes, but both have to recognize this and ask forgiveness. The Father waits for one and all to return to Him in that way, and has a banquet of celebration waiting for each of us who do.

  

Previous reflections on these readings:

The front page image is “Return of the Prodigal Son” by Cornelis Massijs, 1538. On display at the Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands. Via Wikimedia Commons.

“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature that looks at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.  

Posted in Republican News

Gavin Newsom Gaslights on ‘Latinx,’ the Budget and His Minimum Wage Hike That Killed Jobs

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        California Gov. Gavin Newsom hosts a podcast. Why not? He has plenty of free time.

        In the last few years, California experienced a net population loss of nearly 1 million people. The average price of a home in the state is twice that of the national average. Its K-12 test scores in reading and math place California 37th of 50 states. The state’s January 2025 unemployment rate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was the second highest in the nation.

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        As for California’s poverty rate, CalMatters, a respected, California-based nonprofit news organization, wrote: “The Public Policy Institute of California, using a methodology similar to that of the Census Bureau, calculated that in 2023, 31.1% of Californians were either at or near poverty. Deep poverty, defined as ‘families with less than half of the resources to meet basic needs,’ was at 3.4%.” (California’s homeless population, at an estimated 187,000, is the nation’s largest.)

        In a separate report, CalMatters wrote, “Nearly a quarter of all unhoused Americans live in California — as well as 28% of all homeless veterans and 44% of all ‘chronically homeless’ Americans (people who have a disability and have been homeless for a significant period of time.)”

        As to violent crime, the Ventura Star in October 2024 wrote: “After achieving a 50-year low of 391 incidents (per 100,000 residents) in 2014, California’s violent crime rate started to increase in 2015 and has been trending upward, with increases in seven of the past ten years. The 2023 rate is 15.4% higher than 2019, pre-pandemic. … While homicide and aggravated assaults are down since the pandemic surge, they are still higher than pre-pandemic levels.”

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        The state budget is a mess. In 2022, Newsom asserted, without documentation, the state had a budget surplus of $100 billion: “No other state in American history has ever experienced a surplus as large as this.”

        So, the supermajority Democrat-dominated legislature proceeded to spend accordingly. CalMatters wrote, “Two years later, buried in its fine print, the deficit-ridden 2024-25 budget acknowledged that sales taxes and personal and corporate income tax revenues would fall well short of the $200 billion a year projection, estimating a $165.1 billion shortfall over four years.”

        Newsom invited to his inaugural podcast conservative Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA. They discussed the term “Latinx,” the supposedly “inclusive” term to describe Hispanics. According to Pew Research, of Hispanics familiar with the word, 75% do not think it should be used.

        Newsom: “By the way, not one person ever in my office has ever used the word Latinx.”

        Kirk: “So can we finally put that to bed? Yeah, what the hell? Where did that even go? No more Latinx, everybody.”

        Newsom: “I just didn’t even know where it came from. I’m like, ‘What are people talking about?'”

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        But CNN and other outlets showed clips of Newsom repeatedly using the word, including when he implied Republicans were racist for rejecting the word.

        Here’s more gaslighting. Newsom, dismissing complaints of massive job loss, signed a bill increasing the minimum wage for fast-food workers from $16 to $20 an hour, effective April 2024. Months later, his office issued the following statement: “California has added jobs in limited service restaurants (fast food) both since Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 1228 the FAST Recovery Act in September 2023 and since the law’s new $20 minimum wage for fast food workers took effect April 1, 2024.”

        Don’t tell the BLS. It found that California has lost nearly 16,000 fast-food jobs since the bill was signed.

        In December 2024, the California Globe wrote: “While many stores let only a few employees go, others had more drastic numbers. Pizza Hut alone laid off 1,200 delivery drivers due to the higher costs. Others, including Round Table Pizza, did the same, pushing delivery duties onto services like DoorDash and Uber Eats.” Fast-food prices increased by an average of nearly 15%.

        Voters in November 2024 had a chance to vote for a hike in the minimum wage for the rest of California workers. For the first time in history, California voters nixed a measure to increase the minimum wage. Newsom ignored the massive damage his wage hike did to fast-food worker employment, but California voters did not.

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        Larry Elder is a bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio talk-show host. To find out more about Larry Elder, or become an “Elderado,” visit www.LarryElder.com. Follow Larry on X @larryelder. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Posted in Republican News

DEI Is Dying

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        President Donald Trump ended federal DEI programs. 

        Even before, companies were having second thoughts.

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        Victoria’s Secret changed “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” to “inclusion and belonging.”

        Now, even woke Disney, despite squandering 270 million shareholder dollars on a moronic new version of “Snow White,” joined the mob of companies dropping DEI programs.

        Why? Diversity, equity and inclusion sound good. 

        The problem is that DEI programs were captured by activists who obsess about victimhood. They divide people more than they empower.

        “Diversity, equity and inclusion,” says activist Robby Starbuck in my newest video, “don’t mean what they pretend to mean.”

        Before Trump ended federal DEI programs by executive order, Starbuck ended them at some companies merely by using the power of speech. His strategy: warn companies that he’ll tell his social media followers what stupid things they do.

        Remarkably, that worked!

        After he criticized John Deere on Twitter for encouraging “preferred pronouns” and holding woke diversity trainings, John Deere quickly dropped those policies.

        Toyota, Target and Harley Davidson did, too.

        “Why did they listen to you?” I ask.

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        “We go to them like any other investigative journalist and we say, ‘Hey, we have a story we’re working on.'”

        Then, if they don’t change their policies, he goes public — posting the policies and his criticism on YouTube, Twitter, etc.   

        One week after he posted that Toyota sponsored pride parades and divided workers into identity-based groups such as LGBT, Black and Christian, Toyota stopped sponsoring LGBTQ events and opened employee groups to all workers.

        Coors has been requiring DEI trainings and donating to pride events. All it took was Starbuck looking into the company, and they stopped.

        So did Jack Daniels, McDonald’s, Walmart, AT&T, Lowe’s and Ford.

        “I like diversity,” I tell him, suggesting DEI programs were good.

        “They sound warm and fuzzy,” says Starbuck. “It’s why at the beginning, it got a lot of buy-in … I want to include everybody. I don’t want to be mean. What it actually turned out to be in reality looked more like crazy trainings, overtly racist hiring practices, diametrically opposed to the very warm, fuzzy sounding words they try to sell.”

        I think private companies should be able to have whatever policies they want. Customers and workers can buy other products or work someplace else.

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        But over the past few years, DEI mandates became so prevalent, you couldn’t avoid them.

        I’m a Chase Bank customer. The bank is run by a very smart guy, Jamie Dimon.

        Just last year, Dimon said DEI is “good for business; it’s morally right; we’re quite good at it.”

        But after Starbuck revealed JPMorgan’s policies, Dimon quickly changed his mind.

        “I saw how we were spending money on some of this stupid s–t,” Dimon said, “and it really pissed me off … I’m just going to cancel them. I don’t like wasted money in bureaucracy.”

        In my years of reporting, I’ve never seen changes this fast.

        DEI activists are angry about it.

        The president of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation says, “We will not be erased!” 

        “What existed before DEI?” replies Starbuck. “Did black people not exist before that?”

        On “The View,” host Sunny Hostin claims, “This will specifically harm women … African Americans and Latinos.”

        “What she’s actually saying is that minorities are not going to be able to get jobs if the sole thing you’re looking at is merit. The way I was raised, you call that racism,” replies Starbuck. “She’s being racist.”

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        I push back:

        “They’re just saying, ‘We have a history of disadvantage. We were slaves in this country.'”

        “None of them were,” he points out. “I’m Cuban. I could say my family went through this and that. I didn’t go through it. I’m not going to claim their disadvantage as my own.”

        “We’re not going to fall for the same stupid stuff anymore. We’re going to judge people based on merit.”

        Every Tuesday at JohnStossel.com, Stossel posts a new video about the battle between government and freedom. He is the author of “Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.”

Posted in Republican News

Newsom: ‘The Democratic Brand is Toxic Right Now’

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Gov. Gavin Newsom continues to make news by pushing back on the far left of his own party. In a conversation last night with Bill Maher, he said a few things which are likely to rile up the extremists on his own team.

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First up, he made the case for talking to people on the other side of the aisle. “These guys are crushing us,” Newsom said. He continued, “The Democratic brand is toxic right now. We had a high water mark two weeks ago, that was a CNN poll at 29% favorability. It’s dropped in an NBC poll down to 27%.”

But the real highlight of this clip comes at the end. “This notion of cancel culture…that’s real and Democrats need to own up to that,” Newsom said. Some people won’t remember but going back to 2014 we spent years arguing this point. There was a cottage industry in the left-wing media of authors downplaying cancel culture and claiming it was just a few isolated instances which the right was blowing out of proportion. No one pretends that’s the case now. Having one of the leaders of the Democratic party say so, even if it comes years too late, seems like a bit of progress.

But all of that was just a setup for Maher’s next question: “What do you say to people who say ‘Well, this sounds all very good but, governor, you were the poster-boy for a lot of this stuff.'” Maher then brought up the California law which allows teachers to hide children’s gender transitions from parents. “That’s the kind of thing…that makes a lot of people go ‘Well, you know what, that’s the party without common sense,'” Maher said.

As you’ll see, Newsom tried to recontextualize that law, saying it just protected teachers from being fired if they didn’t “snitch” to parents. But Maher correctly pushed back, saying that “snitching” to parents doesn’t compute.

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After that they turned to trans girls/women competing in female sports and Newsom doubled down on what he said a couple weeks ago to Charlie Kirk. “I can give you example after example. Just in my home state there was someone who won a triple jump by 8 feet,” he said.

There was also an exchange where Maher pointedly challenged Newsom over attempts to make repairs to his own house, specifically his roof. He pointed out that he had to pay for two inspectors to get repairs made after the recent wildfires. Newsom replied by bringing up Ezra Klein’s new book “Abundance” (more on that here) and seemingly endorsing its main critique that Dems are too focused on process and not enough on results.

All of this sounds reasonable but the problem, as Maher noted, is that this is not what Newsom has been saying for most of his career. Even CNN called him out on this after the Charlie Kirk interview.

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This is the problem with Gavin Newsom trying to become the voice of reason on these issues. He hasn’t been the voice of reason for the past decade. If he really wants to make a change and take his party in a new direction, he needs to start by being honest about his own role in taking it in the wrong direction. 

Newsom could simply state, on his own podcast or some other show, that he has been part of the problem. But until then, he’s not a catalyst for change so much as a guy trying to deceive people about who he is and what he believes.

Posted in Republican News

UK Police Arrest Parents, Jail Them For Criticizing School Policies

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As I listen in frustration to my liberal friends complain about encroaching authoritarianism in the United States and the danger of letting people express their opinions on X, I stand amazed at their admiration for allies in Europe, such as the UK or the European Union cracking down on people who aren’t in lockstep with the ruling regimes. 

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It is a testament to the power of groupthink and the power of propaganda and gives us a window into how otherwise civilized societies descend into barbarous madness that results in crimes against humanity. 

The analog isn’t so much the rise of Nazism–that sprang up out of the humiliating defeat of World War I and the economic turmoil of the post-war and Great Depression years when social upheaval would be expected. Rather, we are witnessing something akin to the Chinese Cultural Revolution, in which a years-long campaign of propaganda created the conditions for a social contagion that sparked a wave of oppression. 

When Maxie Allen complained to his daughter’s primary school about the recruitment process for a new head teacher, he hoped it would result in more openness and transparency.

Instead six uniformed officers from Hertfordshire police were sent to arrest Allen and his partner after the school objected to them sending numerous emails and to their criticisms including “disparaging” comments on a parents’ WhatsApp group.

Allen and Rosalind Levine were detained in front of their young daughter before being fingerprinted, searched and left in a police cell for eight hours. They were questioned on suspicion of harassment, malicious communications and causing a nuisance on school property. After a five-week investigation, police concluded there should be no further action.

The couple had previously been banned from entering Cowley Hill Primary School, in Borehamwood, after questioning the appointment process for a head and “casting aspersions” on the chair of governors on WhatsApp.

They say they were blocked from attending the parents’ evening for their daughter Sascha, nine, and were not allowed to be in the audience for her Christmas performance. Crucially, even though Sascha suffers from epilepsy and is neurodivergent and registered disabled, the couple were unable to meet teachers to inform them how to administer medication and ask questions about her learning progress.

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I expect this sort of behavior from the “revolutionary” left, but I am appalled when ordinary, decent, and “compassionate” liberals embrace these tactics or, at most, tut-tutt at what they see as excusable excesses of zeal in making society a kind and decent place. 

“If only you complied with our demands!” “We are doing this out of love!” 

Weirdly, movements like this do not spring out of authoritarianism–authoritarianism has much more limited goals–but out of idealistic totalitarian movements. Jeane Kirkpatrick captured the distinction in her seminal work “Dictatorship and Double Standards” back in the old Reagan days. Right-wing dictatorships have limited social goals–social order. Left-wing movements have totalitarian goals–a complete revolution of societal norms and thinking. One is practical, the other idealistic, and the idealistic ones are the more dangerous. 

That’s not an excuse to embrace dictatorships, but to put them in order when it comes to dangerousness and to help us make decisions when evaluating them. If you don’t, you will wind up dumping support for the Shah of Iran because he oppressed his political enemies only to put in the Ayatollah, who oppressed everybody in his society and embraced terrorism to expand his power to the entire world. 

If your choice is between the two, the Shah is infinitely better. The same can be said with supporting the South Korean dictators who led their country into freedom and democracy and the Kuomintang in Taiwan who did the same. Authoritarian regimes can evolve into democracies, as happened in every Western country, while totalitarian regimes aim to change human behavior, thinking, and values fundamentally. 

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Britain and Europe, as a whole, are run by proto-totalitarians who see arresting parents, Christians, and any ordinary Britons for wrongthink as necessary to building an ideal society. Dissenters are enemies of the people, of the ideal order and must be disposed of or suppressed. 

The left and the center-left embrace their “comply or else” attitude as a necessary stage in the evolution to a better society. 

Liberals may see the tactics of the leftists as going a bit too far…”I don’t approve of…” but they always add a “but…” Sure, the tactics are extreme, but the intention was idealistic. Their once-charming faith in the perfectibility of mankind is far more dangerous than the cynicism of moderates and conservatives who understand that the only thing more dangerous than a self-interested authoritarian is an idealist bent on fundamentally changing society and human norms. 

These people saw COVID tyranny as a necessary, or at least understandable response to a crisis, while people like you and me were horrified that otherwise decent people were whipped up into a mob. A majority of Democrats expressed a desire to put the unvaccinated in camps, to let them die, to take away their children, and often chased the noncompliant around in stores to harangue them for the simple act of not wearing a totally useless mask. 

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Helicopters were dispatched to collect people sailing in the ocean or surfing, and the authorities filled skateboard parks with sand to prevent youths from engaging in sport. 

It was for our own good. Wrongthink must be punished.

This is how we get to the point where parents are arrested for questioning decisions, for wrongthink, and for praying silently in their homes and on the streets. 

 To those who think, “It can’t happen here,” I say: It IS happening here and will get worse. We are already seeing mobs using Brownshirt tactics, police raids, censorship, and even violence being used against noncompliance. And many liberals shrug and are fine with that as long as the right people are targeted. 

The left sees Luigi Mangione as a hero. Liberals “abhor” but “understand” the violence. They will not object until they are the object of the terror. 

Posted in Republican News