“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which is stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Love It or Leave It:
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
– John Adams
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
– Edmund Burke
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
– Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of Liberty.”
– President John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Friday, January 20, 1961
“The U. S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.”
– Benjamin Franklin
“I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.”
– Patrick Henry
Amen… Happy Birthday America!!!
–Saul Anuzis
60 Plus Weekly Video Rewind
60 Plus urges postal reform, seniors in danger of drug pricing scheme pushed by Pelosi, and Donald Rumsfeld passes away at age 88.
https://www.itemlive.com/2021/06/23/saul-anuzis-protecting-seniors-from-drug-pricing-schemes/
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/donald-rumsfeld-dead
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/george-w-bush-reacts-donald-rumsfeld-death
TRIBUTE TO THE UNITED STATES
This, from a Canadian newspaper, is worth sharing.
America: The Good Neighbor.
Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television Commentator. What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:
“This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts.
None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States. When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped. The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans.
I’d like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10?
If so, why don’t they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon – not once, but several times – and safely home again.
You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.
When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don’t think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I’m one Canadian who is tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those.”
Stand proud, America! Wear it proudly!
Quotes by Ronald Reagan
“I believe this blessed land was set apart in a very special way, a country created by men and women who came here not in the search of gold, but in search of God. They would be free people, living under the law with faith in their Maker and their future.”
“Our liberty springs from and depends upon an abiding faith in God.”
“The truth is, politics and morality are inseparable, and as morality’s foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide.”
“If we lived by the Golden Rule, there would be no need for other laws.”
“I believe with all my heart that standing up for America means standing up for the God who has so blessed our land. We need God’s help to guide our nation through stormy seas. But we can’t expect Him to protect America in a crisis if we just leave Him over on the shelf in our day-to-day living.”
“My fellow citizens, those of you here in this hall, and those of you at home. I want you to know that I have always had the highest respect for you, for your common sense and intelligence and for your decency. I have always believed in you and in what you could accomplish for yourselves and others.
And whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way.
My fondest hope for each one of you, and especially for the young people here, is that you will love your country, not for her power or wealth, but for her selflessness and her idealism. May each of you have the heart to conceive, the understanding to direct, and the hand to execute works that will make the world a little better for your having been here.
May all of you as Americans never forget your heroic origins, never fail to seek Divine guidance, and never lose your natural God-given optimism. And finally, my fellow Americans, may every dawn be a great new beginning for America and every evening bring us closer to that shining city upon a hill…My fellow Americans, on behalf of both of us, goodbye, and God bless each and every one of you and God bless this country we love.”
Trump, GOP Return to Border to Rev Up Base
Former President Trump on Wednesday will travel to South Texas, where he’s expected to showcase his signature border wall and attack the Biden administration over the surge of migrants — a topic the GOP sees as a potent campaign issue to rev up the base and win back the House and Senate in 2022.
Trump will be joined in the Rio Grande Valley by some familiar conservative allies. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who has vowed to complete Trump’s wall with state funds and private donations, will host the former president in Weslaco for a roundtable discussion on border security. Then the pair will tour the border wall, accompanied by two dozen House members of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), led by Chairman Jim Banks (R-Ind.).
Later Wednesday afternoon, Trump and Abbott will participate in a town hall, moderated by Fox News host Sean Hannity and attended by supporters, in a hangar in the South Texas International Airport in Edinburg.
The White House is trying to argue that Republicans support defunding the police. No, really
President Joe Biden’s administration is trying to argue that it is Republicans, not Democrats, who support defunding the police.
Don’t laugh. They really mean it.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, senior adviser Cedric Richmond, and rapid response director Mike Gwin have all now asserted that Republicans are the party of the “defund the police” movement. Their logic? The GOP voted against Biden’s bloated, partisan “relief” bill passed earlier this year, and that bill included some funding for localities to hire more police officers.
Yes, Republicans voted against the bill. Yes, it included that provision. But it turns out that when you include a worthwhile provision in a bloated “stimulus” without making any effort to bring in Republicans, that one provision won’t be enough for them to support it. Republicans voted against that bill because it was wasteful, bailing out blue states and sending billions of dollars to schools that hadn’t even spent their previous allotted billions.
The White House is trying to deflect from the fact that money was even needed for localities to hire police officers because cities run by Biden’s own party had hollowed out their police departments and destroyed police morale. Portland and Seattle stripped funds from their police departments. Minneapolis pledged to abolish its department with the support of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar.
The Tyranny of Woke Capitalism
It often appears that CEOs of some of the largest global corporations have made the cause of the woke their own. Their willingness to join the fray was demonstrated in their response to the launching of GB News in the UK. No sooner was this new, independent news network launched than sections of big business joined a boycott against it. A campaign was organised to pressure firms to pull their ads from GB News, and companies like Kopparberg, IKEA, Specsavers, Octopus Energy, Grolsch, Moneysupermarket, Vodafone and others swiftly gave in.
Many old-fashioned conservatives were surprised at the willingness of capitalist firms to take a side against GB News. Numerous commentators suggest that what is at work is a case of ‘woke washing’ – that this is all just an opportunistic public-relations exercise. Others assert that the wokeness of capitalist firms will not endure, or that it is not as influential as it appears.
Writing in this vein, a commentator in the Wall Street Journal asserted that wokeness hadn’t exactly captured the American business community: ‘The problem isn’t the American corporation. The problem is a small but influential and unbearably sanctimonious swath of leaders who’ve gone ga-ga over progressive politics.’
It often appears that CEOs of some of the largest global corporations have made the cause of the woke their own. Their willingness to join the fray was demonstrated in their response to the launching of GB News in the UK. No sooner was this new, independent news network launched than sections of big business joined a boycott against it. A campaign was organised to pressure firms to pull their ads from GB News, and companies like Kopparberg, IKEA, Specsavers, Octopus Energy, Grolsch, Moneysupermarket, Vodafone and others swiftly gave in.
Many old-fashioned conservatives were surprised at the willingness of capitalist firms to take a side against GB News. Numerous commentators suggest that what is at work is a case of ‘woke washing’ – that this is all just an opportunistic public-relations exercise. Others assert that the wokeness of capitalist firms will not endure, or that it is not as influential as it appears.
Writing in this vein, a commentator in the Wall Street Journal asserted that wokeness hadn’t exactly captured the American business community: ‘The problem isn’t the American corporation. The problem is a small but influential and unbearably sanctimonious swath of leaders who’ve gone ga-ga over progressive politics.’
But this assessment overlooks the dramatic transformation of the ideological outlook that prevails in the corporate world. Anyone reading leading management publications like the Harvard Business Review will note that their content reflects many of the identity politics-inspired narratives that prevail in higher education. When a commentator writing for Forbes informs readers that woke capitalism is good for the profit margins, it is evident that capitalism has undergone a massive rebranding exercise. Commentators in the mainstream media are in no doubt that ‘CEO activism has become the New Normal’.
Due to big business’s vociferous support for the Black Lives Matter movement, many members of the public have become aware of the dramatic transformation of corporate ideology. Capitalist firms not only compete with one another for a bigger share of the market — they also compete to gain the maximum exposure for their woke credentials. This was clear last summer, when every firm from Nike to Apple to Spotify pledged their support to Black Lives Matter.
Why the Fight over Critical Race Theory Matters
CRT is not just an attack on the American inheritance of political institutions; it is an attack on the social function of public schools.
Moms are rising up in counterrevolutionary revolt. I’ll say it again, moms are rising up in counterrevolutionary revolt against critical race theory, “anti-racism,” the introduction of the 1619 Project into high-school curricula, and the suddenly invasive demands of diversity, equity, and inclusion consultants who are being hired by their school districts. Although progressives wish, in vain, that this movement were an Astroturf operation run by shadowy right-wing donor networks, it has been springing up in school districts in reaction to initiatives led by administrators themselves.
Tatiana Ibrahim stood up in front of the Carmel school board in Putnam County, N.Y, and denounced what she termed the “communist values” that teachers and administrators in the district are promoting. “Stop indoctrinating our children. Stop teaching our children to hate the police. Stop teaching our children that if they don’t agree with the LGBT community, they’re homophobic,” Ibrahim demanded. “You have no idea of each child’s life,” she said, before announcing, in an only-in-America moment, that she is a Christian and her daughter is a Muslim.
She’s far from alone. “Telling my child or any child that they are in a permanent oppressed status in America because they are black is racist — and saying that white people are automatically above me, my children, or any child is racist as well,” said Quisha King, a mother in Duval County, Fla. “This is not something that we can stand for in our country.” Other revolts — as in Southlake, Texas, and Loudoun County, Va. — have been even more dramatic.
As with the Tea Party movement a decade before it, Fox News, Republican-run legislatures, and the institutions of conservatism are only just catching up to a political movement that has already gone viral. And again, as with the Tea Party, one of the reasons conservative institutions are only just catching up is that this movement — a defense of public schools as they were until recently — is not entirely conservative. But we’ll get to that.
CRT Backlash Is Not Astroturf
Texas has joined Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Tennessee in passing laws to ban public schools from teaching critical race theory (CRT). Other states, such as Florida, have done so through executive rulemaking. This is a positive first step towards reclaiming American education from openly anti-American pedagogy.
The intellectual roots of CRT can be found in Marxist-influenced critical theory, which began in the academia of Weimar Germany. It developed into an “intersectional” ideology at Harvard Law School in the late 1980s, through Kimberlé Crenshaw and other supporters of Professor Derrick Bell. In recent years, however, it has metastasized into the pop psychology of bestsellers such as Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist and Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility as well as pseudohistory such as the New York Times’ 1619 Project.
CRT teaches that American ideals and institutions are mere fronts for white supremacy. It instructs its devotees to see everything through the lens of racial group identity and inherited guilt rather than treat individuals as individuals. Along with related critical gender and sexuality theories, it has increasingly colonized workplace training, journalism, and campus culture, and more recently entered the curricula of K–12 schools, where its practitioners are embraced and showered with cash by left-leaning school boards and educator groups such as the National Education Association.
The Supreme Court’s most important message
June is the month when the Supreme Court rolls out all remaining decisions on cases, big and small, that it has heard in the preceding months. Has the conservative majority decried by left-leaning politicos and a hysterical American media wreaked havoc on the judicial system this year? Not exactly.
The Affordable Care Act survived it’s third trip through the Supreme Court, this time on a technicality, but by a 7-2 majority. A large majority of justices agreed.
Even more justices were in agreement on a free speech case. A would-be cheerleader had been banned from her junior varsity cheer team because of a profane social media tantrum. The Court recognized that her outburst was rude, crude and a perfect example of white trash, but also that free speech allows for such outbursts. The vote was 8-1…
…The point is that in an overwhelming number of cases, the vast majority or many times, all of the Supreme Court justices agreed on the intent of the U.S. Constitution as it applied to any number of issues. 9-0 votes have been far more common than 5-4 votes, which raises the question, what exactly is the problem that President Biden’s commission to change the Supreme Court intends to fix?
The Supreme Court enjoys more credibility than any other branch of government. Why? Because it is the closest thing to an apolitical body we have. The justices genuinely believe in applying the Constitution, even when it splits with their personal beliefs.
Congress’ approval rating is consistently below 30% and has dipped in some recent years below 10%. If that same Congress and the White House tinker with the makeup or the rules surrounding the high court, it will only damage the court’s credibility and chip away at the legitimacy of our government as a whole.
The Supreme Court won’t save conservatism
For decades, conservatives have sought to regain lost culture-war ground through judicial nominations, with GOP voters consistently rating the Supreme Court a higher priority than do Democrats.
As the latest high-court term winds down — one featuring a putative 6-3 “conservative” majority — it’s worth taking stock of where that project stands. The answer: not in a great place. Consider two of this term’s highest-profile cases: California v. Texas (on ObamaCare) and the Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (on religious liberty).
In California, a 7-2 majority of Supremes again left former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy untouched. The court declined to reach the substantive issue — the constitutionality of the individual mandate. Instead, they dismissed the lawsuit brought by Texas and 17 other states on the threshold question of standing — lawyer-speak for a plaintiff’s obligation to show a concrete, remediable injury traceable to the defendant’s conduct.
The technical standing dispute in California is legally debatable: Trump nominee Justice Neil Gorsuch joined Alito’s lengthy dissent. Yet Justice Clarence Thomas, who is no less a conservative, joined the majority. Trump’s other two nominees, Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, also joined the Justice Stephen Breyer-penned majority opinion.
Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats’ fear-mongering that a vote to confirm these conservative justices would be a vote to repeal ObamaCare proved pointless — as did conservatives’ various litigation campaigns to overturn ObamaCare.
IRS rejects Christian nonprofit’s tax-exempt request because ‘Bible teachings are typically affiliated with the Republican Party’
The Internal Revenue Service last month denied a Christian nonprofit organization tax-exempt status by arguing its mission of educating and empowering Christians to engage in America’s civic process necessarily benefits the Republican Party.
What are the details?
In a May rejection letter sent to Christians Engaged, the IRS wrote that the group is disqualified from the status because the “Bible’s teachings are typically affiliated with the Republican Party and candidates.”
“Specifically, you educate Christians on what the Bible says in areas where they can be instrumental including the areas of sanctity of life, the definition of marriage, biblical justice, freedom of speech, defense, and borders and immigration, U.S. and Israel relations,” IRS exempt organizations director Stephen Martin wrote in the letter. “The Bible teachings are typically affiliated with the Republican Party and candidates. This disqualifies you from exemption under IRC Section 501(c)(3).”
Christians Engaged says on its website that it “exists to awaken, motivate, educate, and empower ordinary believers in Jesus Christ to: pray for our nation and elected officials regularly, vote in every election to impact our culture, [and] engage our hearts in some form of political education or activism for the furtherance of our nation.”
In its letter, the IRS does not appear to dispute the group’s claims or argue that it does not carry out its mission honestly. However, according to the Treasury agency, the very fact that the group promotes biblical teachings makes it de facto engage in “prohibited political campaign intervention.”
“You operate for a substantial non-exempt private purpose and for the private interests of the Republican Party,” Martin concluded.
Under federal law, to receive tax-exempt status as a religious organization, an organization must operate exclusively for charitable or educational purposes and must “not attempt to influence legislation” or “participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.”
America’s Longest War
When U.S. troops leave Afghanistan by September 11, 2021, the American war will have lasted nearly two decades and spanned four presidencies. The longest war in U.S. history has come at the financial cost of close to $1 trillion. It has killed more than 2,000 American soldiers and, according to some estimates, hundreds of thousands of Afghans.
The United States invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. President George W. Bush authorized the war in response to 9/11—Taliban-ruled Afghanistan was providing refuge for al Qaeda, the terrorist organization that had orchestrated the attacks. Al Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden, evaded the U.S. military for a decade, but the Taliban regime fell within weeks. U.S. and allied forces stayed in Afghanistan to support a new government in Kabul. But the Taliban soon regrouped. For years, the fighting ebbed and surged as Washington tossed around versions of the same questions: With more time and resources, could the U.S. military finally rout the Taliban and the terrorists they had harbored? Was staying the course a better option than risking the collapse of the fledgling Afghan state? Or was it necessary to find a way out, whether by negotiation or unilateral withdrawal?
Over the past two decades, senior officials—including U.S. ambassadors, commanders of U.S. and NATO military forces, and the current president of Afghanistan—as well as leading scholars and journalists have assessed the progress of the war and the prospects of its resolution in the pages of Foreign Affairs. Their essays in this collection trace the conflict from the initial invasion to the 2009 surge, the bloody stalemate, and the decision to withdraw. And, as the war enters its final months, they consider its consequences for Afghanistan and its lessons for the United States.
At Communist Party centenary, Xi says China won’t be bullied
Chinese President Xi Jinping warned Thursday that anyone who tries to bully China “will face broken heads and bloodshed,” in a defiant speech hailing the country’s rise that elicited loud cheers from a carefully chosen crowd at a celebration of the centenary of the founding of the ruling Communist Party.
In unusually forceful language, Xi appeared to be hitting back at the U.S. and others that have criticized the rising power’s trade and technology polices, military expansion and human rights record. In an hour-long speech, he also said the nation must stick to its one-party rule, emphasizing the communists’ role in lifting China to global prominence.
The rally — which featured a military flyover and people waving Chinese flags and singing patriotic songs — in some ways recalled the mass events held by Mao Zedong, communist China’s founding leader. Xi even wore a gray buttoned-up suit like the ones favored by Mao and spoke from the same balcony atop Tiananmen Gate where the revolutionary leader declared the start of communist rule in 1949. More than 70,000 people attended Thursday, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
