“The entirety of human history across the globe is rife with wars, treaties, bad deals, and the ‘stealing’ of land to produce nations. At some point, the current reality that the United States exists has to be accepted, especially when that reality is well over two centuries old.”
China & Russia: As our political leaders fight the “woke” culture wars, China and Russia are laying the groundwork to fight a potential real war. No one is threatening their security or sovereignty, so when we see the kind of military build-up & saber rattling that we’ve recently seen, America should/must be vigilant.
Taiwan is our ally. The only thing standing between Chinese hegemony in Asia is Taiwan & Japan. We should support them and help them defend themselves.
Afghanistan: While President Trump started a measured withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, President Biden just picked a date, and there we go.
The Taliban is already taking over abandon bases, collecting military equipment and arms that were recklessly left behind… basically using our less than strategic retreat to arm our enemies with our own, taxpayer funded equipment and supplies?!?
Biden’s lack of strategy and foresight is mind boggling.
Republican Party Battles: Now is the time for conservatives & Republicans to unite and do everything possible to win a governing majority in the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate. The ONLY way to stop the reckless left wing/progressive policies in the Biden Administration is to win back a Republican majority in Congress.
Everything from judges, tax policy, woke culture, critical race theory/race baiting, Biden’s border crisis to draconian government intrusion on privacy and liberty are at risk.
Now is NOT the time to attack Republicans who you disagree with on one specific vote or another. We need a center-right coalition that can win a majority.
I’m a big believer in primaries, but choose your battles wisely! Going after stalwart conservatives like Senator Lankford and Governors Abbot or Ducey is a HUGE waste of money and resources. Pick your fights, focus your efforts, and don’t force wasteful misadventures that will take away time and resources from races we need to win against liberal Democrats.
Keep your eye on the ball…a conservative Republican majority in 2022!!!
–Saul Anuzis
60 Plus Weekly Video Rewind
Ron DeSantis is a rising GOP star, Rashida Tlaib wants to defund ICE & DHS for being terrorists, and the GOP set to clash with the DOJ over Georgia voting law!
Links to the articles discussed in the video:
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/561740-desantis-risks-trump-backlash-as-his-star-rises
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tlaib-defunding-ice-cbp-dhs-terrorize-migrants
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The Moral Case for Abolishing the Inheritance Tax
There is a common belief among left-wing “progressives” that failure to enforce the inheritance tax will result in increased income disparities among racial, ethnic and social groups. The tax is a way of allocating the already-taxed income of wealth creators among the general population in a manner, it is imagined, that will ease society toward the moral position any fair and just society ought to occupy: one that has achieved total equity among groups, and one that establishes metaphysical egalitarianism as an appropriate characteristic of the human condition.
Why are unions and Democrats so opposed to giving poor children a choice in schooling?
For 17 years, a federally funded K-12 scholarship program has given thousands of poor children in D.C. the opportunity to attend private schools and the chance to go on to college. And for many of those 17 years, the program has been in the crosshairs of unions and other opponents of private school vouchers. Their relentless efforts unfortunately may now finally succeed with House Democrats and the Biden administration quietly laying the groundwork to kill off this worthy program.
In its report approving the D.C. spending bill for fiscal 2022, the House Appropriations Committee said it expects the administration to phase out the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program — allowing current students to continue but not allowing new students to enroll. The measure is likely to pass the House, setting up a potential fight in the Senate where bipartisan support for the program has helped to stave off past efforts to abolish it, including by the Obama administration.
The cost of the program is modest and well-spent: $17.5 million per year. That is part of a federal funding deal that also directs money to the District’s traditional and charter public schools. Nearly 11,000 scholarships have been awarded since the program was founded in 2004, and at least 91 percent of the graduates are accepted to two- or four-year colleges or universities. That compares with 39 percent of D.C public high school students. Most of the recipients — 92 percent — are African American or Hispanic, and the average annual income for families participating in the program in the 2020-2021 school year was $23,668.
The program, contrary to what you may have heard from opponents, was not foisted on an unwilling city by congressional Republicans, but was backed by then-Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) and has been embraced by parents who want the school choice that affluent families take for granted. It takes nothing away from public schools. Indeed, if opponents do succeed in killing off the program, likely gone will be the extra federal monies for the District’s traditional and charter schools, too. Funds the school system uses for teacher training also could fall victim to the teacher unions’ vendetta against vouchers.
Michigan’s Gov. Whitmer Trails In New Poll (Saul Quoted in Article)
As President Biden visited Traverse City, Mich. over the weekend, talk of the decline in voter approval for Biden ally and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer dominated political talk in the Wolverine State.
Most of the talk about Whitmer’s decline centers on a recent Competitive Edge Research poll showing that among likely voters statewide, the governor actually loses to former Detroit Police Chief and leading GOP hopeful James Craig by 45% to 38%.
Echoing the views of many Michiganders of varying political leanings, former State GOP Chairman and Republican National Committeeman Saul Anuzis told Newsmax that “Whitmer has disenfranchised voters across the state. If she can’t get her fair share of votes from outstate [outside Detroit], it makes it challenging for her.”
Anuzis added that “assuming Craig can outperform in Detroit because of his record as police chief, Michigan is definitely in play.”
Trump-allied GOP chairs turn on fellow Republicans
State Republican Party chairs who have bought into former President Trump’s lies of widespread election malfeasance are turning their fire on fellow Republicans who have acknowledged the reality of Trump’s defeat, in a turn that has longtime party leaders and strategists worried about the future of the conservative coalition.
For most of modern political history, a state party chair’s role has been confined to raising money and building an organization that can contact voters and elect candidates. Their job is much more often to promote those who win primaries than to wade in on behalf of a specific contender during those primaries.
But in the age of Trump, some party leaders are as eager to talk about the perceived turncoats within their own ranks as they are to go after the opposition party…
…“When Republican chairmen take their eye off the ball from building the party, raising money and ensuring a party machine infrastructure to elect more Republicans, then I think it’s a mistake and misguided,” said Saul Anuzis, a former Michigan Republican Party chairman who backed Trump’s reelection. “The idea of taking on the likes of Gov. Abbott or Sen. Lankford or other conservative to mainstream Republicans is a huge waste of resources and time.”…
…But to maintain a winning coalition, Anuzis said Republicans had to continue the marriage of Trump’s most ardent backers and those who want to move past a defeated former leader.
“If we are to win a governing majority, we need a party that can grow and accept traditional Republicans, those part of the three-legged stool coalition of defense, social issues and economic conservatives, as well as the new MAGA voters and Tea Party activists of late,” he said. “Our goal should be to grow the party, win elections, ultimately elect a governing majority that can legislate policy.”
DeSantis risks Trump backlash as his star rises (Saul Quoted in Article)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) meteoric rise in Republican politics is putting him on track for a possible clash with former President Trump, who is dangling the prospect of a third White House campaign.
DeSantis’s popularity among the GOP faithful has mushroomed over his handling of the coronavirus, and he’s found himself at the center of several news cycles, including over his signing of a controversial voting restriction bill and the collapse of a south Florida condominium building.
That support and attention, combined with his reelection fight next year, are fueling speculation that DeSantis is gearing up for a 2024 run. But Trump remains wildly popular among Republican voters, and any move seen as trying to oust him from his role as party leader risks a backlash among his followers — and the former president himself…
…aul Anuzis, a longtime Republican strategist and former Michigan GOP chair, said that it’s unlikely that DeSantis — or any other prominent Republican — will challenge Trump for the nomination if the former president decides to mount another presidential bid in 2024.
But he said that GOP leaders and donors are “actively engaging in scouting out potential nominees” should Trump pass on a comeback campaign.
“It’s early in the process and I think Republicans are looking at who are potentially other options if Donald Trump doesn’t run for reelection,” Anuzis said.
“As long as he remains popular among the Republican base, as long as potential presidential candidates are respectful and cognizant of his position with regard to potentially running, I don’t think he has any reason to go after anybody.”
A brilliant Twitter thread perfectly explains what drives today’s conservatives
Darryl Cooper, aka MartyrMade, is a researcher, writer, and podcaster who has put together one of the most brilliant Twitter threads you will ever read. Over the course of 35 tweets, he examines fact after fact from the last five years to explain why conservatives – the people who used to believe in our government, in law enforcement, in the election process – have become cynical, disillusioned, and prone to accepting conspiracy theories to explain the manifest breakdowns in the American system. It’s a brilliant analysis, one so good that Tucker Carlson read almost the entire thread on his show.
Since I find it hard to read long Twitter threads, I’ve put the entire text, verbatim, into prose form. You can read the thread here, in the original tweets. Frankly, I’m a little surprised the thread is still up because its scathing truths should frighten outlets like Twitter:
If you hate the culture wars, blame liberals
On Thursday I posted a series of charts that all documented a similar theme: Since roughly the year 2000, according to survey data, Democrats have moved significantly to the left on most hot button social issues while Republicans have moved only slightly right.
This wasn’t meant to be a rigorous scholarly analysis. And you can argue about margins of error, question wording, choice of topics, and so forth. Still, the gaps are too big and the trend too consistent to ignore the obvious conclusion that over the past two decades Democrats have moved left far more than Republicans have moved right:
I’ve made this point many times before, and I want to make it again more loudly and more plainly today. It is not conservatives who have turned American politics into a culture war battle. It is liberals. And this shouldn’t come as a surprise: Almost by definition, liberals are the ones pushing for change while conservatives are merely responding to whatever liberals do. More specifically, progressives have been bragging publicly about pushing the Democratic Party leftward since at least 2004—and they’ve succeeded.
Now, I’m personally happy about most of this. But that doesn’t blind me to the fact that “personally happy” means nothing in politics. What matters is what the median voter feels, and Democrats have been moving further and further away from the median voter for years:
GOP’s Proud Record on Race, Gender, and Working People
The current Democratic Party’s demagoguery is unparalleled in human history. Their invective towards Republicans is unconscionable. Deplorable is the nicest word they use when describing the GOP or conservatives. They must portray Republicans as monsters. They are bereft of ideas.
But the Republican Party led the way on improving the lot of minorities, women, and the working class. Consider the following—facts about the GOP not ordinarily available in the media or schools:
Police Reform. A big topic now, it was the GOP that led the way 90 years ago. The first attempt to reform law enforcement in the United States was President Herbert Hoover’s Wickersham Commission in 1929. The primary author of the report, published in 1931, was August Vollmer who founded the school of criminology at the University of California, Berkeley.
Women’s Rights. Republicans led the way in women’s suffrage and participation by women in politics. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucy Stone—all leaders of the women’s suffrage movement—were Republican Party stalwarts after the party was formed. Senator Samuel C. Pomeroy (R-Kans.) introduced the first bill for a constitutional amendment for women’s suffrage in 1868. Montana Republican Jeannette Rankin was, in 1916, the first woman elected to serve in Congress. The first woman to serve in both the House and the Senate was also a Republican—Margaret Chase Smith from Maine. Ellen Foster formed the Women’s National Republican Association in 1888.
Civil Rights for Blacks (and Native American Citizenship). The Republican Party was created to oppose the extension of slavery. The Republican Party’s first president, Abraham Lincoln, conducted the Civil War which ended slavery in America. But it was Republican President Ulysses S. Grant who crusaded for the right of blacks to vote and to be free from the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan.
The first two black U.S. senators in history were both Republicans. The first was Hiram Revels of Mississippi in 1870. The second was Edward Brooke of Massachusetts 100 years later. Republican Joseph Rainey of South Carolina was the first black congressman.
American Voters Are Very Concerned About Big Tech Swinging Elections
A majority of American voters are concerned that Big-Tech companies are becoming too powerful and could swing the election results to their preferred candidates.
That’s according to results from a new poll from famed pollster Scott Rasmussen, which says that a whopping 78 percent of voters believe “tech companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Google could swing the results of the election to benefit their preferred candidate.” A mere 10 percent considered that possibility unlikely.
Nearly half (47 percent) say it’s “very likely” these companies could swing an election, while only 3 percent say it’s “not at all likely.”
What’s really interesting is that there isn’t a partisan divide on this. Eighty-two percent of Republicans and eight-two percent of Democrats say big-tech companies could swing an election.
When Republicans and Democrats barely agree on anything these days, it’s significant that the perception of Big Tech’s influence on politics transcends the partisan divide—and that’s what makes the issue so important. People are getting their news from social media, and big social media giants are all owned by liberals. They’re the ones writing the algorithms that determine the articles we see. They’re the ones censoring content deemed misinformation. Heck, they’re the ones deciding who gets banned if they become too influential.
READ IT: Trump lawsuits against Twitter, Facebook, Google over alleged big tech censorship
Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that he will lead class-action lawsuits against Twitter, Google and Facebook over alleged censorship, declaring that “big tech is out of control” and is functioning as “the de-facto censorship arm of the U.S. government.”
“While the social media companies are officially private entities, in recent years they have ceased to be private with the enactment and their historical use of Section 230, which profoundly protects them from liability,” Trump said as he announced the lawsuits in conjunction with the America First Policy Institute.
The Battle Over Mount Rushmore Has Reached Peak Stupidity
Yesterday, people gathered in Washington D.C. in view of the National Mall to enjoy the yearly fireworks display. Having seen it in person several times, it’s one of those events that can almost make you forget all the other insanity that goes on in that city.
Yet, over Mount Rushmore, which is also federal property, there were no loud booms and sparkling displays. That’s because Joe Biden’s administration refused to allow the annual fireworks show there to take place.
Ostensibly, they blamed COVID. After all, it would have been so very dangerous to have fireworks over a massive expanse of wilderness or something. Never mind that we’ve now known for the better part of a year that outdoor spread is essentially non-existent, and that’s not even taking into account the now widespread nature of vaccinations and natural immunity.
In other words, the idea that it was safe to do fireworks in Washington but not at Mount Rushmore makes no sense whatsoever. So what was the real reason? I’d suggest it’s because of the growing, woke sentiment that suggests the storied monument is built on “stolen” land…
…That’s not to say that the United States treated the greater Sioux tribes fairly, but it is to say that history is complicated, and the idea that settlers of European descent were somehow uniquely evil is an ahistorical reading of the situation. The entirety of human history across the globe is rife with wars, treaties, bad deals, and the “stealing” of land to produce nations. At some point, the current reality that the United States exists has to be accepted, especially when that reality is well over two centuries old.
The Great Compromise May Be Dead
Twenty years ago, a newly inaugurated President George W. Bush faced an evenly split Senate, a slim House majority, and volatile public sentiment after a hotly contested, divisive election result. Securing legislative victories would require bipartisanship and compromise, American traditions dating as far back as The Great Compromise – negotiated over the 4th of July weekend of 1787 – that shaped the U.S. Constitution.
Today, President Joe Biden faces a very similar political landscape. Yet the media, who once exalted compromise as a virtue, now treats it as a deterrent to progressive aims. This new narrative has emboldened the most leftward partisans of the Democratic Party, who are convinced they enjoy a mandate that is not evident in the makeup of this Congress or the voting coalition that elected Joe Biden.
For companies and industries seeking compromises borne out of bipartisanship to advance their policy priorities, this landscape is fraught with challenges. Central to those challenges is the question of whether bipartisan compromise can survive in the age of polarized 24-hour news and social media punditry. If it cannot, what does that mean for public affairs professionals trying to navigate Washington’s morass for their organizations and clients?
Here’s what you need to know.
U.S. warship leads drills in Russia’s backyard, a message that the Black Sea is “for everybody”
Black Sea, on board the USS Ross — A tense confrontation between a British warship and the Russian military was captured on camera late last month. Russian planes buzzed the British vessel and issued hostile warnings. The incident took place in the Black Sea, where the U.S. and dozens of other countries are still conducting military exercises.
Russia has refused to allow foreign ships to pass through what it considers its territorial waters off the Crimean Peninsula — territory that Moscow unilaterally annexed away from Ukraine in 2014. Russia has threatened to bomb any vessels that enter the area.
The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Ross left the Ukrainian port of Odessa recently to lead the military drills in the Black Sea, and CBS News’ Holly Williams is the only American network correspondent on board the warship.
America’s defense of Taiwan key to containment of Chinese communist regime
In June 1948, in an effort to bring Berlin to its knees, the Soviets closed off all ground access to the city. In response, the United States and Great Britain — realizing the psychological and strategic importance of Berlin to both Europe and the world — launched the Berlin Airlift, an epic and ultimately successful endeavor to supply the city entirely by air. After 11 long months, the Soviets acknowledged defeat and gave up on the blockade.
In our own time, we face a close analogy in the island nation of Taiwan.
The Communist Chinese insist that Taiwan is part of China. The Taiwanese insist they are an independent nation. The rest of the world has, in varying degrees, humored the communists by pretending that their claims about Taiwan are legitimate.
Unfortunately for everyone, the days of being able to finesse the question of Taiwan are coming to a close — just as the days of finessing the question of Berlin came to a close in the wake of the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, not coincidentally done on the watch of a newly minted Democratic president in the United States.
Taiwan is the key to the Pacific region. A Chinese assault on the island would compel everyone — the United States, Australia, Japan, the Philippines, New Zealand — to take sides and to take action. Or, alternatively, to surrender the Pacific to the Chinese communists.
China’s military prepares for war, while America’s military goes ‘woke’
President Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP) centenary speech conveyed his regime’s resolve in many ways.
Those who attempt to drive a wedge between the party and the Chinese nation, he stated, will encounter “a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.” He pledged to reinforce central control over the party, warning those who oppose its mission that they will be purged “like viruses.” He praised the party’s “courage to fight and fortitude to win,” making the CCP “invincible.” He committed to expanding and modernizing the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to defend Chinese “sovereignty, security, and development interests.” He implied that Taiwan is a part of Chinese sovereign territory — and any efforts toward “Taiwan independence,” therefore, will be met with force.
These sound like the pronouncements of a leader preparing his country for conflict.
The likelihood of China invading Taiwan increases every day. What the U.S. should do.
The question is not whether the United States should defend Taiwan during war but how to prevent war in the first place. Now is the time to strengthen U.S.-Taiwan security cooperation.
In his speech celebrating the Chinese Communist Party’s 100th anniversary last week, Chairman Xi Jinping proclaimed that China has never bullied or oppressed the people of any other country. Yet that is exactly what Beijing is doing to Taiwan, and its intensifying aggression toward the democratic island is increasingly raising concerns that it will try to take it by force.
For years, world leaders have been hesitant to respond to China’s military aggression in the region. But Beijing’s escalating rhetoric and military developments are pushing Washington and its allies to work together in ways never done before, such as the joint U.S.-Japanese military planning for a conflict with China over Taiwan. Just Monday, Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso declared that in the case of an attack on Taiwan, “Japan and the U.S. must defend Taiwan together.”
