During the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) President Donald Trump said, “Today I am proud to announce that I will be personally signing an executive order requiring colleges and universities to support free speech…”
President Trump continued to say, “If they want our dollars, and we give it to them by the billions, they’ve got to allow people like Hayden and many other great young people and old people to speak.”
President Trump referred to the recent attack on a young conservative activist, Hayden Williams, at the highly regarded University of California, Berkeley.
The video showed two men come into close contact with Williams, one of them smacked his phone away when Williams started to record them because he felt endangered by them. After the other assailant, Zachary Greenburg began pushing Williams and threatened to “shoot his ass”, a different phone recorded another angle of the event and it caught him punch Williams in the face.
In response to the violence, UC Berkeley released an official statement.
“UC Berkely strongly condemns violence and harassment of any sort, for any reason. That sort of behavior is reprehensible and intolerable and has no place here. Our commitment to freedom of Expression and belief is unwavering. A message was sent by our police force to the campus community with a picture of the suspect, and a request that anyone with information about the incident come forward and report what they know in support of our investigation. We intent to identify anf bring the perpretrators to justice.”
Dan Mogulf, Assistant Vice Chancellor Office of Communications and Public Affairs UC Berkeley
The president also joked about the incident by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, he took a hard punch in the face for all of us.”
When Williams was invited to the stage, President Trump urged him to sue the university due to the altercation. Williams was very thankful for the recognition and appreciated the president for his support in him as well as other young conservatives.
This isn’t the first time that UC Berkeley opposed opposing viewpoints.
In 2017 former Breitbart editor, Milo Yiannopoulos was invited to speak at a conservative event at the university where, according to NPR, 1,500 liberal protestors turned violent. They threw barricades, smashed windows, and shot fireworks at police to name a few incidents.
Greenburg is now in police custody with a $30,000 bail. He has an appearance in court this upcoming Monday.
In a recent MSNBC interview with Chris Hayes, Democrat Beto O’Rourke (the former senator candidate for Texas) said that he would take down the southern border wall.
O’Rourke said, “Yes, absolutely. I’d want to take the wall down.”
This may be a strategy that the Democrats try to use as a narrative for the 2020 Presidential Election, or it shows their true colors, that Democrats want open borders.
In January, Texas Democratic Congresswoman Veronica Escobar said in a CNN interview, “We know walls don’t work, that they don’t stop drugs, that they don’t stop immigration.” She also mentioned that she was open to destroying existing parts of the wall.
New York Democratic Senator Kristen Gillibrand told Fox News on Friday, “I could look at it and see which part he means and why if it makes sense I could support it.”
At the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute, O’Rourke said,
“We don’t need another wall, we don’t need another fence, because let me tell you this. Walls do not, as the president has claimed, save lives, walls end lives. In the last 10 years… 4,000 of our fellow human beings have lost their lives trying to cross into the United States to work jobs no one born in this country dare work. To be with family which is a human right, that we should honor.”
O’Rourke calls for illegal immigration on the basis that people should be with their families and because people died trying to commit an illegal act.
In Business Insider’s article listing the 50 most violent cities in the world in 2017, Tijuana, Mexico ranked number five. Tijuana is a border city with the United States’ city of San Diego. O’Rourke would compromise the security of the American people by taking down the border wall.
According to the New York Post, after the walls were erected in San Diego, it cut illegal border crossings by 95 percent.
This new attitude to border security is surprising as, in 2006, prominent Democratic leaders such as Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, and then Senator Barrack Obama voted for a border wall.
Now Democrats, like Nancy Pelosi and others call the border wall “immoral”.
When Jake Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cake, refused to bake a wedding cake for a homosexual couple, people were outraged. They believed that he was discriminating against the LGBT community. Phillips’ response was that it violated his religious views. Phillips, in a USA Today article, wrote, “My religious convictions on this are grounded in the biblical teaching that God designed marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”
Actor Andrew Garfield, during an acceptance speech for a play, voiced his opinion by saying, “Let’s just bake a cake for everyone who wants a cake to be baked.”
Yet there doesn’t seem to a Hollywood outcry over the people who are targeted for wearing a simple red hat.
In a since-deleted recent tweet, chef J. Kenji López-Alt, wrote, “It hasn’t happened yet, but if you come to my restaurant wearing a MAGA cap, you aren’t getting served, same as if you come in wearing a swastika, white hood, or any other symbol of intolerance and hate.”
Actress Alyssa Milano seems to share the same sentiment as López comparing the MAGA hat to a racist symbol. She tweeted:
In late December 2018, a vape shop employee in Tucker, Georgia yelled and cursed out customer Ian Furgeson. Furgeson recorded the encounter with footage showing that he was refused service initially after telling the employee that he meant no harm and only wanted to buy vape juice.
This intolerant` behavior shouldn’t come as any surprise as White House Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was ejected from a restaurant simply because she had ties to President Trump.
Back in the summer of 2018 teens were assaulted in a Texas restaurant for wearing a MAGA hat. A man walked up to the teens, cursing at them, threw a drink at their faces, and stole the hat.
Transgender YouTuber, Blaire White, did a social experiment where she and her boyfriend wore MAGA hats. Later on, in she was thrown to the ground and had one their hats stolen. Someone also threw a drink at her face.
The Daily Caller has a compilation video on YouTube of more instances where people were targeted for wearing MAGA hats found here: https://youtu.be/zlTB7geKaZg
It is interesting to see the tolerance of the anti-Trump movement. They call for tolerance when it comes for their agenda, yet when people exercise their rights, they turn to bigotry and at times, violence.
On Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court in a five to four decision ruled in favor of President Trump’s transgender military ban. For any sort of new policy change to go in effect the federal injunction case in Maryland must be resolved.
According to CNN, LGBT activists call this ban “cruel and irrational”.
Former U.S. Navy SEAL Chris, now Kristin, Beck called the decision “bullsh*t” tweeting that the Supreme Court was wrong. Beck also explained that she was pretty lethal. While that was never any question, Beck doesn’t mention that her transition happened after she retired from the military. Meaning that she was touting her prowess from when she was still a man.
U.S. Army Staff Sergeant (SSG) Patricia King spoke with NPR about her thoughts on the decision of the Supreme Court, as she transitioned from male to female in 2014. She said, “This decision and this policy give a false sense of credibility to the inaccurate notion that transgender people are somehow less or less capable than our peers.”
Retired U.S. Air Force Major General Charles Dunlap wrote and posted an article on Duke University explaining the objective reasoning behind why it isn’t a good idea to integrate transgender troops, his main concern being possible readiness concerns. He wrote:
“Transgender people are not medically similarly-situated. For an armed force that needs its members to deploy on short notice anywhere in the world (the U.S. has 800 bases abroad, including places where medical support may be at best rudimentary) that’s a real concern. No one debates that transgender people as a group have unique medical needs, and while experts may differ on the scope, cost, and implications of those needs, I think it is unlikely the courts (and especially the Supreme Court) will second guess judgments about medical fitness made by military authorities, to include the President as Commander-in-Chief.”
According to Mr. Dunlap 71% of all Americans in the 17-24 age group (34 million Americans), are not fit to serve. This ranges from multiple tests on the applicant’s mental, physical, educational, and mental health. This percentage does not even include cosmetic or tattoo issues.
This also brings another serious question into light, mental health. In a study conducted by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Williams institute, 41% of people who identify as transgender have tried to kill themselves. Non-transgender individuals, the general population, shows that that only 4.6% tried to commit suicide.
Mental health is extremely important, especially when put in a military environment. This isn’t just about the safety of the individual in question, but also the individuals around them with whom they fight with, to the death if need be. The role of the military is to destroy the enemy, not to create a social experiment where someone or others may get hurt, unit cohesiveness is essential.
According to the official study by the Department of Defense, titled “MILITARY SERVICE BY TRANSGENDER PERSONS” conducted in February of 2018:
” Transgender persons with gender dysphoria suffer from high rates of mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, and substance use disorders.60 High rates of suicide ideation, attempts, and completion among people who are transgender are also well documented in the medical literature, with lifetime rates of suicide attempts reported to be as high as 41 % (compared to 4.6% for the general population).61 According to a 20 I 5 survey, the rate skyrockets to 57% for transgender individuals without a supportive family . The Department is concerned that the stresses of military life, including basic training, frequent moves, deployment to war zones and austere environments, and the relentless physical demands, will be additional contributors to suicide behavior in people with gender dysphoria. In fact, there is recent evidence that military service can be a contributor to suicidal thoughts.
Preliminary data of Service members with gender dysphoria reflect similar trends. A review of the administrative data indicates that Service members with gender dysphoria are eight times more likely to attempt suicide than Service members as a whole (12% versus 1.5%).”
It is important to note that transgenders themselves are not being excluded, as per the document, but those who identify with having the mental disorder, gender dysphoria.
The study also reports the estimated time for recovery from a transitioning procedure may take up to one year. This also includes hormonal treatment therapy.
On March 2018 review, the enlistment policy requires transgenders to serve in their biological sex and mustn’t transition.
According to the Military Times, transgender service members may continue to serve if they relied on the Obama administration’s rules on beginning the process of changing their gender. They also note that 900 men and women have done so.
As far back as anyone could remember, the Democratic Party has always been there to fight for justice and equality. At least, that’s what we’re told to believe by people who take part in it. Yet this rhetoric doesn’t concur with the true history of the Democrats. It’s time to put to rest these “alternative facts”.
The Democrats were founded in part by later President Andrew Jackson. Jackson was no stranger to the maltreatment of people of color. His famous “Indian Removal Act” displaced hundreds of thousands of Native Americans and sent them on a harsh journey westward known as the “Trail of Tears”.
In the famous Dred Scott v. Standford case, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision was given by Chief Justice Roger Taney, a Democrat, that slaves weren’t citizens of the United States, but property and Congress didn’t hold the power to prohibit slavery in the territories. The decision was 7-2, where the two dissenting judges, Benjamin Robbins Curtis, and John McLean were both Republicans.
Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States, was sympathetic to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). In fact, the racist film, “The Birth of a Nation”, was the first film ever showed in the White House, it depicted the members of this hate group as heroes to defend the South. Wilson supported same the Klansmen who targeted and killed Black Americans as well as Republicans who defended their fellow citizens.
In fact, the racist film, “The Birth of a Nation”, was the first film ever showed in the White House, it depicted the members of this hate group as heroes to defend the South. Wilson and the Klansmen were Democrats who targeted and killed Black Americans as well as Republicans who defended their fellow citizens.
In the film, Wilson himself is quoted as saying, “The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation… until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country”.
The first “Grand Wizard” of the KKK was Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former Confederate general during the American Civil War, who was also a Democrat.
Margaret Sanger helped create Planned Parenthood. While it is unclear if she was a Democrat, she did attend and spoke to a woman’s branch of the KKK. She also famously said, “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” Sanger was also a known eugenicist, another famed supporter in this idea was none other than Adolf Hitler himself. The American Eugenics movement that Sanger was so proud to be apart of was where Hitler had inspiration for his “Master Race”, according to Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet in an Association of American Physicians and Surgeons Article.
There are those who hide behind the idea that it was in fact President Franklin D. Roosevelt who threw down the shackles of oppression with his New Deal. Yet that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Jim Powell wrote an article for the CATO Institute, titled, “Why Did FDR’s New Deal Harm Blacks?” An excerpt from the article reads:
“The Agricultural Adjustment Act (1933) aimed to help farmers by cutting farm production and forcing up food prices. Less production meant less work for thousands of poor black sharecroppers. In addition, blacks were among the 100 million consumers forced to pay higher food prices because of the AAA.”
Even when Democratic President John F. Kennedy was a senator, he voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act, along with Democratic with Senator Al Gore.
PBS wrote in an article titled The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, “The Democratic Party identified itself as the ‘white man’s party’ and demonized the Republican Party as being ‘Negro dominated”‘.
The Latino population in the United States are also very supportive of the Democratic Party. Yet during the 2016 Presidential Election race, Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails were hacked and revealed that he repeatedly referred to Latinos as “needy”.
As of this Saturday, President Donald Trump proposed to end the government shutdown, by granting 700,000 “Dreamers” another three years of protection in exchange for $5.7 billion to build the wall he promised. His proposal also granted, 300,000 immigrants under Temporary Protection Status a three-year extension as well.
According to the New York Post, Nancy Pelosi “was quick to reject the offer”. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was also opposed to this proposal, yet no solutions were suggested from them. Schumer called this “more hostage taking”, yet protection is being offered to the people who they claim to support. So who are the Democrats really fighting for, or do they seek more control? It isn’t the American people as they cry about people not receiving federal benefits or pay, yet they offer no solution.
It is quite ironic that most minorities seem to identify with the Democratic Party. Statistics provided by the Pew Research Center show that 90 percent of Black Americans, 69 percent of Hispanics, and 77 percent of Asians who voted in the 2018 Midterm Election, voted for Democrats.
2018 Midterm Election Voting Demographics by the Pew Research Center
Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, was recently interviewed by Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes, she was asked about the policies she wants to implement.
The statement that had heads spinning when Cortez said, “But once you get to, like, the tippy tops– on your 10 millionth dollar– sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60 or 70 percent.” This was in reference to her belief in higher income earners paying their “fair share in taxes”. She then added, ” That doesn’t mean all $10 million are taxed at an extremely high rate, but it means that as you climb up this ladder you should be contributing more.”
This seems to be the rhetoric for many Democratic Socialists, and Liberals throughout the country, the idea of paying the government “your fair share”. For example, Bernie Sanders said during his campaign, “We tell the billionaire class they cannot have it all. For a start, they’re gonna start paying their fair share of taxes.” What those same people don’t seem to understand is, people who are rich in fact do pay for a large amount of tax.
Stephen Moore wrote an article in 2015 for The Heritage Foundation about this false idea. Moore wrote, “Here are the latest statistics from the IRS for 2011. The top one percent earned 19 percent of the total income and paid 35 percent of the federal income tax. So one of 100 shouldered 35 percent of the entire burden.”
Anderson Cooper asked Cortez her thoughts on people’s reactions when they hear the word socialism, and her affiliation with it if she relates with the Soviet Union, Cuba, or Venezuela. Her response was, “Of course not. What we have in mind– and what of my– and my policies most closely re– resemble what we see in the U.K., in Norway, in Finland, in Sweden.”
The error with this statement being, that the Nordic Model, Cortez refers to isn’t socialist. Jeffery Dorfman wrote in a 2018 Forbes article, “To the extent that the left wants to point to an example of successful socialism, not just generous welfare states, the Nordic countries are actually a poor case to cite. Regardless of the perception, in reality the Nordic countries practice mostly free market economics paired with high taxes exchanged for generous government entitlement programs.”
Anderon Cooper addressed Cortez’s factual mistakes, he cited the Washington Post had awarded her with four “Pinocchios”. Her response was, “I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.”
What Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t recognize is, as a public speaker and representative of the people, she has the responsibility to provide fair and credible information to her audience. Her preception on right and wrong shouldn’t contradict the objective truth.
On December 29, 2018, France’s Holocaust Memorial Foundation released information via Twitter regarding the death of 108-year-old Georges Loinger. He was a French resistance fighter during WWII who was credited with saving hundreds of Jewish children.
In 1940 Loinger served in the French army, he was captured and sent to a German prisoner of war camp in Munich, Germany. Prior to that, Loinger was an engineer who then became a physical education teacher.
During his time as a prisoner, Loinger recieved a letter from his wife. He told The Jerusalem Post, “She was in charge of 123 Jewish children at a chateau owned by the Rothschilds, and she was having great difficulty with caring for them. He then added, “So I decided to escape, together with my cousin, who was with me at the POW camp, and we made our way back to France to help her.”
Once Loinger escaped, he joined the OSE, the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants, which is a Jewish relief organization. The OSE had been credited with smuggling approximately 2,000 children according to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. He is thought to have at least saved 350 of those children by smuggling them into Switzerland. These children were all orphans, their parents were all killed or sent to the Nazi concentration camps.
Being that Loinger had blonde hair and blue eyes, it was easy for him to travel across Axis occupied France, as people didn’t think he was Jewish. He would visit secret refugee centers where he would train Jewish children with his physical education experience. The point was to keep these children in top physical condition to smoothly smuggle them cross the ill-defended Swiss border, or in a more extreme, but all too real case, prepare them in the event that they might be caught and sent to a concentration camp.
Loinger would take these children to the French/Swiss border where he would host soccer games. Loinger said, “And while the games were in progress, some of the kids would cross the barbed wire – there were always fewer kids in our returning group, but no one noticed.”
There were other times where, when Loinger and his would play near the border and he would throw a ball at least 100 meters. When the children would be sent to go retrieve the ball on the other side of the border, they would just run into Switzerland. Loinger told Tablet magazine, “I threw the ball a hundred meters toward the Swiss border and told the children to run and get the ball. They ran after the ball and this is how they crossed the border. He then added, “After that, the Italians left France and the German came in. It became too dangerous to play ball with the children like this. With the Germans, we didn’t play these games.
Another smuggling technique used by Loinger was to dress up the children as mourners and head to a cemetery near the border. That’s where, with a ladder, they would climb over into Switzerland.
There was one incident where Loinger had luck on his side. While escorting 50 children to Annemasse, he ran into German soldiers on a train. Loinger already prepared a cover story, he told the soldiers that the children were refugees from a bombed out city nearby and was taking them to a health center. When they arrived, a German officer offered to escort the group and said, “Listen these kids are tired. Let us hasten our exit procedure. I’ll tell the police you’re with us.” Loinger said, “Then followed an extraordinary sight. 50 German soldiers, singing, en route through the city of Annemasse, with 50 Jewish children and me marching in step behind! Once we reached the reception center, the convoy came to a halt. The German saluted me, and the children and I went in – seen to the door under official German protection.”
The Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah, a French Holocaust remembrance group, said that Loinger not only saved those children, but he also found homes for another 125 German Jewish children in central France.
Georges Loinger was awarded the Resistance Medal, the Military Cross, and the Legion of Honour.
On Wednesday, 22 year old United States Army soldier; SPC. Torian A. Davis was arrested on charges murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury. He is currently being detained in El Paso county Jail on a $1.1 million bound after a stabbing two people, and attacking another.
An official at Fort Bliss, where SPC. Davis was stationed, confirmed that he was apart of the 1st Armored Division. They haven’t released any other statements at this time.
According to the police, SPC. Davis stabbed two people in an apartment building on Saturday. Inside they were apparently drinking and doing drugs. The victims of the attack were 21 year old, SPC. Anthony Velasco and an unnamed 25 year old woman. SPC. Velasco had his throat slashed and the woman was stabbed. Police said that SPC. Davis had attacked them, “without any provocation”.
After the stabbings, police say that SPC. Davis left the apartment and randomly attacked 23 year old 1LT. Jared Abes, who had just happened to park his car in front of the apartment complex.
According to police, 1LT Abes, SPC. Velasco, and the unnamed woman were taken to the University Medical Center of El Paso. The woman died in the hospital, 1LT Abes was taken into the intensive care unit, and SPC. Velasco has already been discharged from the hospital.
Richard
Arvin Overton was the oldest living World War 2 veteran and the oldest man in America
at the extraordinary age of 112. He passed away in Texas on Thursday night due
to his battle with pneumonia that put him in the hospital.
Overton
was born on May 11, 1906 in St. Mary’s Bastrop County and later enlisted in the
United States Army during the 1940s (different sources write he either he enlisted
in 1940 or 1942). He served in the 188th Aviation Engineer Battalion,
which was an all-black unit that served in various operations in the Pacific theatre.
During a Veteran’s Day ceremony at the Arlington National Cemetery in 2013,
former President Barrack Obama, honored Overton for his military achievements. The
following Monday, Obama said, “To see one of the oldest living veterans of World
War 2 bear witness to a day, to the progress of a nation that he thought might
never come.” This referred to the time period where the United States was still
under strict segregation laws.
During
that 2013 ceremony, it was noted that Overton was in Pearl Harbor after the
attack. He served in combat at Okinawa, and Iwo Jima.
Overton
told NPR, “It was difficult. I’ve never done that before. Uncle Sam called me
in. And I went there, and I had to do it.”
Regarding
Overton’s time during the war, he told NPR that he was grateful to have not
gotten home with any major injuries. He said, “I’m glad I didn’t get like some
of the others. Some got their arms off. Some got their leg off. Some lost their
body. Some lost their soul.”
During
the interview with the Austin American-Statesman he said that during one of the
assaults, “We got in the foxholes, and bullets were coming over our heads.” He had
also mentioned that he tries to forget about what he saw, but remembers removing
bodies from battlefields and surviving through heavy enemy suppression of
friendly forces.
Overton
had been honorably discharged as a technician fifth grade. He then went on to
live in the house he built for over 70 years. He worked in some furniture
stores and then at the state treasurer’s office when Ann Richards, a former Texas Governor, ran the agency.
Richard
A. Overton was a very well-known member of his community. He was known for
smoking his cigars, drinking his whiskey, and sitting out on the porch giving a
warm greeting as they passed by him. Part of the street, according to KUT, where
he lived was named after him. Overton’s birthday was also known as “Richard A.
Overton Day”, as proclaimed by the Austin City Council.
Texas
Governor Greg Abbott said that Overton “made us proud to be Texans and proud to
be Americans.”
