RUTHFULLY YOURS

The National Council for La Raza has been at the forefront of the campaign against Senator Jeff Sessions as well as President Trump’s promise to enforce our immigration laws honestly and equally. Last weekend, the group arranged a march with Rev. Sharpton to protest the Sessions appointment. It has also organized news conferences on the issue, published an anti-Sessions attack on its homepage, are actively promoting the Twitter initiative #StopSessions, and had this to say about the senator in a recent email to its members: “[H]ow can we trust someone with ties to extremist anti-immigrant groups to oversee the lives of immigrants and the Latino community?” His views are “diametrically opposed to those of the Latino community… Tell your senators to protect and defend the rights of all Americans by opposing the confirmation of Sen. Sessions. Adelante.”

The organization’s attack against racial politics and ethnocentrism may leave some scratching their heads given the group’s own forceful ethno-nationalist mandate and long-time racialist ties to anti-white racist UT-Arlington professor Jose Angel Gutierrez. Before becoming a teacher, Gutierrez created a string of extremist ethno-nationalist organizations, including La Raza Unida (“The United Race”), a political party based in Texas, and the beret-and-combat-boot-wearing Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO). He was also a key player in the Brown Berets, a paramilitary organization also from the late sixties that’s recently had a resurgence following its alliance with Black Lives Matter.

Notably, La Raza’s gone out of its way to separate the group from Gutierrez. As it states on its website, Gutierrez “never had any connection to NCLR.” A modest amount of investigative research, however, does indeed show not only does La Raza have connections with Gutierrez, those connections are substantial. The following quotes, taken from throughout the man’s career starting in the late sixties as a key figure in the “Chicano Rights” movement, show why La Raza’s perhaps now wised up to create distance between the two:

[Narrow down to 4-5 if needed]

We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by that is if the worst comes to the worst, we have got to kill him. (Source).
We are millions… we just have to survive… we have an aging white America… they are not making babies… they are dying… it’s a matter of time… the explosion is in our population. (Source).
Our devil has pale skin and blue eyes (Source).
Is it the duty of every good revolutionary to kill every newborn White baby? (Source).
It’s too late for the Gringo to make amends. Violence has got to come (Source).
We realize that the effects of cultural genocide takes many forms—some Mexicanos will become psychologically castrated, others will become demagogues and gringos as well and others will come together, resist and eliminate the gringo. We will be the latter (Source).
We are the future of America. Unlike any prior generation, we now have the critical mass. We’re going to Latinize this country (Source).
See recent picture of Gutierrez here holding signs reading 1st Illegal Alien in US: Pilgrim and 1st Illegal Alien in Texas: Sam Houston, Davey Crocket, Sam Bowie, etc.

Around the time Gutierrez made the above “aging white America” quote, La Raza, which again states emphatically it “never had any connection” to him, presented the man with its “Chicano Hero Award”, a reward for his apparent ‘service’ to the Hispanic community.

On Friday, January 21, Donald J. Trump was inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States. The next day, the leftist hordes descended on Washington and cranked up the volume. C-SPAN identified one keynote speaker only as Angela Davis, so millenials, GenXers, and even baby boomers should understand what she is all about.

“We represent the powerful forces of change that are determined to prevent the dying cultures of racism, hetero-patriarchy from rising again,” Davis said, adding: “history cannot be deleted like web pages.” Davis had a lot to say about the evils of America but did not get into her own colorful history of speeches before presidential elections. In those the African-American Davis always showed a flair for all-white, all-male totalitarian dictatorships.

In 1980 and 1984 Angela Davis was the vice-presidential candidate of the Communist Party USA, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Soviet Union. That was how the Russian Communists interfered in the American electoral process, by running their own candidates or supporting proxies in other parties, such as Henry Wallace in 1948.

In 1980 and 1984, Davis was on the bottom of the ticket under white Stalinist Gus Hall, like her a real barrel of laughs. Davis and Hall twice lost to Ronald Reagan and George Bush, big time, but that defeat could not prevent Davis from becoming professor of the history of consciousness and feminist studies at UC Santa Cruz. Before that she gained fame for supporting violent male convicts such as Black Panther George Jackson, who killed a guard at Soledad Prison.

As this article described it, Davis brought the “arsenal of weapons” to spring Jackson. On August 7, 1970, “George Jackson’s 17-year-old brother, Jonathan, charged into a Marin County courtroom and took several people hostage, including Judge Harold Haley, the prosecuting assistant DA, and two jurors. The assailants taped a sawed-off shotgun (owned by Davis) to Haley’s chin. In the ensuing escape attempt, a shootout took place during which Haley’s head was blown off, and Jonathan Jackson was killed.”

The pro-gun Davis fled but was arrested in New York. At her 1972 trial more than 20 witnesses implicated her in the plot to free Jackson, but Davis gained acquittal. That made her a national figure and helped launch her political career.

In 1979, Angela Davis won the International Lenin Peace Prize, awarded by the Soviet Union. The award helped her rise in the Communist Party, but she was not America’s only star Stalinist.

Paul Robeson boasted huge talents as a singer, actor and athlete but spent much of his life defending the all-white Communist dictatorship of the Soviet Union during the worst of Stalin’s repressions. The USSR duly gave him the Stalin Peace Prize, which Robeson proudly accepted.

The provision was buried deep in a 1,000-page bill that Congress passed in December by large bipartisan majorities. Most lawmakers probably didn’t know it was there. Yet it is the start of an answer to the biggest question on Washington’s mind: What to do about ObamaCare?

The 21st Century Cures Act, which President Obama signed Dec. 13, focuses mainly on helping patients obtain breakthrough drugs and medical devices. But it also includes provisions that will give small employers—those with fewer than 50 workers—more flexibility in the insurance marketplace. As Republicans debate how to replace ObamaCare, giving that same flexibility to all employers would be a perfect place to start.

One reason that most Americans get health insurance through work is that there are tax advantages for doing so: Employers can pay for the insurance with pretax dollars. If companies wanted to simply give their workers cash, and let the employees choose their own insurance, that money would be taxed by Uncle Sam.

The problem is that this system ties the worker’s insurance to his job. If he quits, he loses coverage. Polls have consistently shown that what employees most want in health insurance is portability. They want to own their policy and take it from job to job.

Many companies would like to accommodate this by giving employees a “defined contribution”—a fixed amount of money—and letting them choose their own health insurance. Thanks to the 21st Century Cures Act, small employers now can do this. They can put pretax dollars into accounts called Health Reimbursement Arrangements, or HRAs. Workers can then use that money to buy their own health coverage.

This represents an abrupt reversal of policy. Since 2015 the Obama administration has been threatening to punish any employer who used HRA accounts in this way with a fine as high as $100 per employee per day.

Small companies were already exempt from ObamaCare’s employer mandate, but this has taken on increased importance. They are now the only employers that can choose how health insurance will be subsidized by the federal government. They can (1) use pretax dollars to provide health insurance directly; (2) pay higher taxable wages and allow the employees to buy their own insurance, benefiting from the ObamaCare tax credits if they quality; or (3) put pretax dollars into an HRA. Extending this freedom to all employers would be a remarkably effective solution to ObamaCare’s many problems.

One reason so little progress has been made in increasing employer-based coverage is that larger companies are meeting the law’s minimum requirements by offering low-wage workers bronze ObamaCare plans. But these plans might have deductibles of $6,000 or more and premiums equal to 9.5% of the employee’s wage. Workers routinely reject this kind of coverage.

What if these firms were given the same choice that small businesses have? What if they could put money into an HRA for each employee, which the worker could then use to purchase coverage on his own, with the help of tax credits? CONTINUE AT SITE

At the Washington Examiner, Byron York compiles photo evidence of the freak show that Saturday’s “Women’s March” devolved into — “Women’s March” being the euphemism for the hard-left anti-Trump protest whose organizers excluded pro-life and conservative women. The lowlight of the affair was a rant by the moronic Madonna. Between F-bombs, the aging “Material Girl” proclaimed, “Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House. But I know that won’t change anything.”

It is perfectly appropriate for critics to highlight this bile and mark it indelibly on Saturday’s protest march. It’s even fine to link it with the rioting at the inauguration the day before as indicative of the modern community-organizer left’s notions of dissent and civility. What would really be poor judgment, though, is to equate the fading pop star’s idiocy with felony violations of law.

There are some reports that the Secret Service will open an investigation. That agency, of course, enforces such laws as section 871 of the federal penal code, which makes it a crime, punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment, to “knowingly and willfully” threaten murder, kidnapping, or the infliction of bodily harm against the president of the United States.

Even taken at face value, Madonna’s bombast was not such a threat. If you take her seriously (I don’t), the most she said was that she had fantasized about doing President Trump harm but realizes this would be pointless. Would that Madonna had kept all her fantasies to herself lo these many decades. In any event, her remarks were not in the nature of “I’m going to blow up the White House,” or “We should go blow up the White House.”

There is often some subtlety involved in discerning threatening statements or distinguishing them from harmless commentary. If you are called to testify at a trial and a friend says, “You better tell the truth on the witness stand tomorrow,” that is good advice. On the other hand, if Luca Brasi shows up on your doorstep with a baseball bat the night before your testimony and utters the exact same words, that is a threat. The circumstances make all the difference. But c’mon: there has never been anything subtle about Madonna.

The incident would not be worth commenting on except that we are in a time when the Left is cracking down on political speech everywhere – on campus, in the media (including social media), in regulations and resolutions. That is the threat to fret over. I realize that, on a gut level, many will find it appealing to imagine Madonna blubbering her way through a visit from a couple of stern Secret Service agents who warn her to be careful when she speaks about the president. But that is exactly the thing we shouldn’t want.

Progressives mapped out ways to combat newly sworn-in President Trump at a liberal confab at the swanky Turnberry Isle resort in Aventura, Fla., over the weekend.

The confab, organized by Media Matters founder David Brock, attracted more than 100 well-heeled progressive donors who came to plot and scheme ways to neutralize Trump, The Washington Free Beacon reports. The tireless Clinton defender is reportedly aiming to build a liberal donor network for the left that rivals that of the Koch brothers.

A confidential memo from Brock, obtained by The Free Beacon, outlined plans to use his numerous organizations to defeat President Donald Trump through “impeachment” or at the ballot box in 2020.

“No other progressive organization has the resources and assets that American Bridge has amassed over the past several election cycles to hold Trump, his administration, and the politicians accountable,” the 44-page confidential memo states.

“Only Bridge stands ready with staff already hired, Trump’s web of business ties mapped out, and a massive video archive at our fingertips.”

“The right will bolster Trump aggressively and deceptively. The campaign to stop him must be nonstop. At American Bridge, it has already begun.”

Brock’s group claims to have more than 20,000 hours of video, 289 candidate research books, and the largest available archive of Trump research in the Democratic Party. Within weeks of the election, Bridge launched a “Trump War Room,” which has already scrutinized Trump’s transition team and will continue to watch the personnel, policies, and practices of the administration.

The “state-of-the-art Trump War Room” will strive to “uncover details of Trump’s affection for Russia and Putin.” They are tracking Trump’s foreign and domestic business partners, construction projects in foreign countries, and negotiations on potential future projects that he “could use to put personal profit ahead of our national security.”

“With so many opportunities for foreign governments and corporations to gain influence over Trump, American Bridge will use every means at its disposal to hold Trump and his administration accountable—including FOIA requests, lawsuits, and regulatory complaints. As the progressive movement’s political research clearinghouse, we will arm our allies to join us in taking on the administration through paid advertising, earned media, grassroots efforts, and legal recourse.”

“Almost immediately after” Donald Trump was sworn in as president, the New York Times reports that defense counsel for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl – the deserter for whom former President Barack Obama exchanged five Taliban commanders – asked a court-martial to dismiss charges against him. The motion cites Trump’s denunciation of Bergdahl as a “dirty rotten traitor,” a staple of his campaign rallies – as were Trump gesticulations and sound effects, imagining Bergdahl before a firing squad.

Bergdahl’s lawyer, Eugene Fidell (whom, the Times takes pains to add, “teaches military justice at Yale Law School), contends that the statements violate the prohibition against “unlawful command influence,” which the Gray Lady – that well-known stickler for legal principle – emphasizes is “a bedrock of military justice.” It prohibits commanders from behavior that could prejudice a defendant’s case.

It is a frivolous claim, notwithstanding the gravitas with which the Times imbues it, as it often does Mr. Fidell’s work. Trump was a candidate not a commander when he made the statements in question.

Clearly, Fidell and his note-takers are mindful of this inconvenience. Thus, they endeavor to stretch the command-influence prohibition beyond recognition. It applies, we are told, not only to commanders but to “anyone with the ‘mantle of command authority’” – a term said to be mined from an opinion by a military appeals court. Perhaps … but the “anyone” in question still has to be in the military chain of command at the time the “influence” is exerted.

Out on the campaign trail, Trump did not have the mantle of command influence. He was a civilian seeking to be elected commander-in-chief. No sensible person would have seen him as vested with any military authority. He was not any part of the chain-of-command – not formally, and not by any reasonable perception.

Obviously, Fidell knows this. otherwise, he would not have waited until Trump was sworn in as president to bring the motion. Counsel nonetheless tries to bootstrap Trump’s pre-presidential meanderings to his later commander-in-chief duties because the new president will now have a say over the promotion and assignments of military officers who are responsible for Bergdahl’s court-martial (like Gen. Robert B. Abrams, who ordered Bergdahl to a court-martial). Those officers, according to Fidell’s theory, will be guided not by the law and the evidence but the campaign bombast.

Nonsense. To flout the principle Fidell invokes, there must be an exercise of influence that is both unlawful and related to an existing command relationship. Regardless of what one thinks of Trump’s red-meat campaign riffs, there was nothing unlawful about them. They could only have been deemed “unlawful” if, at the time, he had been in command and thus obliged to protect the integrity of military proceedings. He wasn’t.

It is the flimsiest of speculation that his campaign statements might influence the conduct of Bergdahl’s case. Court’s don’t dismiss charges based on speculation.