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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

With Juneteenth, Federal Employees Now Get 44 Paid Days Off Each Year Adam Andrzejewski

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/06/17/with-juneteenth-feder

With the stroke of his pen Thursday, President Joe Biden signed legislation giving millions of federal employees Friday off to celebrate Saturday’s new federal holiday, Juneteenth.

This makes 44 paid days off for the average federal employee annually, which is nearly nine full weeks of paid-time off each year.

Juneteenth is celebrated on June 19 to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. The Civil War was America’s bloodiest war, with between 752,000 and 861,000 soldiers dying on the battlefield. 49 states have already recognized Juneteenth as a holiday (South Dakota is the only holdout), though only a handful give it as a paid holiday to state employees.

On Wednesday, the U.S. House passed the bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, after the U.S. Senate passed it the day before.

Signing it into law on Thursday, Biden made Juneteenth – observed this year on Friday, June 18 — a federal holiday for which “most” federal employees will have off.

Must-see TV: Black medical professional denounces CRT at school board meeting By Thomas Lifson

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/mustsee_tv_black_medical_professional_denounces_crt_at_school_board_meeting.html

Critical Race Theory opponents are the new Tea Party, a grassroots phenomenon all over the country, mobilizing both activists and people with a political background at all to oppose the teaching of race hatred.  There is nothing quite as powerful in exciting passions in adults as threatening their children.  And make no mistake: Critical Race Theory harms children deeply, teaching Blacks that they are victims and can’t succeed on their own, and teaching non-Blacks that they are born evil.

If you spend two minutes and forty-seven seconds watching the following cell phone video of a Black medical professional denouncing the teaching of Critical Race Theory at a school board meeting, you will understand the panic that is starting to hit Democrats and their media apparat.  The passion and the intelligence of this self-described holder of two medical degrees, a man who worked his way through college, “up from the streets,” are inspiring.  He told the mostly White crowd gathered there that he “gives orders” to people who look like them every day, so how can he be oppressed?

The tide is turning against the woke-liberal blob that misrules us By Glenn H. Reynolds

https://nypost.com/2021/06/17/tide-turning-against-the-woke-liberal-blob-that-misrules-us/

For the past year, liberals unleashed on the nation an avalanche of ideological nonsense, coupled with brutal pressure to conform. Those who bucked the party line found themselves canceled and unpersoned and had their opinions subjected to mockery and claims of delusion and “anti-science” prejudices.

Until now. Because the tide is turning. And sometimes the break from the party line comes from surprising places. 

Late-night comics are usually reliable parroters of the message of the day. So it says something that last week, Bill Maher launched an impassioned critique of “woke” culture, while this week, Jon Stewart went on Stephen Colbert’s show to say in no uncertain terms that it looks like the Wuhan coronavirus came from … the Wuhan lab.

Using a term from Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, Maher accused liberals of “progressophobia” — “a brain disorder that strikes liberals and makes them incapable of recognizing progress.”

That is, they’re unwilling to admit that things have gotten better. To hear them talk about race, you’d think we were still in the era of Selma and Bull Connor. (My dad marched with Freedom Riders and at Selma; trust me, things have changed.) To hear them talk about women’s rights, you’d think it was still 1958. And gay activists, despite “Pride Month” being celebrated by pretty much every corporation, are still somehow stuck in the pre-Stonewall era.

Maher’s right.

The Screamers When an ugly hatred arrives in your idyllic backyard, don’t say we didn’t warn you it was coming BY Kathryn WolfWOLF

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-screamers

You think it’s over? It’s not o-ver,” my Great-Aunt Lee used to warn me, in a singsong voice, her forced smile wrapped up with some sort of awful knowing. “Antisemitism isn’t over. It’s never o-ver.”

My dear Aunt Lee was clearly crazy, I’d think. Superstitiously spitting-after-compliments crazy. What antisemitism?

Then the mayor and city council of my hometown of Durham, North Carolina, enacted a resolution in support of what Jewish Voice for Peace dubbed “Deadly Exchange,” a toxic campaign to spook well-intentioned people into blaming Israel for policing issues in the United States. Suddenly, Durham Jews found themselves having to deny that Israeli Jews were instructing local cops on how to torture Black Americans. And deny that hating people of color was a Jewish thing. And deny that we were the most sinister, vile people on the planet. Anyone feel like going to the Hope Valley Diner while wearing a Jewish star necklace tonight?

We began hearing rumors that similar campaigns were afoot in cities nearby. So I plunked down the $600 AIPAC registration fee and bought a long Tory Burch dress at T.J.Maxx, figuring a serious dress would help me get taken seriously. Surely someone, someone, among the twinkling constellation of Jewish muckety-mucks at that conference would listen to my story and then help me fix what left me sitting in numb disbelief on my cold bathroom floor night after night, once the kids were asleep.

My husband designed business cards for me. “Fight Back Now,” they said, with a Jewish star. We printed an optimistic 200 cards on flimsy stock at FedEx, and then to Washington, D.C., I went. I didn’t care that I’d be spending my birthday alone. It was 2019. The world was on fire.

Questions About the FBI’s Role in 1/6 Are Mocked Because the FBI Shapes Liberal Corporate Media The FBI has been manufacturing and directing terror plots and criminal rings for decades. But now, reverence for security state agencies reigns.Glenn Greenwald

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/questions-about-the-fbis-role-in?token=e

The axis of liberal media outlets and their allied activist groups — CNN, NBC News, The Washington Post, Media Matters — are in an angry uproar over a recent report questioning the foreknowledge and involvement of the FBI in the January 6 Capitol riot. As soon as that new report was published on Monday, a consensus instantly emerged in these liberal media precincts that this is an unhinged, ignorant and insane conspiracy theory that deserves no consideration.

The original report, published by Revolver News and then amplified by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, documented ample evidence of FBI infiltration of the three key groups at the center of the 1/6 investigation — the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, and the Three Percenters — and noted how many alleged riot leaders from these groups have not yet been indicted. While low-level protesters have been aggressively charged with major felonies and held without bail, many of the alleged plot leaders have thus far been shielded from charges.

The implications of these facts are obvious. It seems extremely likely that the FBI had numerous ways to know of any organized plots regarding the January 6 riot (just as the U.S. intelligence community, by its own admission, had ample advanced clues of the 9/11 attack but, according to their excuse, tragically failed to “connect the dots”). There is no doubt that the FBI has infiltrated at least some if not all of these groups — which it has been warning for years pose a grave national security threat — with informants and/or undercover spies. It is known that Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio has served as an FBI informant in the past, and the disrupted 2020 plot by Three Percenters members to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) was shaped and driven by what The Wall Street Journal reported were the FBI’s “undercover agents and confidential informants.”

In Europe, Biden Forsook the American Founders By Lawrence Kudlow

https://www.nysun.com/national/in-europe-biden-forsook-the-american-founders/91545/

It looks like President Biden is the Group of Seven’s favorite member now. And no wonder. He gave up American tax sovereignty to let the Europeans impose on American companies big tax hikes that will do great damage to workers’ wages, costing jobs and undermining the economy.

Mr. Biden also gave up American energy sovereignty by reaffirming the Paris climate targets, which will decimate our fossil-fuel, America-first energy independence — thereby doing even greater damage to the economy and to jobs.

Then, in the semi-summit with President Putin, Mr. Biden gave up American classified secrets by releasing 16 critical infrastructure sectors, a list developed at the highest level of American intelligence and national security experts, essentially providing enemies like Russia, China, and Iran with a target list.

Mr. Biden made no effort to respond to Mr. Putin’s CNN-MSNBC talking points on Black Lives Matter, January 6, deteriorating race relations, even election reform. Nor did he make a counterattack on Mr. Putin’s lie that Russia has nothing to do with cyberhacking.

Our president should have publicly released the Russian cyberhacking criminal groups that we know all about. He didn’t, though, and, by the way, going back to that critical industries target list — a couple things that went unmentioned is American security in space and under the waters. I’m sure the Russians, Chinese, and Iranians took note of that.

‘In Spite of Rock and Tempest Roar’ by Lawrence Kadish

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17474/in-spite-of-rock-and-tempest-roar

America! Since our founding we have stood tall against every assault and every enemy. This is not the time to despair. Rather, we need to go beyond simply recognizing today’s threats and embrace the spirit of a nation that has weathered the worst our foes have ever thrown against us.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one of America’s most vigorous patriots used the power of poetry to rally his fellow citizens and remain true to the steadfast courage of our forefathers when he penned, “The Building of the Ship.” The poem compares building a ship to building a nation and within the verses he implores us to defend it!

Their words still ring out: “In spite of Rock or Tempest roar, in spite of false lights on the shore.”

Assaults against America continue today, both from overseas enemies and from within our own borders. Further, social media has acted as an accelerant for those seeking to divide us. Political operatives masquerading as journalists have used their platforms to further advance their cynical agendas. (Sadly, this is not the first time in American history that “journalists” have sought to destroy the reputations of White House occupants such as Donald Trump. Lincoln was the subject of countless lies – but those reporters had no access to Twitter or Facebook. The damage they inflict now on our nation is incalculable.)

Our nation also is confronting the abdicators of their sacred Oath of Office; politicians, members of the judiciary and others state and federal institutions who have solemnly sworn to “defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Cynically, they seem to evolve into the very enemies from whom they swore to protect us.

More damaging to our nation is that they are never held to account. Questions have been asked about matters from subpoenaed evidence that was destroyed to election laws that are apparently bypassed – with never any negative consequences for those who destroyed the evidence or bypassed the laws.

Overseas enemies of our democracy are trying to destroy us, seeking the means to turn Americans against each other. It is this author’s opinion that they are now using the anonymous power of the Internet, rather than nuclear weapons, to attack our society. Consider how North Korean hackers shut down Sony just a few years ago and how Russian based hackers forced Colonial Pipeline and the meat processing industry to hand over tens of millions in ransom.

Despite these enormous threats we should not despair. Instead we need to gather strength from our past — such as the lessons offered to us in Longfellow’s poem — and to take to heart the words that ring clear, true, and inspiring.

Wuhan Confidential Salvatore Babones

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2021/06/wuhan-confidential/

Did the United States unintentionally manufacture COVID-19 — in China? If so, that would be the ultimate outsourcing story. Whatever the truth of that mother of all conspiracy theories, it is not a theory that the United States outsources its global coronavirus data monitoring to China. It’s a documented fact.

To paraphrase Australia’s own P.L. Travers, the whole world takes its coronavirus data from Johns Hopkins, but Johns Hopkins takes its data from an obscure Chinese health advice website called DXY. The English acronym DXY is short for Dingxiang Yuan, or Clove Garden, referring to the supposed medicinal properties of the common kitchen herb.

Johns Hopkins describes DXY as “an online platform run by members of the Chinese medical community.” Good luck finding out just who those members are. The DXY website, standard corporate registries, and Wikipedia shed little light on the matter.

Of course, Johns Hopkins doesn’t exactly brag about its reliance on DXY. Go to their website, and you won’t find it mentioned anywhere. Click on the data sources link, and it’s just one among dozens of sources listed. You have to dig up a May 2020 article in The Lancet to find out the truth. The Hopkins team isn’t hiding anything. But neither are they exactly forthcoming.

There’s no reason to believe the Johns Hopkins data are incorrect, even if they do come from a shadowy Chinese website. And for most practical purposes, most people rely on their own countries’ official data. But the incident illustrates just how deeply the world depends on China for its research infrastructure, often in ways no one would ever have imagined. After all, who would have imagined that US government was funding bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology? American researchers wanted to publish on coronaviruses, and China had the bats.

When the coronavirus leapt into the headlines, it was quickly revealed that the US indirectly funded Wuhan coronavirus research via grants to a New York charity called EcoHealth Alliance. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, headed by none other then American coronavirus tsar Anthony Fauci, was the origin of some $600,000 that was ultimately subcontracted to the controversial Chinese lab.

Dr Fauci maintains that the American grants did not cover ‘gain of function’ research that could have produced a genetically engineered pathogen, but many people are understandably sceptical. There is general agreement that the Wuhan lab was engaged in gain-of-function research, despite bitter disagreement over whether or not this research could have been the origin of COVID-19.

But there’s nothing to see here. Like the Johns Hopkins DXY attribution, Fauci’s Wuhan grants are hiding in plain sight. Summary data are clearly published under project number 01AI110964 (series one through six) on his institute’s website. They don’t mention the Wuhan lab specifically, but the papers funded by the grants do. Everything is on the record.

Biden’s Follies Abroad His European trip adds to his long record of foreign policy failure. by George Neumayr

https://spectator.org/biden-europe-trip-foreign-policy/

As Joe Biden stumbled on the world stage, spouting utter nonsense, a remark of Robert Gates, the former defense secretary under Obama, came to mind: “I think he [Biden] has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

Biden’s losing streak continues as president. If anything, his judgment is getting worse. To American troops stationed in the United Kingdom, he babbled about “global warming” as the greatest threat facing the United States. “This is not a joke,” he told the troops. But it is. Indeed, much of his trip seemed like a joke. His “rallying of democracies abroad” consisted of encouraging them to adopt his flaky ideas.

Biden went abroad not to vindicate America’s national interest but to promote an empty and deluded internationalism. Out of his talks with G7 leaders came a “build back better world” partnership, which will “demonstrate our shared values.” Those, of course, include spreading abortion and transgenderism under the guise of “gender equity and equality.”

It is hard to see how anything Biden discussed with these leaders could possibly strengthen democracies, let alone serve the interests of the United States. Capturing the frivolous character of the discussions, Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister, spoke of the importance of a “gender-neutral” post-pandemic world.

Biden should save his lectures on democracy for his own side, which now celebrates suppressions of free speech and the persecution of dissidents.

It is comic that global leaders who indulge in these nihilistic fads would set themselves up as great experts on what constitutes a civilized democracy. Far from safeguarding democracy, they are destroying its moral and religious underpinnings, abandoning the Judeo-Christian culture from which Europe and America came in favor of a relativistic one that holds nothing sacred save the cult of climate change, socialism, and sexual revolution.

AMIL IMANI: A LETTER TO THE HONORABLE TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL KEN PAXTON

Dear Attorney General Paxton,

I remember well when you first announced your plan to run for the Attorney General of Texas in 2014. All your friends and family were happy, excited and supportive. We all believed in your leadership, principles, brevity and conservative values.
During the primary race, you demonstrated the political courage needed to stand for Texas as our next Attorney General. Your near flawless and proven record of standing for conservative principles had earned you support among Texas conservative leaders and people across Texas. In fact, many of us came to several venues and watched your speech in a show of support. I recorded those joyous moments for the future.

The primary was tough, as was the runoff. But in the end, the best person for the job won. Texans sent a loud and clear message when they gave Team Paxton 63.4% of the vote. They wanted a proven conservative leader in the Office of Attorney General of Texas. A year on the campaign trail. Hard to believe. You spent a whole year since you launched that campaign. 365 days of crisscrossing the state, talking with Texans about liberty and state sovereignty, growing our support base and getting out the vote. 52 weeks of sharing your vision for Texas: Defended the Constitution, elevated the 10th Amendment, and told Washington that Texas would not just go along to get along in their never-ending quest for power and control over our lives. 


Team Paxton deserved an award for their hard work, i.e., reading and forwarding emails, engaging online, contributing generously, making phone calls and putting boots on the ground, etc.

Then your tireless campaign and forthright exposition of your vision assured the electorate the best-qualified public servant in assuming the helm of the office of Attorney General. During your swearing-in ceremony, you perceptibly likened Texas to that ‘shining city on the hill’ former President Reagan always said proudly of the United States. This shining city, the Lone Star State, is blessed with bringing forth generation after generation of dedicated and competent public servants to safeguard its luminous glow against the darksome overreach of the Federal Government. People deserve the government they vote for, it is said. And it is a testimony to the character and resolve of Texans to rally in support of their very best and elect them to office.

That was nearly eight years ago and now we must go through it yet again with new challengers who are not suited for this job. We should remember freedom is not free!

Life is precious. It is to be protected, nurtured, and celebrated. Mankind is moving, perhaps at a glacier pace, toward reconciliation and ever-expanding inclusiveness, without any group or ideology imposing itself on others. But as we all have witnessed, that is precisely what the federal government intends. It is vital that we reelect Attorney General Ken Paxton and stop the incursion of the Federal Government on our beloved state.

On November 3rd, 2020, over seventy-four million (more likely many more) Americans cast their votes to re-elect Trump for his second term.

At a time when the world was in torment and uncertainty, the American people—true to the values that have always been at the very core of America’s identity—strongly put their faith in President Trump and in the future.

No President in the history of the United States has achieved as much as he did in his four years in office, as President Trump. Meanwhile, no President in the history of America had been subjected to such incessant, vile and unjustified attacks. Why? Because he believes in American exceptionalism, not globalism.