US and Canadian intel networks are pretty sure it was a missile strike that brought down a Ukrainian airliner killing all 180 souls on board soon after the aircraft departed an Iranian airport.
So what do the usual suspects do – blame the United States. Now they are not saying the US fired the missile, (although we suspect that was their first inclination) no, they are assuming the airliner was brought down by a missile and that it was fired mistakenly by Iran. But they blame Trump for that for exacerbating tensions between the two countries causing Iran’s mistake.
yeh right
To make that connection it takes a special kind of stupidity, animus and analness (the latter not in the excessively careful or precise meaning, but rather assholeness). All of those qualities are exemplified in Jennifer Ruben and the aptly named anal-fixated Pete Buttigieg. Incredibly the former still claims to be a conservative in her Twitter meanderings and Buttigieg is encompassed by journalistic puffery for being a moderate and a military expert (double entendre intended).
“Innocent civilians are now dead because they were caught in the middle of an unnecessary and unwanted military tit for tat. My thoughts are with the families and loved ones of all 176 souls lost aboard this flight.”
Iran has been engaging in acts of war against the United States for decades. Most recently it sponsored a foray occupying embassy grounds in Iraq and was plotting to destroy an embassy. The planner, Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, already listed as a terrorist and responsible for directing the killing of many hundreds of American soldiers and civilians was dispatched with prejudice in recent days under Trump’s direction.
That enraged Democrats including Rubin. In their warped minds what was Iran then to do but to exercise every incompetence and assume an aircraft taking off from one of its own airports on an approved flight was an American attack. Further, that we were to continue to kowtow to these maniacal numbskulls.
DID JOY BEHAR USE THE WORD BEJESUS??!! How dare she! Shocking offensive term especially when used by a non-coreligionist. Raises specter of insult to low-brow Irish and Christians in general. If a prominent Christian conservative had used some tainted term linked to another religion you can imagine the outrage. Substitute “tax the ikeymo out of you”‘ “jew” . . . whatever.
By the way — damn straight she will tax the “bejesus” out of you, and your children forever, and the horse you rode in on.
Usual suspects in the media did a number on a pro-life youth. He responded by suing their pants off
CEO of Chick-Fil -A further “clarifies” = admits his company Filleted Up
Young Nickolas stood his ground while taking the abuse of a punk adult protestor. The mainstream media portrayed Nickolas as being the aggressor. They made no effort to find out the truth as they rushed to portray the March for Life demonstration to be comprised of a bunch of white racist thugs. Several of the outlets have been sued with CNN now settling. We hope the rest get adverse judgements.
A CNN spokesperson confirmed Tuesday with The Enquirer that a settlement was reached.
The network would not comment on the details of the settlement. Nick’s lawyers did not respond to phone calls or emails at the time of this report.
Sandmann, a student at Covington Catholic High School, became part of a social media firestorm last January when he was filmed with Nathan Phillips at a demonstraction in Washington, D.C.
A video shows Nick and Phillips standing close to each other in a crowd. Nick stares at Phillips as he plays a drum. The situation unfolded after the March for Life on Jan. 18, which Sandmann and his classmates attended. Phillips was attending the Indigenous Peoples March.
The Sandmann lawsuit against CNN, seeking $275 million, was filed in March and stated: “CNN brought down the full force of its corporate power, influence, and wealth on Nicholas by falsely attacking, vilifying, and bullying him despite the fact that he was a minor child.”
Sandmann has also sued NBC and the Washington Post. His lawyers have said they also intend to sue Gannett, which owns The Enquirer.
I want to thank you for your support of our Chick-fil-A campaign over the past few weeks. Your signature on our petition to Chick-fil-A had a tremendous impact and I’m glad to share this news with you.
Dan Cathy, Chick-fil-A chairman and CEO, responded to my personal letter and the more than 116,000 people who signed AFA’s petition asking the company for clarification after Chick-fil-A stunned much of the evangelical community by changing its corporate giving.
In November, Chick-fil-A announced that it would not be donating money to the Salvation Army and Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Homosexual activist organizations had hammered away at the two Christian non-profit groups because their doctrinal statements supported a biblical view of human sexuality and marriage. In turn, Chick-fil-A was accused of supporting “hate” because of the corporate giving.
In my personal letter to Mr. Cathy, I asked him two questions: (1) Will Chick-fil-A publicly state that it does not believe the Salvation Army and FCA are hate groups because of the ministries’ beliefs about sexuality, marriage, and family? (2) Will you publicly state that Chick-fil-A will not hesitate to fund these two ministries again, should the opportunity arise in the future?
Mr. Cathy’s written response included this statement: “We inadvertently discredited several outstanding organizations that have effectively served communities for years.”
This response was a welcomed clarification. It appears that Mr. Cathy understands how many evangelicals perceived the company’s decision, as he stated that these Christian groups were “inadvertently discredited.” The fact that Dan Cathy called these two Christian groups “outstanding organizations” will mean a lot to evangelicals.
However, I also mentioned in my initial letter that Chick-fil-A stated that the company would support Covenant House, a ministry to homeless youth, including homosexual young people. While it is admirable to help hurting youth in desperate circumstances –– including those who are LGBTQ –– Covenant House also openly promotes homosexuality as normal, natural, and healthy. This was evident in Covenant House’s participation in the NYC gay pride parade and a number of other efforts that make it clear the ministry does not hold to a biblical view of human sexuality.
As a result, AFA will continue to monitor Chick-fil-A’s corporate giving, at least for the foreseeable future. We believe our supporters rely on us to do so.
Most of the Christians I know love Chick-fil-A and want to trust the company to uphold scriptural principles. We have all been huge fans of Chick-fil-A, and want that to continue.
Melancholy article at American Greatness by culture commentator Anthony Esolen. The Inertial States of America . He thoughtfully embellishes the theme but this takeaway quote says much:
Nothing unites us now, not religious faith, not cultural memory, not a common understanding of virtue, not the natural goodness of manhood and womanhood, not children, not the elderly, nothing. We do not seek “the naked bedrock of character and capacity,” because they are judgments against us.
We are the Inertial States of America. I wish it were not so.
We hope or pray that in time, there will be a sustainable extensive reformation, one that retains and emphasizes the cultural qualities that made America great. Trump’s election revealed substantial longing for that but it was so very close and the opponents those who denigrate us, him, indeed our nationality are powerful, intense, vested , unscrupulous indeed ruthless. A Trump/Trumpism re-election (an effective conservatism as it turns out) could set us on a course of respect, even restoration of key wholesome values.
But without that reelection everything will be torn down with a vengeance with a mind to methodically root-out, destroy, erase and deny political and cultural avenues that would allow us effective means to fight. They will have learned their lesson.
Trump’s first election indicated more than a vestige of “Americanism” remained but with only one term many achievements become ephemeral. A sustained reformation will require focus on classical education and more dismantling of the means of big-government control and institutional leftist power. That means involvement and sacrifice by conservatives.
We think the chances for substantial reformation have grown, from embers in the hearts of citizens, fanned by Trump administration achievements – promises kept – a longing for something far deeper than what leftist one-world government activists can offer. But all remains tenuous. It is conceivable that the inertia can be redirected on itself. The next election here in the “United” States might determine of that can be.
First up – via Washington Examiner: Bold our emphasis
Ricky Gervais tore into critics who went after him for his opening monologue as the host at the Golden Globes awards on Sunday.
“How the f— can teasing huge corporations, and the richest, most privileged people in the world be considered right wing?” Gervais wrote in a Monday night tweet.
How the fuck can teasing huge corporations, and the richest, most privileged people in the world be considered right wing? 😂 #GoldenGlobes pic.twitter.com/rfXdGrZ41j — Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) January 6, 2020
Via Gary Bauer at Campaign for Working Families (bold our emphasis)
Briefings Tomorrow
Congressional leaders are demanding to know more about the intelligence behind the president’s order to take out Iran’s terror chief, Gen. Qassem Soleimani. They will get that opportunity tomorrow afternoon in a briefing from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and CIA Director Gina Haspel.
Of course, such intelligence should remain secret, but Capitol Hill leaks like a sieve. I expect leaks will occur, especially if there is anything that can remotely be twisted as being detrimental to the president.
But I am still reeling from those asking why the president didn’t brief congressional leaders like Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff PRIOR to the strike on Soleimani.
Well, Pelosi and Schiff believe the president is a traitor who stole the election with the help of Russia. Perhaps that is why he might be hesitant to brief them in advance.
Meanwhile, there continues to be a lot of talk in Congress about tying the president’s hands, whether it’s a War Powers resolution ordering the president to cease hostilities against Iran or repealing the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that passed in the wake of 9/11, giving the president broad authority to respond to terrorist threats in the region.
Progressives have shown little interest in any of that until now. In fact, Barack Obama carried out nearly 3,000 strikes without congressional authorization, at least in the way many liberals are now defining the term. Tehran must be pleased with the progressive left’s efforts to resist Donald Trump.
The Manipulation of Language
We see all the time how the left manipulates language in order to influence the conclusions people reach during public policy debates. For example, any debate about abortion in the “mainstream” media is almost always presented as a dispute between “pro-choice” and “anti-choice” activists — not “pro-life” activists.
Unfortunately, we’re seeing the same manipulation being used now in the coverage of Soleimani. For example, numerous progressives, including Senator Bernie Sanders and Obama National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, have said recently that the president “assassinated” Soleimani.
Sanders even went so far as to compare Soleimani’s death to Vladimir Putin’s assassinations of political dissidents. So now Soleimani’s a dissident?!
The left knows that the word “assassination” has a generally negative connotation, as well as a specific meaning under international law. But Soleimani was no innocent.
He was a designated terrorist and a top official of a hostile power who is responsible for hundreds of American deaths. As Rabbi Shmuley Boteach noted, Soleimani was “an architect of Bashar Assad’s genocidal war against the Syrian people . . . one of the most guilty men on earth.”
Multiple leftist commentators have questioned the legality of the strike against Soleimani, suggesting that it could be a “war crime.” And they are accusing the president of threatening additional “war crimes.” Nothing President Trump has said or done is a war crime.
There are war crimes being committed all over the earth, usually by communists or Islamic jihadists. None of that is ever called “war crimes” by the left. They only use that term to describe actions by conservative presidents to resist our enemies.
Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist proxies once directed by Soleimani, position rockets in civilian neighborhoods, near schools and mosques so that if Israel responds to rocket attacks, Israel can be accused of war crimes. But hiding weapons in civilian areas is a war crime, and it isn’t a war crime to fire back.
The third example is not a word but the misuse of a phrase. All over social media many are suggesting that the president is getting us into World War III. If you believe that then you have no idea what World Wars I and II were like.
This is a dispute with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which wants to destroy Israel and the United States. That’s not World War III. But if you want to talk about world wars, let’s not forget that World War II began because a lot of world leaders were unwilling to confront aggression by Nazi Germany. Their desire to appease led to the most horrible war in the history of mankind.
Like Winston Churchill, Donald Trump is standing up to evil. His left-wing critics, like the appeasers of World War II, want to lie prostrate at the feet of men like Qassem Soleimani, hoping that nothing terrible will happens to us.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg returns from Afghanistan to South Bend, Ind., Sept. 25, 2014. Photo: Greg Swiercz/Associated Press
When Mayor Pete Buttigieg talks about his military service, his opponents fall silent, the media fall in love, and his political prospects soar. Veterans roll their eyes.
CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Mr. Buttigieg Sunday if President Trump “deserves some credit” for the strike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani. “No,” the candidate replied, “not until we know whether this was a good decision and how this decision was made.” He questioned whether “it was the right strategic move” and said his own judgment “is informed by the experience of having been on one of those planes headed into a war zone.”
But Mr. Buttigieg’s stint in the Navy isn’t as impressive as he makes it out to be. His 2019 memoir is called “Shortest Way Home,” an apt description of his military service. He entered the military through a little-used shortcut: direct commission in the reserves. The usual route to an officer’s commission includes four years at Annapolis or another military academy or months of intense training at Officer Candidate School. ROTC programs send prospective officers to far-flung summer training programs and require military drills during the academic year. Mr. Buttigieg skipped all that—no obstacle courses, no weapons training, no evaluation of his ability or willingness to lead. Paperwork, a health exam and a background check were all it took to make him a naval officer.
He writes that his reserve service “will always be one of the highlights of my life, but the price of admission was an ongoing flow of administrativia.” That’s not how it’s supposed to work. The paperwork isn’t the price of admission but the start of a long, grueling test.
Combat veterans have grumbled for decades about the direct-commission route. The politically connected and other luminaries who receive immediate commissions are disparaged as “pomeranian princes.” Former Trump chief of staff Reince Priebus became a Naval Reserve officer in 2018 at age 46. Hunter Biden, son of the former vice president, accepted a direct commission but was discharged after one month of service for failing a drug test.
Mr. Buttigieg was assigned to a comfortable corner of military life, the Naval Station in Great Lakes, Ill. Paperwork and light exercise were the order of the day. “Working eight-hour days,” he writes, was “a relaxing contrast from my day job, and spending time with sailors from all walks of civilian life, was a healthy antidote to the all absorbing work I had in South Bend.” He calls it “a forced, but welcome, change of pace from the constant activity of being mayor.”
During a November debate, Mr. Buttigieg proclaimed: “I have the experience of being commanded into a war zone by an American president.” The reality isn’t so grandiose. In 2013, he writes, he “made sure my chain of command knew that I would rather go sooner than later, and would rather go to Afghanistan than anywhere else.”
Arriving there, he “felt a sense of purpose, maybe even idealism, that can only be compared to the feeling of starting on a political campaign. I thought back to 2004 and John Kerry’s presidential run, and then remembered that it was during the campaign that I saw the iconic footage of his testimony as the spokesman for Vietnam Veterans against the War.”
The comparison is telling. Mr. Buttigieg has just started his time in a war he says he’s idealistic about, but he daydreams about John Kerry protesting Vietnam after he got back. Many veterans detest Mr. Kerry’s “iconic” 1971 testimony, in which he slandered American servicemen. But it did launch a decadeslong political career.
Mr. Buttigieg spent some five months in Afghanistan, where he writes that he remained less busy than he’d been at City Hall, with “more time for reflection and reading than I was used to back home.” He writes that he would take “a laptop and a cigar up to the roof at midnight to pick up a Wi-Fi signal and patch via Skype into a staff meeting at home.” The closest he came to combat was ferrying other staffers around in an SUV: In his campaign kickoff speech last April he referred to “119 trips I took outside the wire, driving or guarding a vehicle.” That’s a strange thing to count. Combat sorties in an F-18 are carefully logged. Driving a car isn’t.
After the welcome-home rally, glowing press, a few more years of light service, the mayor left the reserves. But his bragging rights were assured. Candidate Buttigieg takes every opportunity to lean in on those months in Afghanistan. Questions ranging from student debt to Colin Kaepernick to gun control prompt him to reference his military stint, sometimes indignantly.
“I don’t need lessons from you on courage,” he lectured former Rep. Beto O’Rourke in an October debate, “political or personal.” Two months later he told Sen. Amy Klobuchar, “Let me tell you about my relationship to the First Amendment. It is part of the Constitution that I raised my right hand and swore to defend with my life. That is my experience, and it may not be the same as yours, but it counts, Senator, it counts.”
Debate moderators and other journalists—hardly a veteran among them—eagerly sell Mr. Buttigieg’s narrative. Debate moderators often point out that he served in Afghanistan and, if Tulsi Gabbard isn’t there, is the only veteran on the stage. When Ms. Gabbard is present, the moderators seldom mention her military experience, which dwarfs Mr. Buttigieg’s.
In our experience, those who did the most in war talk it about it the least. Serving in a support or noncombat role is honorable, but it shouldn’t be the basis of a presidential campaign.
Mr. Kelly, a host at Newsmax TV, served as a jet pilot for the Marine Corps. He was on active duty, 1991-2000 and in the reserves, 2000-11. Ms. Horgan runs a New York logistics consulting practice. She served as an active duty Marine officer, 2006-12 and was deployed in Iraq for 13 months.
We delved a little more into Buttigieg’s deployment and find that his deployment involved assignment to a chaplain function in Kabul (check out the video that somehow makes for the hagiography about his military experience). His armed service activity “outside the wire” was delivering gift packages to areas of the city. Apparently a requirement was to have people along who had qualified with a rifle in some way (note Buttigieg never actually went through basic training) and what else was the Navy going to do with him? This was not Trident wearing SEAL stuff. A civilian aid worker was in more danger on a daily basis.
The Iowa presidential and precinct caucuses are rapidly approaching — set for Monday February 3. It is time we rigorously dealt with the Democrat event by offering helpful takes about their presidential candidates as that party is the only one seriously contested as to presidential preference. We will do so for the top contenders in that party knowing our influence is far and wide with Democrats. We regret that we may not get to all of them, or maybe bother anymore after the next post, but that’s just us. If we can help a candidate in the process, well our name will be legion in political circles.
Readers know of our long stated preference for Joe Biden and we have provided a number of erudite posts extolling his many virtues. Nevertheless you can depend on us to be entirely objective.
We see that at this writing there is a three-way tie for lead going into the caucuses with Joe, Bernie and Pete all at 23%. Liz is still a contender at 15%. Hailing from Minnesota, a virtual “favorite them” (son is not gender neutral), Amy is registering at 7%. The rest including Tom who has and is spending more money on ads than Democrats can conceive of, outside of taxing the middle class, are registering in statistical error range — meaning I could have thrown my name in and registered as much.
It should be noted that in 2016, Hillary Clinton got 49.8% of the vote in Iowa, and Bernie Sanders got 49.6%. That says something of the flavor of the Iowa Democrats four years ago — Marxist — Bordeaux or Burgundy — reds with neither any better tasting. They will likely live with any cheating as they did before (see here and here and lots of other Democrat sites posting back then). Democrats will live with cheating because that is what they all do and they are content to choose between Marxists of various cask or region.
Our first in the series is up next. Pete “John Boy” Buttigieg (referring to John Kerry of course)
“The strike unified the resistance forces and made combatting the United States a priority,” said Qassem Qassir, a Lebanese expert in Islamic movements.
“The assassination was a strategic mistake, and the response will be across the region — not just limited to Iraq,” said Qassir.
Who else, except the DC Establishment, along with Yahoo would take such great satisfaction in this headline? As if ‘Iran’s allies needed “uniting” to continue the war against the US!
Baghdad (AFP) – The US killing of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was meant to cripple Tehran’s clout in the Middle East, but analysts see the allies of the Islamic Republic closing rank instead.
As the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, Soleimani oversaw Tehran’s interventions in regional power struggles from Lebanon and Iraq to Syria and Yemen.
Washington had hoped his killing in a Baghdad drone strike Friday would deal a blow to Iran and its network of proxies — but the plan appears to have backfired by uniting pro-Iran factions under an “axis of resistance”.
“The strike unified the resistance forces and made combatting the United States a priority,” said Qassem Qassir, a Lebanese expert in Islamic movements.
“The assassination was a strategic mistake, and the response will be across the region — not just limited to Iraq,” said Qassir.
Indeed, pro-Iran factions in Iraq have seized on the strike to secure a political and popular revival.
Kataeb Hezbollah, a vehemently anti-American armed faction in Iraq, said the strike was “the beginning of the end of the US presence in the region”.
Iraqi populist cleric Moqtada Sadr swiftly reactivated his Mahdi Army, the notorious militia that fought US troops after the American-led invasion of 2003.
“The Iraqi factions of the resistance must hold an immediate meeting to form the International Resistance Regiments,” he tweeted, telling his fighters to “be ready”. – ‘Turn the skies to hell’ –
Qais al-Khazali, a paramilitary leader and bitter rival of Sadr’s, echoed his calls for fighting units to mobilise following the strike on Soleimani.
Khazali also threatened US troops who have been stationed across Iraq since 2014 as part of the global coalition battling the Islamic State group.
On Sunday, Iraq’s parliament voted in favour of ousting US troops although the decision rests with the government.
“If you don’t leave, or if you procrastinate in leaving, you will find a strong Iraqi response that will shake the ground beneath your feat and turn the skies above you into hell,” Khazali warned.
Even Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq’s highest Shiite authority, broke with standard protocol to mourn Soleimani.
Not about actual American history but about the contemporary left and so much of what we are up against due to his influence.
American Spectator contributor Mary Grabar recently published the definitive work about educator, historian, social activist Howard Zinn whose work has infected, jaundiced and corrupted the minds of countless people through the reach of his work — A People’s History of the United States — which is used as a textbook in thousands of public and private schools. This article continues Grabar’s expose’ of Zinn
A decade after his death Howard Zinn lives on, propagandizing America’s youth.
“The Zinn Education Project continues to conduct NEH-sponsored summer institutes for K-12 teachers — even after then-Governor Mitch Daniels in 2010 sought to expel Zinn’s book from Indiana schools after hearing about one such workshop. His showdown with Purdue University faculty members in 2013 boomeranged, with a graduate student scholarship in Zinn’s name and a fundraising/book distribution drive by ZEP.”
In December, the Zinn Education Project (ZEP), a non-profit co-founded in 2007 by William Holtzman, one of Howard Zinn’s Boston University students (class of 1974), to spread the lessons of Zinn’s bestselling A People’s History of the United States, excitedly announced in a fundraising appeal that his goal of signing up 100,000 teachers had been reached.
The effort to appear to be a legitimate educational organization supported by small donors was enhanced by Holtzman’s pledge of up to $15,000 in matching donations. Later, Dave Colapinto (class of 1982) promised to do as he had done in 2018, pledging $10,000. But the latest tax records on file show that for fiscal year 2016/2017 over $117,000 came from Holtzman and $100,000 came from the New Venture Fund, which hides donors like George Soros.
Nor is the organization educational in any meaningful sense, as evidenced by the solicitation’s claim that “Many of the students in high school today will be voting in 2020.” ZEP’s lessons are as un-political as Zinn’s tract, which for forty years has been spreading communist disinformation through wildly distorted quotations of sources, omission of critical evidence, and plagiarism, as I discovered in writing Debunking Howard Zinn. While Zinn lazily cut and pasted paragraphs from the historically suspect works of fellow radicals, he praised the Viet Cong by twisting the words of foreign service officer Douglas Pike to mean their opposite. In his book, Pike described the Viet Cong’s strategies as “agitprop” and accused them of “genocide.” Zinn said Pike claimed the Viet Cong were community builders helpfully teaching “communication” skills. My search through contemporaneous newspaper and magazine articles revealed that Zinn’s claims that the U.S. kept secret the World War II Japanese-American internment camps and that Vietnam War protestor Mary Moylan “was never found” after she refused “to surrender to the FBI” were patently false. It’s just a sampling of what I found.
In terms of current politics, it’s easy to discern how ZEP wants students to vote. Consider some of the lessons:
“Deportations on Trial: Mexican Americans During the Great Depression” begins, “The Trump administration’s war on immigrants has been nothing short of horrifying in its scope.”
“Teaching More Civics Will Not Save Us from Donald Trump,” by curriculum writer Ursula Wolfe-Rocca, takes issue with traditional civics, i.e., teaching the Constitution as “holy text.” For Wolfe-Rocca, “the evil of … the white supremacist, nativist, misogynist language we have heard spill from the lips of Donald Trump resonates with the 39 percent who steadfastly support him precisely because it has deep roots in U.S. history and politics” — a history of “land theft, genocide, slavery, and the disenfranchisement of women and people of color.”
Indeed, one week after the 2016 election, the post “Teaching After the Election of Trump” affirmed ZEP’s “solidarity with those who have denounced Donald Trump’s racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and Islamophobia — as well as his ignorant proposals about the environment and climate change.” Taking encouragement from “young people — in our classrooms and in the streets,” they suggested lessons that would show students how “social movements … made strides even during [such] dark times.” They would “help students explore aspects of Trump’s agenda,” including his “‘divide and conquer politics.’” Suggested lessons included those on Southern tenant farmers [communist] unions, “Teaching with the Black Panthers’ Ten Point Program,” the “FBI’s War on the Civil Rights Movement,” heroic Muslims (including anti-Semite Linda Sarsour), and climate change.
But ZEP is not satisfied with the ability to produce such propaganda while enjoying tax-exemption. In 2017, they successfully pressured Scholastic to stop distributing positive books about President Trump. They conducted protests against the Bill of Rights Institute, including publicly at the 2014 National Council for the Social Studies annual meeting, and then claimed victory when the Institute was absent in 2015. Due to Southern Poverty Law Center lobbying, Zinn lessons on Reconstruction are taught throughout South Carolina. ZEP partners in providing news content to classrooms via Newsela.
The Zinn Education Project continues to conduct NEH-sponsored summer institutes for K-12 teachers — even after then-Governor Mitch Daniels in 2010 sought to expel Zinn’s book from Indiana schools after hearing about one such workshop. His showdown with Purdue University faculty members in 2013 boomeranged, with a graduate student scholarship in Zinn’s name and a fundraising/book distribution drive by ZEP.
In many schools, ZEP lessons supplement Zinn’s book. A Young People’s History of the United States is the textbook for all eighth-graders in Portland, Oregon public schools. A People’s History appears on syllabi in states across the country, especially in Advanced Placement courses, which were rewritten to far-left standards under the Obama administration. Other teachers and professors recommend it as “extra” reading.
The testimonials of Zinn’s students laud him for raising “consciousness” and inspiring protest. When Zinn died in 2010, tributes came from celebrities in the worlds of rock music, Hollywood, media, and correctional facilities. Jane Fonda sadly recalled their unfulfilled dinner plans. Bill Moyers hailed Zinn as a fighter of the plutocracy at that year’s Howard Zinn Lecture at Boston University. Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam mourned the loss of a “truly bright light.” On Prison Radio, cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal called Zinn a friend and “brilliant, ground-breaking historian.”
Matt Damon, who grew up next-door to the Zinns in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and who read from Zinn’s newly published book to his fifth-grade class, exalted the book in his movie Good Will Hunting. He continues to promote Zinn, giving ZEP $10,000 in 2016/2017.
Zinn still inspires protesters. ZEP supported Occupy Wall Street, and A People’s History was the staple at the library in Zuccotti Park. Black Lives Matter activists DeRay Mckesson and Johnetta Elzie received the Zinn Freedom to Write Award in 2015. This summer, Willem Van Spronsen, member of Antifa and the John Brown Gun Club, who died in his attempt to blow up an ICE detention facility, left a manifesto invoking Zinn’s book. Indeed, A People’s Historycelebrates martyrs — like murderous abolitionist John Brown, and Buddhist and American protesters who died by self-immolation during the Vietnam War.
Zinn’s book has attained the status of a holy book. In April, JoBeth Hamon used it in place of the customary Bible in her swearing-in to the Oklahoma City Council. In Fairfax County, Virginia, a wealthy D.C. suburb and one of the largest school districts in the nation, “Rachna Sizemore Heizer … swore the oath of office while holding a copy of . . . Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States,” according to a December 20 article celebrating the new “historically diverse” school board, part of the transformation of this community and 32 others toward racial “equity” through groups funded by Soros and others.
Not surprisingly, Fairfax County students will soon have one day off for protesting. The Zinn Education Project will provide plenty of resources, from abolishing Columbus Day to protesting climate change.
This introduction from RedState’s Kire Davis is perfect. You must spend the 8 minutes listening to the monologue and delight in the discomforted laughs of most of those in the audience.
If that’s you and you chose to ignore the show for yet another year, sit down, hold on to your hat and press play on this video of Gervais’ opening monologue. It is everything you ever fantasized about a host saying to a room full of spoiled celebrities. From the culture of vanity to pedophilia to Felicity Huffman and Hollywood’s coziness with Jeffrey Epstein – Gervais tore down every single sacred cow of Tinseltown and dared people not to laugh. He called out every glaring painful hypocrisy and it was glorious.
Wallace: Some analysts suggest that the impeachment of President Trump has emboldened enemies like Iran and North Korea to think that they can confront him. Do you think that, as misguided as it may be, that some of our enemies think that this president is more vulnerable because of the impeachment effort?
Pompeo: You should ask Mr. Soleimani.
Wallace: I understand that, but he was going ahead before you killed him. And the question is, do you think that impeachment is emboldening our enemies?
Pompeo: I don’t. I think that our adversaries understand that President Trump and our administration will do the right thing to protect the American people every place that we find risk.
. . .
Even under Obama’s range of appeasement attempts, Iran struck American interests and held its sailors hostage. And that’s hardly the start of a litany of hostile actions taken by the regime since the 1970s.
Impeachment is not the cause, nor does it logically connect with the most recent lashing out by the Mullahs and their henchmen. Trump has pursued a policy of retaliation and deterrence by force. He’s ratcheted up sanctions, angering the leadership of Iran. He doesn’t appear weak in as much as his strength has backed the regime into a corner. The Iranians understand bombs a lot more than they do political battles.
Fox News appears to be fairly committed to turning its hard news division into a cheap clone of CNN. Wallace has had numerous, disingenuous dust-ups during the Trump administration, seemingly straining to present his journalistic “credibility.” He’s even gone so far as to laughably accuse Trump of engaging in the “most direct, sustained assault” on the press ever. Anyone who’s been alive for more than five minutes knows how stupid of a claim that was by Wallace. . . .
And of course who is better at skewering the left than the folks at Babylon Bee. This excerpt from their satire brought to our attention by RedState:
WASHINGTON, D.C.—At a press conference held on Capitol Hill Friday, mourning Democrat leaders called for flags to be flown half-mast to honor the death of Qasem Soleimani.
Flags were spotted flying at half-mast around the country, notably at The Washington Post, The New York Times, and in front of several celebrities’ homes. The celebrities went out and bought an American flag for the first time just to fly it at half-mast for this important time of grief.
“The grieving process is painful but necessary,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar. “As a nation, we need to stop and grieve this great, austere, revered religious scholar. He was one of the good ones.”
In a rare moment of unity with The Squad, Pelosi gave each of the girls a hug, telling them to just “let it all out” in their time of sadness.
Ocasio-Cortez didn’t seem to know what was happening but adjusted her glasses to look smart.
A teary-eyed Barack Obama was also seen solemnly lowering the flag in front of his seaside mansion. “To think, this all could have been prevented with a few pallets of cash.” He sighed and stared off into the distance, a look of pain and regret on his face. “If only Trump had targeted a U.S. citizen with a drone strike instead.”
Later, Democrats clarified they meant we should fly the Iranian flag at half-mast, not the “offensive and problematic” American flag.
Congressional leaders are demanding to know more about the intelligence behind the president’s order to take out Iran’s terror chief, Gen. Qassem Soleimani. They will get that opportunity tomorrow afternoon 
“The strike unified the resistance forces and made combatting the United States a priority,” said Qassem Qassir, a Lebanese expert in Islamic movements.