Generals, veterans and citizens issue petition accusing Sec of Defense Austin of violating his oath to the US Constitution By Carol Greenwald

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/generals_veterans_

The Committee to Support and Defend has initiated a petition to the Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to “honor his oath” to “support and defend” the Constitution of the United States. The petition “respectfully insists” that Austin immediately countermand orders he has issued since taking office that have eroded military cohesion and readiness. The petition argues that Critical Race Theory is a toxic Marxist ideology with anti-Constitutional objectives. Ordering its teaching in the military endangers America’s national security, in contravention to Austin’s oath to protect and defend the Constitution and the United States from all enemies.

The petition is the third scathing criticism of the Biden administration’s policies which retired generals and admirals and other military veterans have issued in recent weeks, citing concerns over national security and the dangers to our liberties.  In an unprecedented action, over 200 retired generals and admirals issued a letter in May which stated that the United States was facing the “greatest danger to our constitutional Republic since 1776”. The letter stated that our nation is in “deep peril” as we fight the supporters of Marxism who are opposed to our constitutional freedoms and liberties.

Last week, the Committee to Support and Defend led by LTC Allen West (ret) issued a letter signed by over 1000 military veterans which stated that as veterans they were still morally and ethically bound to protect our Constitution and country. They wrote:

“As such, we put our nation’s leadership on notice. We believe that the hard left turn toward Socialism and Marxism endangers our citizens and the future of this great nation…We are disgusted by the dismantling of the rule of law in our great country. We never thought we would see the return to Vietnam style disdain for public service. Unfortunately, this disregard and disrespect is corrosive and will lead to dangerous situations for citizens and law enforcement.”

Rebuild Gaza — why? By Abraham H. Miller

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

If the Biden administration wants to rebuild something, there is plenty of need in American cities.

Nearly anyone who follows events in the Middle East believes that the ceasefire imposed on Israel by the Biden administration won’t last more than three or four years, if that long, before Hamas’s Iranian rockets are once again launched from Gaza.

So, why should America be on the hook for rebuilding Gaza when Hamas’s next round of indiscriminate rocket attacks and Israel’s response with tactical air strikes is inevitable?

Since Israel left Gaza in 2005, there have been either major engagements or minor skirmishes almost every year.  The pattern is familiar. Hamas indiscriminately fires Qassam rockets into Israel, kidnaps Israeli soldiers, or organizes a military assault on the border, and Israel responds with artillery, airstrikes, or ground assaults, and sometimes all three.

To call the ensuing ceasefires after those engagements “fragile” is an understatement.  The most recent one will be no different.

Israel agreed to the current ceasefire because of the Biden administration’s pressure. It is no secret that Israel sought to further degrade Hamas’s fighting capabilities but was restrained from doing so. 

Our ‘Woke’ Pentagon Leaders Are Weakening America’s Defense

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/06/30/our-woke-pentagon-leaders-are-weakening-americas-defense/

One of the most disturbing developments to emerge from the Biden administration has been the Defense Department’s sudden embrace of Marxist Critical Race Theory – so-called ‘Woke’ ideology. It’s a clear and present danger to our national security and should be halted immediately.

Even West Point, the Army’s elite university where tomorrow’s generals are educated, isn’t immune to the Woke disease. Soon-to-be Army second lieutenants are being indoctrinated with Marxist-based Woke ideology.

You can thank Commander in Chief Joe Biden and his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley for this. Milley, an Ivy League grad, has aggressively shifted the military toward the political left by compelling officers to push racist CRT ideas down conscripts’ and officers’ throats.

“The United States Military Academy is a university. And it is important that we train, and we understand – and I want to understand white rage. And I’m white, and I want to understand it,” Milley said in recent remarks before Congress. “So, what is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America? What caused that? I want to find that out.”

He added: “I’ve read Mao Zedong. I’ve read – I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin – that doesn’t make me a communist.”

He’s right about that. But embracing their ideas and putting them into practice, and CRT is definitely Marxist, does make you a communist or a Marxist ― or, at the very least, a willing tool of the same.

Biden’s Fact-Free Infrastructure Fact Sheet This White House fact sheet has hardly any facts in it. By Dominic Pino

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/bidens-fact-free-infrastructure-fact-sheet/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=second

On June 24, the White House put out a fact sheet on the much-celebrated bipartisan infrastructure deal. The purpose of these fact sheets is not to present a full, detailed explanation of proposed legislation, and we don’t have an actual bill yet. Indeed, the purpose is more political — to set the narrative and give the public a reference point from which to start debate on whether the proposals are good ideas. It would be unfair to expect full details from a fact sheet, but we should expect some details. Especially when the White House prefaces the whole thing with the notion that it’s “showing that democracy can deliver results.”

The only thing the American people know about this infrastructure deal is that politicians want to spend $1.2 trillion of their money. On what? Infrastructure. It should be said that this is an improvement over the Democrats’ proposed plan, wherein everything was infrastructure. At least we’ve narrowed down to actual infrastructure. But Congress agreeing to spend money on a broad category is a pretty low standard for celebration.

Boris Johnson Says It’s Time to Learn to Live with COVID By John McCormack

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/boris-johnson-says-its-time-to-learn-to-live-with-covid/?utm_

If you’re worried about society-wide COVID restrictions becoming a permanent feature of life in Europe, here’s a positive development in the United Kingdom:

Boris Johnson took an increasingly hardline approach to ending lockdown on July 19 today, telling the Cabinet the country will have to ‘live with Covid in the future’.

Amid clear signals that ministers are increasingly set on ending draconian restrictions in three weeks come hell or high water, the Prime Minister highlighted that the link between infections and serious illness and deaths has been significantly weakened.

Downing Street said the Cabinet – including new Health Secretary Sajid Javid – ‘agreed that once we have completed the road map, we will be able to live with Covid in the future, even if cases continue to rise, thanks to the protections provided by the vaccine.’

The United Kingdom has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, but the number of cases jumped from 2,000 per day in May to over 16,000 per day in late June.

The Daily Mail notes studies show that, in a society that’s mostly vaccinated, COVID’s infection-fatality rate is now about the same or a bit lower than that of the flu: “A separate study from scientists at Cambridge University found that fewer than one in a thousand people who catch Covid in England now die from the disease. They estimate the overall infection fatality rate (IFR) of coronavirus has been driven down to 0.085 per cent thanks to the country’s hugely successful vaccine rollout.”

An analysis conducted by the Associated Press found that unvaccinated people accounted for 99.2 percent of all COVID deaths that occurred in the United States during the month of May.

Restaurants Are Now Adding ‘Equity’ Charges to Customers’ Checks to Fight Oppression Will making customers pay “equity” charges backfire? Probably. Jon Miltimore

https://fee.org/articles/restaurants-are-now-adding-equity-charges-to-customers-che

“Where should we eat tomorrow?” my wife asked me excitedly as we sat on our deck Friday evening.

She had locked down a babysitter for Saturday night, and we were both eager for our first dinner date alone together in months.

“Broders’,” I answered without hesitation.

Located in southwest Minneapolis, Broders Pasta Bar is a local gem. It has a great outdoor patio and the best Italian cuisine in the Twin Cities. We had not eaten there since the pandemic began.

My wife nodded and started to make a reservation on her phone. Then her jaw dropped.

“You’re not going to like this,” she said.

An Equity Charge?

She was right.

On its website, Broders’ has a notice to customers notifying them of a new 15 percent “benefits and equity” charge they’ve instituted. They justify the charge, first, by explaining that “many states have allowed reduced minimum wages for service staff in the form of a tip credit.” (More on this in a minute.)

Republicans Mustn’t Get Hoodwinked on ‘Defund the Police’ Pivot By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/06/republicans-mustnt-get-hoodwinked-on-defund-the-police-pivot/

And by the way, if you go to the Black Lives Matter website, you will still find this: “#DefundThePolice: . . . We call for a national defunding of police. . . .” (Compare now-vice president Kamala Harris in 2020 praising Black Lives Matter as “the most significant agent for change within the criminal justice system”).
Democrats might be making the case for funding once more, but it comes with a big catch.

O bviously, it makes sense for Republicans to denounce the Biden administration over Jen Psaki’s ridiculous claim that it was the GOP that wanted to cut police funding, the White House’s . . . um . . . rationale being that opposition to the president’s economic wrecking ball of a stimulus proposal equals opposition to every individual item in that boondoggle — as if deciding not to buy the manse you can’t afford in the tony school district means you oppose public-school education.

Everyone knows it was Democrats who made “defund the police” a mantra — occasionally, even a litmus test of what it means to be a viable Democratic candidate or official these days (even as Democrats who championed the scrapping of police departments spent taxpayer funds on security guards for themselves).

Nevertheless, as I have pointed out before, the smarter progressives have never been in favor of defunding the police, never mind zeroing out their budgets to achieve a wholesale elimination of the police. They not only want full funding, but significantly increased funding levels.

But here’s the catch: They want to change the definition of what policing is.

The savvy Democrats know that, as violent-crime rates surge, the party is getting killed over its “defund the police” madness. There is nothing to be done about that in the short term: The Bolshevik Left has insisted that Democrats are dead serious about gutting law enforcement (AOC: “Defunding the police means defunding the police” — not “budget tricks or funny math”); and the “defund the police” rhetoric is associated in the public mind with the months of lethal rioting that began last spring, and that was led by Black Lives Matter and Antifa, for whom Democrats continue to provide cover.

NYC mayoral race in disarray after ‘discrepancy’ prompts withdrawal of ranked-choice results Tim Balk and Chris Sommerfeldt

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/nyc-mayoral-race-in-disarray-after-discrepancy-prompts-withdrawal-of-ranked-choice-results/ar-AALBkAu?li=BBnb7Kz

The error-prone Board of Elections hurled the city’s first-ever ranked-choice mayoral race into disarray Tuesday by releasing updated results showing Eric Adams’ lead in the contest shrinking drastically — only to withdraw those tabulations due to an unspecified voting “discrepancy” before calling it a night.

The BOE first dropped a tally that showed Adams, Brooklyn’s borough president, leading the Democratic mayoral primary with 51.1% of the vote after 11 rounds of ranked-choice counting eliminated all other candidates except for ex-sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia.

Under the new tally, Garcia had soared to second place with 48.9% of the vote — trailing Adams by just 15,908 ballots. That spelled potential trouble for Adams — who had enjoyed a nearly 10% lead before the ranked-choice process played out — and turned all eyes to tens of thousands of absentee ballots that won’t be tabulated for at least another week.

But hours after releasing the nail-biting updated results, the Board of Elections backtracked.

“We are aware there is a discrepancy in the unofficial RCV round by round elimination report. We are working with our RCV technical staff to identify where the discrepancy occurred,” the board wrote on Twitter. “We ask the public, elected officials and candidates to have patience.”

After several more suspenseful hours, the BOE then deleted the flawed tabulations from its website and said it would not release corrected results until Wednesday.

Stop Gaslighting Parents on Critical Race Theory By Max Eden

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2021/06/28/stop_gaslighting_parents_on_critical_race_theory_783202.html

Proponents of Critical Race Theory are resorting to semantic gaslighting to defend a dogma that most Americans instinctively abhor.

Some pundits claim that CRT is exclusively a school of thought taught in legal academia. On her MSNBC show, Joy Reid claimed that “law school is really the only place it is taught. NBC has looked into everywhere.” Former Lincoln Project co-founder George Conway tweeted: “I don’t think critical legal studies should be taught in elementary schools, and I am ready to die on that hill[.]”

Some journalists, informed by other “experts,” contend that CRT is synonymous with “talking about racism.” NPR defined CRT as “teaching about the effects of racism”; the New York Times called it “classroom discussion of race, racism.” NBC News labeled it the “academic study of racism’s pervasive impact.” 

These definitions are, of course, mutually exclusive. But they both serve to paint parents into a corner. If CRT is defined just as talking about racism, then parental objections to it must be rooted in racism. If CRT is defined just as a thesis discussed in law schools, then parental objections to it must be rooted in ignorance.

There’s no doubt that CRT has become a politicized term. Manhattan Institute senior fellow Chris Rufo forthrightly explained his strategy on this issue as follows: “The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’ We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”

Liberal writer Freddie DeBoer has argued that CRT is now a “completely floating signifier.” Conservatives label a host of things they don’t like as CRT. Liberals, then, “feel compelled to defend CRT because conservatives attack it,” and defend it by claiming that it has nothing to do with any of the bad things conservatives say.  

An Unflinching Guide to Biden’s Immigration Fiasco Charles Lipson

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/06/29/an_unflinching_guide_to_biden

The crisis of illegal immigration—to give this calamity its true name—is growing increasingly grave. The reason is no mystery. The Biden administration replaced policies that staunched the illegal flow of migrants with policies that actually encourage it.

Instead of securing the U.S. border, the administration says it wants to deal with the “root cause,” desperation in Central America. That won’t work for two reasons. First, the administration doesn’t have the tools to markedly change conditions in Central America. Second, even if the policies could stimulate economic growth, improve safety, and reduce corruption—spoiler alert, they can’t—they won’t have any significant impact for years. Under even the most optimistic scenarios, they couldn’t reduce immigration anytime soon. It’s a policy based on a mirage.

The Biden team is certainly right that bad conditions in Mexico and Central America drive immigration. But it’s easy to show that’s the wrong explanation for our current crisis. The reason, as all social scientists know, is that “you cannot explain change with a constant.” What is constant here? Poverty, corruption, and danger in Mexico and Central America. Since those “root causes” have not changed over the past year, they cannot explain the dramatic rise in illegal immigration since Biden took office. What does explain it? The administration’s decision not to secure the southern border and to give up any serious effort at preventing illegal immigration. Migrants have gotten the message, and they are coming north in unprecedented numbers.

The media, always eager to protect their favorite political party, never asked Vice President Kamala Harris three crucial questions after her “root causes” trip to Guatemala and Mexico.

Can the U.S. really do much to improve conditions there?
Would relatively modest improvements have much impact on migration? And, crucially,
How long before these policies can have a major impact, if they work at all?