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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Dems Trash U.S. Constitution It’s the only thing standing in their way. by Betsy McCaughey

https://www.frontpagemag.com/dems-trash-u-s-constitution/

If you own a business, the leftists in Congress are coming after you. The only thing standing in their way is the U.S. Constitution.

Whether you own a mom-and-pop diner, an auto repair shop or shares in a multinational corporation, your property is at risk.

The Constitution’s takings clause was designed to protect us from government grabbing our property without paying fairly for it. But last year, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, they rammed through the Inflation Reduction Act, boasting that it would enable Medicare to “negotiate” lower prices for medications for seniors.

“Negotiate” is a lie. Under the new law, government can strong-arm companies to sell their most popular medications at a price Uncle Sam dictates, or be taxed out of existence in a matter of weeks. On June 6, the pharmaceutical giant Merck sued, claiming the law violates its constitutional rights.

Amen. This lawsuit is a red flag for everyone in America who owns anything or hopes to.

The actual language of the law is breathtakingly coercive, but let’s face it, most members of Congress don’t bother to read bills before voting on them.

The law says that any company that refuses to sell at the government’s price will be hit with a tax that starts at 186% of the drug’s revenues on Day 1 and is hiked daily until it reaches a ruinous 1,900% of revenues — not just from government sales but all sales. That would mean hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes per day.

Social conservatism is on the rise. Maybe DeSantis is on to something with anti-‘woke’ fight.Ingrid Jacques

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2023/06/15/americans-more-conservative-liberal-social-issues/70320558007/

A new poll from Gallup found that 38% of Americans say they are conservative or very conservative on social issues – a nearly 30% increase since 2021. Those identifying as liberals declined.

It’s rare for a day to go by without some headline insinuating that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a fascist – or even a Nazi sympathizer. The Republican firebrand has “earned” the reputation by backing an agenda that pushes back against what he calls the “woke mob.” 

From critical race theory to gender ideology, DeSantis has built his brand on curbing the leftist agenda that has infiltrated K-12 classrooms and higher education. 

While liberals and many in the news media like to portray him as “dangerous,” it seems a growing number of Americans are empathetic to his cause. 

Conservatism is on the rise 

Americans Say ‘No Thanks’ To ‘Woke’ Corporations: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/06/19/americans-say-no-thanks-to-woke-corporations-ii-tipp-poll/

Companies, schools, amusement parks and even professional sports teams that have gone “woke” and adopted “diversity, equity and inclusion” measures are alienating many customers, leading to a drop in business, reports indicate. The latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows why: A strong plurality of Americans oppose such social activism rather than support it.

In recent months, companies as varied as Anheuser-Busch, Disney, and Target; the Los Angeles Dodgers; and major universities have suffered financial and reputational damage for pushing controversial DEI social and cultural issues on customers, fans and students.

To get to the bottom of this backlash, we asked I&I/TIPP poll respondents to tell us “Which of these statements best describes how you feel about these companies’ actions?” The online nationwide poll was taken from May 31-June 2 from 1,358 adults, with a margin of error of +/-2.7 percentage points.

All told, 46% of Americans opposed the trend toward corporate social activism, compared to just 17% who supported it. But a large contingent, 29%, expressed indifference.

These totals came from reactions of those who took the poll to five separate possible responses.

Among those who opposed the “woke” corporate trend, the strongest reaction, at 29% approval, came in response to this statement: “Companies have no business promoting such radical, divisive ideas on their customers and shareholders.”

Newt’s World – Episode 571: Alex Soros Takes Over

https://www.gingrich360.com/2023/06/17/newts-world-episode-571-alex-soros-takes-over/

Newt talks with Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of “The Soros Agenda” about the recent announcement by billionaire George Soros, that his son Alex will be taking over the family business.

Tearing Apart the Governing Consensus A victory for the administrative state in the war on Donald Trump won’t be a victory for the rule of law. By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/17/tearing-apart-the-governing-consensus/

We hear a lot about the loss of “institutional legitimacy” these days. One of the great ironies attendant on that loss is a revolution in sentiment among many—but by no means all—people who think of themselves as conservative. Hitherto, such people would have been staunch supporters of those institutions that, traditionally, had represented the rule of law, the continuity of our culture, etc. Nowadays, they look with a jaundiced eye upon once-respected institutions like the Department of Justice, the FBI, the CIA, and the rest of the national security/surveillance apparat. 

How could it be otherwise? Recent revelations that scores if not hundreds of figures from that world had insinuated themselves into media, social and otherwise, to push a partisan agenda must give us pause. The stories are legion. Here’s one that just appeared in The Federalist by Margot Cleveland. 

The month before Joe Biden’s inauguration, FBI sources collaborated with the New York Times’ Russia-collusion hoaxer Adam Goldman to falsely portray the investigation into Hunter Biden as a big ole nothingburger. Americans just didn’t know it at the time. However, revisiting Goldman’s article now, in light of recent whistleblower revelations and statements by former Attorney General William Barr, reveals this reality—and more.

That’s bad, right? The FBI fed faked news to our former “newspaper of record” about a partisan matter that might well have determined the outcome of a presidential election. And the response? A little feckless hand-wringing on the Right. Some clucking tongues. At the end of the day, though, expect crickets. 

In one of the very best pieces I have seen about the Horrors!-Trump-had-classified-documents-at-Mar-a-Lago indictment, also published at The Federalist, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Will Scharf minutes several disturbing features of that 37-count farce. Much of what he has to say is broadly exculpatory of Trump, but one of the most disturbing items concerns the 38th item in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s partisan cudgel: the indictment of Trump’s aide Walt Nauta. 

Daniel Penny is a scapegoat for a failed system He violated the code that regular workers and taxpayers are an afterthought in public policy Heather MacDonald

https://thespectator.com/topic/daniel-penny-scapegoat-homelessness-system-neely/

Jordan Neely was given a hero’s funeral in Harlem last Friday, eulogized by New York’s most prominent race activists before an audience of the city’s Democratic elite. Neely died on May 1 on a New York City subway car, after being restrained by a Marine veteran who was trying to protect his fellow passengers from Neely’s psychotic outbursts.  

Neely has been turned into a symbol of a racist system of law enforcement and of civilian values that exaggerate the threat of mentally ill vagrants to keep minorities down. Three weeks after Neely’s death, on May 21, another homeless man in New York City slammed a woman’s head into a subway car, likely paralyzing her for life, if she even survives. Neely’s champions have been silent about this latest subway assault. 

All the pathologies afflicting American cities were present in that earlier fatal encounter and its aftermath: the grotesque parody of compassion that is conventional homeless policy; government’s elevation of the supposed interests of the anti-social and dysfunctional over those of the law-abiding and hard-working; anti-white race-baiting and racial bathos.

But the May 1 confrontation between the ex-Marine Daniel Penny and the mentally ill Neely stands for more than failed policy. Reaction to Penny’s intervention illuminates as well the war on manly virtues and their attempted replacement with an emasculated dependence on bureaucrats and social workers. 

Jordan Neely was a standard product of New York’s homelessness empire. A thirty-year-old schizophrenic drug addict, Neely had cut a swathe of destruction and fear through New York’s streets and subways for fifteen years. Despite his predilection for assaulting the elderly, he had been repeatedly allowed to skip out of treatment and jail. In 2019, Neely punched Filemon Castillo Baltazar in the head as the sixty-five-year-old waited for a subway in Greenwich Village. In June 2021, he walloped Anne Mitcheltree in the head inside a deli in the East Village; she was in her late sixties. In November 2021, Neely broke the nose and fractured the eye socket of a sixty-seven-year-old woman as she exited a subway  on the Lower East Side. 

These physical assaults were accompanied by a steady stream of disturbing behavior. In June 2019, for example, Neely banged on the door of a subway ticket agent’s booth and threatened to kill her.

None of these attacks landed Neely in long-term mental health confinement, even though, as a mentally ill chemical abuser (MICA), Neely was certain to attack again. Drug use sharply increases violence in the mentally ill, but Neely’s heavy use of the synthetic marijuana K-2 should have been particularly worrying to his social worker contacts. Due to its strength and powerful psychological effects, K-2 was even more likely to trigger violent outbreaks. No matter. His forty-two arrests produced at best brief jail stints and his hundreds of encounters with outreach workers always left him free to return to the streets. 

Comer: New Bank Records Will Reveal $30M Foreign Payments to Biden Family By Eric Lendrum

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/16/comer-new-bank-records-will-reveal-30m-foreign-payments-to-biden-family/

On Thursday, Congressman James Comer (R-Ky.), Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, claimed that recently-subpoenaed bank records will reveal that the Biden family accepted bribes from foreign nationals to the tune of at least $30 million.

As the New York Post reports, Comer said in an interview on Fox News that “we have more bank records coming in, we’re going to exceed $10 million this week. And I think we’ll get up to between $20 and 30 million.” Comer has said that at least nine members of the Biden family have received foreign income from bribes and shady business deals, including son Hunter, brother James, sister-in-law Sara, son Beau’s widow and Hunter’s ex-girlfriend Hallie, Hunter’s wife Melissa, and Hunter’s ex-wife Kathleen Buhle.

The other three members of the Biden family who have received foreign income, according to Comer, are one grandchild and two of his brother’s children.

The claims come amid ongoing revelations concerning an FBI informant who formally accused Biden of bribery while he was vice president, recording his claims in an FD-1023 form. The document, which has been reviewed by the Oversight Committee, claims that both Joe and Hunter Biden each received a bribe of $5 million from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, in exchange for a promise that the elder Biden would drastically change U.S. foreign policy.

Since then, Comer has subpoenaed additional Biden bank records from Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, and Cathay Bank.

“We’re going to continue to follow the money,” Comer added in his Thursday interview. “This is going to be hard for Joe Biden to explain.”

How Obama uses his puppet, Joe Biden, to impose his third term on America Victor Sharpe

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/sharpe

This is Obama’s Third Term in all but name.

“Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man, is obsolete.

“It has existed in the past, it is here in the present, and will, alas, be there in the future.

“The all-powerful state is not a new world that has never existed before. On the contrary, it is merely an extension of what began in the old one.

“Such an overarching regime has patterned itself under every dictator who has planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time.

“It has refinements, technological advances, and a sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But, like every one of the super states that preceded it, there is that one iron rule that it must maintain and retain to survive – logic is an enemy and truth is a menace.”

The words above were spoken by Rod Serling in a Twilight Zone episode from June 2nd, 1961, titled, The Obsolete Man.

It is the story of Mr. Wordsworth who was condemned to death by the state because he refused to stop thinking as an independent human being in a soulless, all powerful state where such dissenting behavior was considered a dangerous aberration. He was thus deemed to be obsolete in the New World Order; a “crime” punishable by death.

And so it is with great sadness that the wonderful, divinely inspired human experiment called the United States of America is remorselessly slipping into its own twilight zone.

Logic and truth, freedom of expression and citizens’ rights, as enshrined in the magnificent Constitution and Bill of Rights, began to be increasingly deemed treacherous and obsolete by the vast and growing power of Big Government under the two-term baleful and imperial presidency of Barack Hussein Obama whose army of unelected apparatchiks eagerly did his bidding without question.

Senator Fetterman needs to resign and seek the medical help he deserves By Thomas Lifson

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

As a stroke victim, Senator John Fetterman has my deep sympathy. As well, he has my best wishes for recovery, a task to which he should devote himself full-time. But as he demonstrated yesterday in a hearing covering the damage to Interstate 95 in Philadelphia – a link vital to many of his constituents – he is incapable of representing them in the Senate. I watched with a mixture of pity and horror as he was unable to form basic sentences in English, much less pronounce simple words correctly, when Senator Carper from neighboring Delaware asked him to comment:

The citizens of Pennsylvania deserve representation in the Senate for the next five years. Senator Fetterman deserves the time and support needed for a full-time commitment to therapies for the damage his stroke has done.

Reparations Are No More Than a Dream of Privilege Black Americans tragically turned our focus from rights and laws to identity politics and victimization. By Shelby Steele

https://www.wsj.com/articles/reparations-are-no-more-than-a-dream-of-privilege-civil-rights-indentity-politics-victims-175f259a?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

If simple logic were the only measure of truth in matters of race, reparations for black Americans would make perfect sense. We have endured four centuries of an especially mean and degrading persecution. Slavery, and the regime of segregation that followed it, was dawn-to-dusk, cradle-to-grave oppression. The only argument against reparations would be that no contemporary offer of reparation could ever be sufficient compensation.

But since the 1960s, we blacks have been all but overwhelmed with social programs and policies that seek to reparate us. Didn’t the 1964 Civil Rights Act launch an era of reparation in America?

And didn’t that era continue with President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society and War on Poverty, two sweeping excursions into social engineering that he hoped would “end poverty in our time”? Then there was school busing for integration, free public housing, racial preferences in college admissions, affirmative action in employment, increasingly generous welfare payments and so on.

More recently, in American institutions of every kind, there has emerged a new woke language of big-hat-no-cattle words like “equity,” “inclusion,” “intersectionality,” “triggers,” “affinity spaces,” “allies” and of course the all-purpose “diversity,” today both a mandate and a brand. America has had some 60 years of what might be called reparational social reform—reform meant to uplift not only the poor, but especially those, like black Americans, whose poverty meets the bar of historical grievance.