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June 2023

Ron DeSantis offers practical suggestions for controlling our border By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/06/ron_desantis_offers_practical_suggestions_for_controlling_our_border.html

“The Florida governor, while campaigning in Texas, offered strong, workable ideas about what he thinks will return sovereignty to America’s border.”

Ron DeSantis was in south Texas this morning and, in a speech to supporters at a small venue that allowed for questions, he focused on the border war in America, where Texas is the front line. DeSantis promised that, if he becomes president, he will stop illegal immigration, both at the border and across America. His prescriptions are very good, for they utilize every bit of government authority available to him and to the border states.

Bill Melugin conducted an interview with DeSantis before the latter gave his speech. In the following tweet, Melugin summarizes the key points DeSantis was preparing to make:

I’ve embedded a video of the full speech below, but here are a few of my favorite points from the main speech:

It’s not just Latin Americans coming across the border. People are coming from Libya, Tajikistan, and China, with many of the illegal aliens appearing on government watch lists.
Children are being rented and sold to adult males so that they can gain easier entry as the child’s parent.
He’ll provide more resources to the Coast Guard to police maritime illegal entry, which is a big problem in Florida.
He’ll authorize instant deportations because illegal aliens won’t make dangerous journeys or spend thousands of dollars knowing they’ll be turned back at the border.
He’ll properly enforce asylum laws, which require that people claim asylum as soon as they reach safety, rather than cross the border illegally and claim asylum after the fact. His administration will support only legitimate asylum claims, not the 90% or so of fake claims.
If the federal government can’t or won’t do its job on immigration, DeSantis would deputize local authorities to enforce those same laws. [This would get around administrative agencies refusing to do their jobs.]
He’ll crack down on local jurisdictions engaging in illegal “sanctuary” activity by turning off the federal money spigot.
He’d use rules of engagement when cartels destroy the walls to provide openings for people to cross. “I say, use force to repel them.”
He’d lean hard against the drug cartels.

Four Ways the Deep State Betrays Americans By J.B. Shurk

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/06/four_ways_the_deep_state_betrays_americans.html

Why is it that whenever I call customer support to get a replacement for my broken America, I end up on the line with an operator from China?  I kid…but only a little.  Four separate stories this last week hit the nail on the head:

(1) In defending America’s two-tiered (in)justice system currently dedicated to covering up Biden family crimes while persecuting Trump and his supporters, Gestapo chief Merrick Garland had the audacity to declare that any condemnation of the secret police “constitutes an attack on an institution that is essential to American democracy and essential to the safety of the American people.”  

Hear that, plebes?  “Democracy” will survive only if the people’s voices are silenced and the powerful institutions are obeyed.  The opinions of commoners are “attacks,” while the crimes of institutions are “essential.”  To save “democracy,” defend the dictatorship!  If Garland had been speaking German, he could have easily been mistaken for Himmler or Heydrich defending the “Night of the Long Knives” as necessary for “public safety.”  The death of “democracy” always comes from a thousand separate cuts made for the people’s “own good.”

(2) Pretend President Biden stumbled into California to push his plans for gun confiscation and mocked the idea that the Second Amendment is an essential check against government tyranny.  “So what’s the deal with the idea that it’s an absolute?” Dementia Joe mumbled. “You know, the tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots.  Well, if [you] want to do that, you want to work against the government, you need an F-16.  You need something else than just an AR-15 anyway.”  

Government Schools’ Trans Policies Aren’t Keeping Children Safe By Gamaliel Isaac

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/06/government_schools_trans_policies_arent_keeping_children_safe.html

In the week of June 12, 2023, the New York State Education Department (NYSED) published a document titled “Creating a Safe, Supportive, and Affirming School Environment for Transgender and Gender Expansive Students.”   The document instructs teachers that if the student doesn’t want their parents to know that they are transitioning they should hide the information from them.  The document gives a hypothetical example of a student with the legal name Kevin coming out as a transgender girl who asks teachers to call him Kimi but who wants teachers to still call “her” Kevin when talking to “her” parents.  Teachers are instructed to do what Kevin wants in order to keep Kevin safe.

The authors of the document explain:

The paramount consideration in those situations is protecting the health and safety of the student, assuring that the student’s gender identity is affirmed and that their privacy and confidentiality are safely maintained.

The assumption the NYSED is making is that affirming students’ belief that they have a different gender identity than their biological sex, makes them safe and that parents who disagree with such students are heteronormative oppressors who make those students unsafe.

The NYSED document also says that to satisfy the requirements of Education Law §801-A that requires that students receive instruction in civility and respect for others:

…schools will want to consider adding inclusive curricula; for example, teaching about and reading books by authors of diverse identities and including a multicultural representation of images, decorations, and artwork around their classrooms.  If offered, sexual health curriculum must be inclusive of all identities. There are opportunities and avenues for diverse identities to be included in every academic discipline.

How Government is Fanning and Subsidizing Anti-White Racism By Janet Levy

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/06/how_government_is_fanning_and_subsidizing_antiwhite_racism.html

When the current occupant of the White House openly asserts that white supremacy is the greatest threat to America, it shows that demonizing whites is now an acceptable part of American life. Conservative writer Ed Brodow dubs this phenomenon the “new national sport” in the subtitle of his book The War on Whites. In a Townhall article, he says hating whites is a disease of epidemic proportions that must be called out for what it is – racism. He explains how, in the woke-perverted world of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), white people – by dint of pigment alone – are the default oppressors, obliged to feel guilty and do penance for imagined crimes of “systemic racism.”

This reversal has its roots in critical race theory (CRT) and Marxist ideology, which are working overtime to replace the American ideal of equality (of opportunity, not outcome) with a distorted version of equity. The word itself means fairness or impartiality. But the new discourse interprets it to mean providing special opportunities to minorities and groups perceived as disadvantaged and denying them to the majority and those perceived as advantaged.

With woke ideas well entrenched in academia and diffusing therefrom to the corporate world and government, this perverse interpretation is increasingly translating into a sidelining of whites. Although government programs are required by the Constitution to be non-discriminatory, instances abound of anti-white racism becoming their salient feature. Such discrimination even extends to COVID relief programs, as if whites were not affected (or were less affected) by the pandemic.

Fortunately, these are being challenged as unconstitutional in federal lawsuits. One involves a discriminatory COVID relief program for businesses in Massachusetts. The $75 million program is deceptively called the Inclusive Recovery Grant Program, but accepts applications only from firms owned by minorities, women, veterans, the disabled, or LGBTQ+.

Challenging this, the pro bono Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Brian Dalton, whose New England Firearms Academy cannot receive aid because he happens to be heterosexual and white. Dalton, a retired law enforcement officer, opened the academy in 2013 to provide firearms and safety training. During the pandemic, he was forced to sell assets and use his savings to cover business expenses. Upon reopening, he incurred additional costs to comply with mandated safety measures. So, he wanted to apply when the program was first announced, but found he was ineligible.

‘Sound of Freedom’: Go See the Movie Exposing the Huge Child Trafficking Network By Catherine Salgado

https://pjmedia.com/culture/catherinesalgado/2023/06/24/sound-of-freedom-go-see-the-movie-exposing-the-huge-child-trafficking-network-n1706026

Millions of innocent children are sex trafficked every single year, many as part of the Biden border crisis. But a movie about to come to theaters is seeking to expose the vast network of predation on kids and tell the stories of real-life heroes who work to rescue victims of child trafficking.

The movie Sound of Freedom exposes the network trafficking two million children every single year. Watch the theatrical trailer below:

The movie follows Operation Underground Railroad CEO Tim Ballard and his mission to save children. It has taken years to bring this important film to the public. Angel Studios President Jordan Harmon, whose company is now Sound of Freedom’s distributor, explained the frustrating process.

”This film has been through the ringer. It was originally done by — Fox was going to be the distributor back in the day,” Harmon said, according to Bounding into Comics. But then The Walt Disney Company and Fox had a merger — and Disney, the same Disney that has featured drag queens, homosexuals, and LGBTQ+ individuals and characters in their shows and movies, wasn’t interested. “Then Disney buys Fox and for whatever reason Disney shelves [the film],” Harmon said. It took a year to get the rights back, and now Angel Studios is the movie’s distributor. What does Hollywood not want you to know?

The real problem facing Black kids today isn’t what you’re told to believe Black kids are suffering when schools use critical race theory to teach By Kenny Xu

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/real-problem-facing-black-kids-told-believe

The bestselling young adult book “Dear Martin,” previously required reading in Haywood County N.C., opens with a scene where a half-Latino half-White police officer obviously hearkening to George Zimmerman accosts a young Black boy named Justyce. The police officer is portrayed as a menace and Justyce is portrayed as an innocent victim of his rage and racism.  

The bestselling young adult book throws nearly every single racial incident, act of violence, and biased insubordination at the poor boy. The entire book is about one thing and one thing only: race; specifically, how America is still a racist country to Black kids. 

Yet this book was named the William C. Morris Book Award winner for best Young Adult literature. At one School Board meeting in Haywood County, a father gets up and explains that this book isn’t suitable for children, citing the numerous expletives and artless details of the protagonist’s girlfriend. That didn’t stop the local paper and parents from questioning whether the father was really a racist. 

The father should push back on the viability of the themes of racial abuse, even if he risks being canceled for it. Think about the intensity of a book like “Dear Martin” and how it would affect young, impressionable minority children.  

In effect, the book trains Black kids to fear White people. A police officer shoots Justyce’s Black friend. A White smart aleck verbally bullies Justyce. Justyce’s own mother warns against dating White women.  

It may be true that books like “Dear Martin” simply reflect in literary form the received wisdom of Black families in the United States. If so, then that received wisdom needs to change in light of the reality that Black Americans no longer face similar levels of racism as they did in the ’50s and ’60s.  

Black Americans are shot by the police at lower rates than Whites when you account for their rates of altercation. 60% of Black Americans believe they are in a better financial condition than their parents.  

Black Americans are more college-educated than they’ve ever been. Our “Black History” courses and our readings that reflect “Black History,” however, still primarily endorse the concept that America is racist to Black people. 

Biden’s Endless Gifts to China by Robert Williams

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19751/biden-gifts-to-china

The gifts the Biden Administration has already given the Chinese Communist Party in just two years have been nothing short of exorbitant — and often to the detriment of the US.

The Biden Administration intends to spend more than half a trillion dollars on “clean energy and climate action over the next decade”, according to the US Department of Energy. That amount would reportedly include projects for climate change and investments in renewable energy, such as solar panels and wind turbines.

The problem is: these policies are all gifts to China.

In solar energy… China produces between 70% and 98% of the world’s silicon-based raw material and other components for solar panels — a solid world monopoly.

“Most solar panels are imported, with three-quarters of the imports originating from Chinese subsidiaries manufacturing in Southeast Asia…. the US… fell to just 0.5% in 2017.” — USA Facts, August 16, 2022.

Not enough is being invested in the manufacturing of solar panels in the US… The solar cells will mainly be coming from China.

The Biden Administration has placed a massive bet on electric vehicles. The goal is that 50% of new vehicles sold in the US should be electric by 2030. Electric vehicles need lithium-ion batteries. China has almost a global monopoly on producing them.

The average cost of raw materials, including lithium, nickel and cobalt, was more than $8,000 per electric vehicle in June 2022. That amount represented an increase of more than 140% since 2020, resulting in the cost of producing an electric vehicle being 125% more to that of an internal combustion vehicle. How many American consumers can afford such expensive cars? Furthermore, electric vehicles have a tendency to burst into flames. None of these problems seems to bother the Biden Administration.

There are several problems with wind turbines. One is that the US still relies on foreign imports to make them, including from — China. Another is that wind turbines endanger wildlife, such as birds and whales.

The Biden Administration has also set a goal to “achieve a carbon-pollution-free electricity sector by 2035.” All these measures clearly hobble the US and reduce its power to compete, while China, already the world’s largest user of fossil fuels, has announced that by 2030, its carbon dioxide emissions will peak… China last year built more new coal-fired power plants than the rest of the world combined — the equivalent of two new coal-fired plants per week.

The proposal [by the Environmental Protection Agency to limit how much carbon dioxide US coal- and gas-fired power plants may emit] means that US electric power plants would have to transform the way that they operate, either costing them billions in new equipment, or closing them down entirely.

All these Biden policies seem almost custom-tailored to reduce America’s ability to compete internationally, while giving China even more room to grow its economy and gain an even greater edge over the US.

[A]ccording to John Kerry, the Biden Administration’s “climate envoy,” whatever the US does unilaterally, without similar action by China and other major economies, is utterly pointless. Kerry admitted in January 2021 that even if the US were to have zero carbon emissions, “almost 90 percent of all of the planet’s global emissions come from outside of US borders. We could go to zero tomorrow and the problem isn’t solved.”

California Bill Would Enable Therapists to ‘Emancipate’ 12-Year-Olds from Their Own Parents By Eric Lendrum

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/23/california-bill-would-enable-therapists-to-emancipate-12-year-olds-from-their-own-parents/

On Tuesday, Democrats in the state of California advanced a bill that would allow therapists and other mental health “professionals” to have children forcibly removed from their homes and placed into state custody without the consent of the parents.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the State Senate’s Judiciary Committee approved Assembly Bill 665, which passed by a party-line vote. If the bill became law, children as young as 12 would be legally allowed to check themselves into state-run shelters with the unconditional approval of a therapist or counselor, and without the parents’ knowledge.

The bill is authored by State Senator Scott Wiener (D-Calif.) and State Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo (D-Calif.). Wiener in particular has a long history of introducing highly controversial, pro-LGBTQ bills that are often passed into law, including a bill making it legal to knowingly infect someone with HIV.

The authors claim that the bill is only meant to provide equal access to mental health services for all children in the state of California, and could only apply to children who are on Medi-Cal, the state-funded Medicaid program that primarily targets low-income families.

“This bill protects children. It makes children safer. It makes children healthier,” Wiener falsely claimed. “It’s unfortunate that this bill, like so many, has been caught up in this right-wing outrage machine.”

However, the bill is already facing widespread backlash. Prior to the committee vote, numerous California residents publicly testified against the bill; various witnesses described it as an “emancipation of 12 year olds,” “heinous,” and “dangerous.”

Under the bill, there would be no obligation for any such therapist or counselor to prove that a 12-year-old is mature enough or in a dangerous enough situation to justify being placed in a “residential shelter.” There is such a requirement for minors who are on private insurance. Similarly, any possible decision to inform the parents or withhold such information from them would be left entirely up to the mental health professional involved, even if it is simply an intern or trainee.

A Catastrophic Implosion . . . of the Rule of Law Instead of proper rule of law we are living with that Orwellian alternative, Our Rule of Law™—an arbitrary enforcement of the laws and use of the coercive power of the state.  By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/25/a-catastrophic-implosion-of-the-rule-of-law/

Like some other commentators, I have in recent years several times quoted a famous exchange from Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises. Recent developments in the Biden family money laundering scheme, the implosion of a boutique underwater expedition to the Titanic, and a possible coup in Russia prompt me to wheel it out once again. “‘How did you go bankrupt?’ Bill asked. ‘Two ways,’ Mike said. ‘Gradually, then suddenly.’”

It fits the long-running drama over Hunter Biden’s laptop from hell, I think. Miranda Devine broke news of that scandal in the New York Post in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. It languished in the doldrums of official nonrecognition for years as the regime went into overdrive to keep people, especially voters, from paying any attention to it. 

Gradually, however, the truth leaked out. First, the authenticity of the laptop was acknowledged. Turns out it was not “Russian disinformation,” as those 51 intelligence experts insisted. Nope, it belonged to Hunter all right. At first, the public was titillated by all the sex-drugs-and-rock-n-roll that pervaded that digital trove. Gradually, very gradually, however, the publicly important stuff—the money angle with news of foreign payments apparently to dear-old-dad from various foreigners—began leaking out. 

Then suddenly, just this last week, the House Ways and Means Committee began dropping bombs. 

Material from an IRS whistleblower—no, two IRS whistleblowers—got fed into the mix and we got such Hunter Biden classics as this WhatsApp message from July 2017 addressed to Henry Zhao, a member of the Chinese Communist Party and, wouldn’t you know it, a business partner of Hunter’s: 

I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment [the commitment being millions of the crispest] made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight, And, Z, fi [sic] get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.

What the Left Has Left for America What the Left now fears most is the revolutionary model it has bequeathed to America—and what might happen if its monstrous creation falls into politically incorrect hands. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/25/what-the-left-has-left-for-america/

The present-day Left bears little resemblance to the old civil-libertarian, integrationist Democratic Party that existed from the 1960s through 2000. 

The antecedents to its current madness were once previewed in the old party’s extremist wing of campus radicals of the 1960s and 1970s. They were accentuated by Black Lives Matter and Antifa during the Obama years, forged during the COVID lockdown and George Floyd riots, and polished during the era of Trump derangement syndrome. 

On almost every issue, Democrats have repudiated their prior reverence for the Supreme Court. 

They distrust individual liberty and free expression. 

They now worship the money and clout of corporate America. 

Racial ecumenicalism and integration are seen as passé. 

There is little need for borders to protect vulnerable American workers, given the advantages of inviting in millions of poor illegal immigrants without audits. 

Democrats have transmogrified into a Soviet-style socialist binary of rich and poor, run by an elite nomenklatura that dictates its orders to its foot soldiers of the underclass. An entire new left-wing vocabulary—clingers, deplorables, irredeemables, dregs, chumps, ultra-MAGA, semi-fascists—has come to express their hatred of the middle class. 

On the Supreme Court 

The Left has adopted Franklin Roosevelt’s once infamous (but now sanctified) 1937 approach to destroying the autonomy of the Supreme Court by threatening to pack it. 

Note how any means necessary are justified in their attacks. Swarm the conservative justices’ private homes to leverage future opinions, with the assurance that an ethically bankrupt Justice Department will never enforce existing laws prohibiting such intimidation of the justices. 

Have the Democrat Senate minority leader scream threats to justices by name at the very doors of the court and at the head of a mob—promising to individual justices a whirlwind to reap and unrecognizable forces that will soon hit them. 

Wage ad hominem attacks on traditional justices in the media. Allege they are corrupt, on the theory that they are limited in their means of defense and any rebuttal will lack the wherewithal of the original unfounded smears. 

Talk nonstop about changing the number of the court justices in order to intimidate conservative justices to move leftward. Move left or be packed! 

Argue for nullifying Supreme Court decisions if they lack legal sanction, given the conservative majority of the Court. 

Drive down the Court’s approval ratings in polls by nonstop screams that the justices cruelly hurt left-wing constituencies. 

Claim that the presidency and the Senate, both in leftist hands, are the true voices of the people, rather than ossified edicts of heartless conservative justices.