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Ruth King

Sen. Tim Scott officially throws his hat in the ring – and does an impressive interview FOX News By Peter Barry Chowka

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/05/sen_tim_scott_officially_throws_his_hat_in_the_ring__and_does_an_impressive_interview_fox_news.html

South Carolina Senator Tim Scott officially declared his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination in Charleston, S.C. yesterday. (See Andrea Widburg’s first-person account of the event here.)  Later that evening, he appeared live for an interview with former S.C. Rep. Trey Gowdy, who is hosting the 8 PM ET hour on the FOX News channel this week.

Scott has served as the junior U.S. Senator representing South Carolina since 2013.  He is what used to be called a Dark Horse in the race (no pun intended). He is a youthful looking 57, and represented his state in local and state politics before being appointed to the U.S. Senate in 2013 by Gov. Nikki Haley, who is herself a candidate for next year’s Republican presidential nomination. Scott has won re-election three times to the U.S. Senate.

Scott’s interesting and impressive background and career are reasonably and fairly objectively documented at his Wikipedia bio. The lengthy page and the references it cites are a compelling read. My impression of Scott over the years, confirmed by the chronology and highlights of his career, is that he is a man of deep conviction who is extremely articulate in expressing his conservative viewpoint.

And so it was when he appeared on the FOX News channel Monday evening (video here). Needless to say, he received a cordial reception from his former Republican colleague in the Congress, Trey Gowdy, who was guest hosting the hour on FOX for the first of five nights from New York City.  On Sunday nights for the past year, Gowdy has hosted Sunday Night in America from Charleston, S.C., on FOX at 7 PM ET, sometimes repeated later in the evening.

The significance of Shavou’ot(May 26, 2023) Yoram Ettinger

https://bit.ly/3MOJa5G

Shavou’ot (Pentecost) guide for the perplexed, 2023

Shavou’ot is one of the three liberty-oriented Jewish pilgrimages to Jerusalem:  Passover, Shavou’ot (Pentecost) and Sukkot (Tabernacles), which constitute game-changing milestones in the formation of Jewish history, documenting the 4,000-year-old Jewish roots in the Land of Israel, and the unique linkage between the Land of Israel, Judaism and the Jewish people.

Shavou’ot is a historical, national, agricultural and spiritual extension of Passover. Passover highlights the physical liberty from slavery in Egypt; Shavou’ot highlights spiritual liberty, embracing the values of the Torah, the Ten Commandments and six chapters of The Ethics of our Fathers (Pirkey Avot). The eve of Shavou’ot is dedicated to an all-night study of Jewish values.

Shavou’ot is also called the Holiday of the Harvest (ביכורים), since it concludes the harvesting season, which starts during Passover.

Shavou’ot (שבועות) means “weeks” in Hebrew and its spelling is identical to the Hebrew word “vows.”
Shavou’ot commemorates the 40 years of the Exodus, which entailed tough challenges on the road to the Land of Israel, forging the state-of-mind of the Jewish people and the Jewish State.

This is Shakespeare. This is Woke Shakespeare. Any questions? by Daniel Greenfield VIDEO

https://www.frontpagemag.com/this-is-shakespeare-this-is-woke-shakespeare/

To paraphrase an 80s anti-drug ad, “this is Shakespeare, this is woke Shakespeare.” Any questions?

(If you enjoyed this episode of woke Shakespeare, be sure to tune in to your local PBS station for more.)

The obvious question is “why bother”, but the obvious answer is that wokes (unlike old school lefties who could be creative) are cultural parasites, incapable of creating anything new, and thrive only on tainting the old.

It’s why the entertainment industry churns out bastardized versions of its intellectual properties, yet makes nothing new that endures.

Wokes are incapable of grasping the content of anything, only the surface context. And thus they obsessively remake things in line with their deconstructionist sensibilities. Shakespeare to them is no different than Star Wars, Dickens, 1776 or Marvel comics, it’s all the same, replace the cast with a completely inappropriate identity politics assemblage and revamp its message so that it deconstructs whatever it ever was.

Wokes think that they’re ushering in a revolution when all they’re doing is demonstrating their incomprehension of the original material. But that is why they’re wokes. Wokes can be offended by anything, but they don’t understand anything. Philosophically, they’re all surface impressions, reading their tired Marxist tropes into any classical work and then plugging in a “diverse” cast to hammer home the revolutionary message.

But there are no more revolutions. The only woke cultural revolution still going on is narcissism. Wokes don’t want to change the world, they want to revel only in their outrage and false sense of superiority by destroying anything that predated them, anything they don’t understand, and turn it into a virus broadcasting their virtue.

Our American Suicide America’s founding principles are now vilified as “threats to democracy.” by Scott Hogenson

https://www.frontpagemag.com/our-american-suicide/

America is in a fighting mood. Hardly a day goes by without video of a fight among airline passengers or fans at some sporting event surfacing on the Internet. Mobs block subway tracks to disrupt service. Still larger mobs gather at statehouses from Montana to Florida, angry and violent enough to suspend the legislative process. Retailers lock products behind plexiglass fearing hoards of looters.

Those causing such mayhem often avoid arrest, prosecutors routinely fail to prosecute offenders, and the results are anarchic. “The lawless in spirit are encouraged to become lawless in practice,” noticed one 28-year old state house representative. “Having been used to no restraint but dread of punishment, they thus become absolutely unrestrained.”

Disorderly scenes today are so common, we’ve become desensitized to them. “Such are the effects of mob law; and such as the scenes becoming more and more frequent,” observed this junior legislator. “The stories of which have even now grown too familiar to attract anything more than an idle remark.”

The idle remarks on Twitter and elsewhere only exacerbate this climate as mobs grow in number and size, and the danger extends to the nation itself. “By the operation of this mobocractic spirit, which all must admit is now abroad in the land, the strongest bulwark of any government, and particularly of those constituted like ours, may effectually be broken down and destroyed,” warned the young lawmaker.

These comments were delivered by Abraham Lincoln, who predicted in his January 27, 1838 speech to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.”

Discredited But Massively Wealthy SPLC Working with Corrupt FBI The Biden regime is determined to silence dissidents. by Robert Spencer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/discredited-but-massively-wealthy-splc-working-with-corrupt-fbi/

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is one of the Left’s premier, well-heeled, and most dishonest and ruthless attack dogs. It relentlessly smears legitimate conservative individuals and groups by labeling them as purveyors of “hate” and lumping them in with the likes of the KKK and neo-Nazis. Its name-calling and defamation would be just more of the same rubbish that comes daily from the Left were it not for the fact that the social media giants and numerous other major corporations still take the massively discredited SPLC seriously and use its smear pieces as a guide to shun and deplatform various dissenters from the Leftist agenda. So the SPLC sounds like the perfect organization for the Biden regime to work with, right? Oh, absolutely. Now this sinister and hateful group is partnering with the equally corrupt and politicized FBI.

The Daily Signal reported Sunday that the FBI “appears, at least briefly, to have joined the Southern Poverty Law Center’s attempt to demonize Roman Catholics who follow the church’s teachings on marriage and who celebrate the Latin Mass.” One of those Catholics, Michael J. Matt, editor of a newspaper called The Remnant and producer of Remnant TV, noted that his organization, which is not remotely connected with violence or terrorism, was listed on a “leaked FBI memo,”  along with other Catholic groups that he pointed out were “defunct.”

Matt declared that this was an example the “FBI phoning it in,” as its list of “radical-traditional Catholic hate groups” came from a 2007 list compiled by the SPLC’s Heidi Beirich and Rhonda Brownstein. Matt asked incredulously: “They took Heidi Beirich and Rhonda Brownstein’s word for it, from 2007?!” He added: “There has been an explosion of traditional Catholic groups since Pope Benedict XVI brought back the Latin Mass. None of the new groups who are in positions of real influence are targeted in the memo.” That’s good, but the fact that the FBI is working with the SPLC and targeting law-abiding citizens because it disapproves of their religious beliefs is disquieting enough.

The Parents Saying No to Smartphones ‘How you help them learn to be present, in a task or with a relationship, is one of the top challenges of our generation. Part of that is going to be saying no.’ By Olivia Reingold

https://www.thefp.com/p/the-parents-saying-no-to-smartphones

Every time one of his classmates gets a smartphone, Jhett Rogers thinks to himself: There goes another one. 

“It kind of feels like I’ve lost a friend. Whenever I’m with them, they’re zoned out and always on their phone.” 

But Rogers, a middle schooler in Salt Lake City, says he still can’t shake the desire to join the club. Six months ago, the only other holdout in his 30-strong group of friends got an iPhone.

“It kind of made me feel left out and jealous,” he says. “But later I don’t want one because I know what happens.”

He says kids in the hallways now bump into each other, with everyone staring down at their phones. Teachers have started giving up on his school’s no-phone policy, knowing students hide their devices up their hoodie sleeves and pull them out as soon as no one’s looking. At lunch hour, he says, everyone eats alone, scrolling TikTok while they chew. 

At 13, Jhett is part of a small, but growing, minority group of holdouts. By age 12, seven out of ten American kids own a smartphone. They also spend about eight hours online a day, inhaling TikTok trends, toggling between texts, and turning their daily lives into Snapchat and Instagram content. Most will have seen pornography by age 12, with three in four teenage boys saying they watch adult content at least once a week.

Meanwhile, a growing body of research shows that smartphones are at least partly to blame for skyrocketing rates of teenage anxiety and depression. As author Jonathan Haidt, reporting on a recent worldwide study on smartphone use among nearly 28,000 youths, put it: “The younger the age of getting the first smartphone, the worse the mental health the young adult reports today.” 

For years, the risks have been clear as day among Silicon Valley’s brightest minds, including Bill Gates and Google’s Sundar Pichai, who famously kept smartphones away from their own kids, and Steve Jobs, who limited his children’s screen time altogether. But it has taken the Covid-19 pandemic for ordinary Americans to come to the same conclusion: that their kids had become dependent on their phones, and their school work suffered as a result. This year, an increasing number of school districts—in Ohio, Maryland, Colorado, and other states—have banned the devices in class. And in July, the state of Florida will enforce a new phone fatwa, barring their use during instructional time at all public schools.

The Danger to Canada (and How It Differs from the Danger to the U.S.) By David Solway

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2023/05/22/the-danger-to-canada-and-how-it-differs-from-the-danger-to-the-u-s-n1697272

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity — Martin Luther King Jr.

The danger to Canada, writes industrial technologist and army veteran Tex Leugner in The Cochrane Eagle, transcends the state-and-media entente that works to prepare the public for the assumption of elite authority predicated on an ideological agenda. The danger, rather, is delved in the almost insuperable task of “restor[ing] the necessary common sense and good judgment to a lazy, unthinking electorate” prone to electing corrupt, unpatriotic leaders, “a citizenry capable of entrusting an incompetent man with the job of Prime Minister” and refusing to rectify or even acknowledge the blunder: “The danger to Canada is the people in it.”

Election results confirm, Leugner continues, “that more and more Canadians are moving in the direction of socialism with every generation, most of whom no longer have any morality, sense of self reliance, personal responsibility, independent thinking and a willingness to continue the culture of hard-working self-respect that built this magnificent country in the first place.” His conclusion hits hard. “Canada is no longer the country I was once so proud to serve as a soldier. In fact, it is no longer my country.” Many former servicemen, some of whom have become personal friends, agree wholeheartedly. They regret their service, risking life and limb for a country that has neither use nor respect for them, particularly under a Liberal administration.

DeSantis May Not Be Topping the Polls (Yet), But Floridians Are Enjoying a Lot of Winning By Paula Bolyard,

https://pjmedia.com/columns/paula-bolyard/2023/05/22/desantis-may-not-be-topping-the-polls-yet-but-floridians-are-enjoying-a-lot-of-winning-n1697280

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to enter the presidential race this week, ending months of speculation about his future plans.

For reasons perhaps known only to him, former President Trump has decided to let DeSantis live rent-free in his head, spending hours and hours on social media attacking the Florida governor while virtually ignoring the real enemy—Joe Biden. (If you don’t believe me, go check out Trump’s Truth Social account. Where is the criticism of the Biden administration?)

And it’s not just social media. Trump’s Super PAC is spending an unprecedented amount of money on attacking DeSantis and not Biden.

Don’t miss that last bit: Trump’s SuperPAC dropped “$2.8M on attack ads, bringing their anti-DeSantis spend to $15.3M and blowing past the $15M MAGA, Inc. spent on all 2022 midterm races.” [Emphasis added]

In other words, Trump has spent more money attacking a fellow Republican than he did trying to win back a Senate majority for the Republicans.

GAO Said Biden Administration Ignored Recommendation For National Broadband Strategy Johnny Kampis

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/05/22/gao-said-biden-administration-ignored-recommendation-for-national-broadband-strategy/

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found in a recent report that the Biden administration ignored its recommendations last year to create a national broadband strategy to synchronize the fragmented patchwork of funding for broadband. This critical mistake puts billions of tax dollars at risk and hurts efforts to close the digital divide.

The GAO has noted now in two consecutive annual reports that there is extreme overlap in broadband funding programs, with 133 such programs administrated by 15 agencies. The complexities have only grown in recent years with the addition of such programs as Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) and Enabling Middle Mile Infrastructure.

The office pointed out that the number of programs and their overlap can lead to taxpayer waste, but such waste is hard to measure.

“Having numerous broadband programs can be helpful to address a multifaceted issue like broadband access, but this fragmentation and overlap can lead to the risk of duplicative support,” the GAO said in the report. “However, determining whether program overlap results in duplicative support can be challenging.”

The GAO did, however, identify situations in which waste could occur. For example, the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) High Cost program and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utility Service (RUS) programs had overlapping service areas. Officials from the FCC and RUS acknowledged the challenges of the overlap, but told federal auditors they don’t consider awards duplicative if they involve different levels of service and support different locations within the area. 

All the Wrong Things are Really Looking Up Under Biden

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/05/23/things-really-are-looking-up-under-biden/

Over the weekend, President Joe Biden claimed that some Republicans are hoping that the talks over raising the debt ceiling fail and the government defaults on its debt.

“I think there are some MAGA Republicans in the House who know the damage that it would do to the economy, and because I am president, and the president’s responsible for everything, Biden would take the blame,” he said.

What Biden is claiming assumes, of course, that things are going swimmingly right now, a point the president repeatedly makes, and how it’s all thanks to his policies.

Let’s leave aside that lie, which we’ve written about many times in this space. And let’s also ignore the fact that all the scaremongering about failure to raise the debt limit is just that. If the debt limit is not raised, the government won’t need to default on its debt. Every month, it raises far more in taxes than is needed to pay interest on existing debt. Despite what Biden says, any default would be entirely his fault.

How about his claim that things are going well and that only Republican malfeasance could hurt the economy?

Well, it’s true that things are looking up in America. The problem is that they are all the wrong things. Inflation, interest payments, debt, illegal immigration, labor force dropouts. Those are all way up under Biden.

To show this, we’ve put together a series of charts.