Terror in the Capitol Tunnel The D.C. Medical Examiner’s Office concluded Rosanne Boyland died of a drug overdose but that autopsy result is highly suspicious. By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2021/11/18/terror-in-the-capitol-tunnel/

In 2018, after a local news crew filmed Ryan Nichols rescuing dogs abandoned by their owners after Hurricane Florence, the former Marine appeared on the “Ellen DeGeneres Show.” Not only did DeGeneres commend Nichols’ longtime work as a search-and-rescue volunteer, she donated $25,000 to the Humane Society in his name and gave Ryan and his wife, Bonnie, a $10,000 check to pay for the honeymoon they had missed the year before so Ryan could assist rescue efforts in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.

But instead of heading to Hawaii, the Nicholses used the generous donation to buy a rescue boat. With his Marine buddy and best friend, Alex Harkrider, at his side, the pair has participated in “dozens of hurricane rescues and disaster relief efforts,” according to Joseph McBride, Nichols’ attorney.

Three years after his appearance on the DeGeneres show, Nichols was featured on another program, but this time, Nichols spoke from the fetid confines of a political prison in the nation’s capital. And instead of telling a heroic story of saving dogs drowning in rising flood waters, Nichols told Newsmax host Greg Kelly a harrowing tale of what he saw at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

“We showed up in good faith . . . to protest the election results but never would have imagined we would encounter the horrors that we did on the west terrace and in the tunnel that day,” Nichols explained to Kelly in a phone interview on November 9. “When I saw women being beaten and in distress, my rescue instinct kicked in and I knew I had no choice but to help rescue them.”

Nichols’ account is detailed in an appalling new court filing that confirms what American Greatness has reported for months: on January 6, D.C. Metro and Capitol police assaulted nonviolent protesters with explosive devices, rubber bullets, tear gas, and in some cases, their own fists and batons. A tunnel on the lower west side of the Capitol building became a dangerous—and, likely for at least one protester, deadly—battle scene as police viciously attacked American citizens on the “hallowed” grounds of the U.S. Congress.

Nichols, of Texas, has been behind bars since his January 18 arrest; he sits in the D.C. jail specifically used to house January 6 detainees, charged along with Harkrider with multiple offenses including assault of a police officer, civil disorder, and unlawful possession of pepper spray.

Editorializing for Hamas How an editorial in UConn’s student newspaper exposes what wrong in the debate about Israel. Richard L. Cravatts

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/editorializing-hamas-richard-l-cravatts/

When Elmer Davis, director of FDR’s Office of War Information, observed that   “. . . you cannot do much with people who are convinced that they are the sole authorized custodians of Truth and that whoever differs from them is ipso facto wrong” he may well have been speaking about those well-meaning, but misguided college students who rail against a world in which their dreams of social justice for the oppressed and weak are not being realized, despite their best efforts.

That same tendentious behavior now seems to be exploited by editors of college newspapers who have purposely violated the central purpose of journalism and have allowed one ideology, not facts and alternate opinions, to hijack the editorial composition of their publications and purge their respective newspapers of any content—news or opinion—that contradicts a pro-Palestinian narrative and would provide a defense of Israel.

The latest example of this social justice advocacy parading as journalism was in full display in a November 9th editorial, “In support of Students for Justice in Palestine,” written by the Editorial Board of The Daily Campus, the University of Connecticut’s student newspaper.

“The UConn Students for Justice in Palestine held a rally last week to bring attention to injustices in Palestine,” the editorial read, and “[s]peakers discussed the oppression and violence experienced by the Palestinian people, the connection of our university to such injustices and the role of community members in supporting Palestine’s fight for freedom.”

Troubling to the editors, apparently, was the fact that UConn Hillel “also held a demonstration nearby in direct opposition to the ideas behind UConn SJP;” in other words, Hillel attempted to provide a balance to debate by presenting its own views and facts relevant to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Western Immigration Policy: Assimilation or Reverse Assimilation? When illusions create a recipe for disaster. William Kilpatrick

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/western-immigration-policy-assimilation-or-reverse-william-kilpatrick/

Since 2017, approximately 800,000 people in Mozambique have been displaced by advancing Islamic jihadists.  Not to worry, though.  Mozambique is a long way away, and besides they have a different culture.  They don’t have a 200-year-old tradition of freedom of religion and free speech as does the U.S.

Over the past twelve years, 43,000 Nigerian Christians have been killed by Islamic terrorists.  No cause for alarm, however.  Nigeria, is a long way away, and they don’t have the long tradition that the U.S. has of the rule of law and the protection of civil rights.

In Burkina Faso this year, an entire village of almost 8,000 people were forced to flee jihad violence.  But there’s no reason for you to lose any sleep because Burkina Faso is a long way away…

Well, not really that far away.  The flight time from Washington, DC to the capital of Burkina Faso is only slightly longer than a flight from Washington to Rome, and only two hours more than a flight to Paris.

Speaking of Paris, a recent Harris poll of French people revealed that 61 percent think that white, European, Christian populations are being threatened with extinction by immigration from Muslim and African countries.  Asked about whether they were worried about the idea of a “Great Replacement” (a deliberate replacement of native Europeans by Muslim and other migrants), 67 percent replied that they were.

Of course, things aren’t as bad in France as they are in Nigeria and Burkina Faso; nevertheless, since the massive spike in Muslim migration in 2015, France has seen an alarming spike in jihad attacks, large and small.  These have ranged from the Bataclan Theater attack which left 90 dead and over 400 injured, to the beheading last year of a French school teacher in broad daylight.

From George Zimmerman to Kyle Rittenhouse: A Decade of Woke Misrule By Jack Cashill

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/11/from_george_zimmerman_to_kyle_rittenhouse_a_decade_of_woke_misrule.html

Ten years ago this coming February, George Zimmermann shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on a rainy night in Sanford, Florida. Without intending, Zimmerman triggered a dark new phase in the history of progressive America.

Beginning with the Sacco and Vanzetti case in the 1920s, the left lied to conceal the guilt of the guilty. Yes, Virginia, those two bad boys were guilty. Upton Sinclair, who “proved” their innocence in his epic novel Boston, knew they were guilty. “My wife is absolutely certain that if I tell what I believe,” Sinclair confided to a friend, “I will be called a traitor to the movement and may not live to finish the book.”

Unlike Sinclair, most of the “useful idiots” on the left did not need to be threatened to stay in line. For the next century, their self-righteousness led them to weep for a pantheon of martyrs from the Rosenbergs to Leonard Peltier to Mumia Abu-Jamal to Kenosha’s own Jacob Blake, all of them purported victims of American injustice.

With the dawn of the social media era, however, the newly minted “progressives” made a conscious turn to the sinister. No longer content to conceal the guilt of the guilty, they lied now to conceal the innocence of the innocent. As Zimmerman and Kyle Rittenhouse learned the hard way, Atticus Finch is dead. The woke have thrown in with the jailhouse mob. Mockingbirds beware.

With a few exceptions, however, technology has betrayed its leftist creators. Rittenhouse would have had no chance for justice were it not for the ubiquitous cell phone cameras. Had video captured the shooting of Martin, Zimmerman would not have been arrested.

The White House’s Hammer And Sickle

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/11/19/the-white-houses-hammer-and-sickle/

Thursday’s Senate confirmation hearing on Saule Omarova, President Joe Biden’s choice to be comptroller of the currency, confirmed that she is the wrong person for the job. Flags the color of those that once were raised over Moscow were flying throughout the three-hour session.

Omarova is a professor of regulation of financial institutions, banking law, international finance, and corporate finance at Cornell. As comptroller of the currency, she would ensure that the “federal banking system operates in a safe and sound manner.”

The White House says she “​​is eminently qualified and was nominated for this role because of her lifetime of work,” and is “a leading academic” in her field. 

Her critics, however, see someone whose policy positions are far out of step with a market economy.

Britain’s Daily Mail has labeled her “​​Biden’s new comrade.” Townhall’s Katie Pavlich says Omarova is a “Communist” who “wants all bank accounts to be controlled by the Fed.” South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott said during Thursday’s hearing that “I cannot think of a nominee more poorly suited to be the comptroller of the currency based solely on your public positions, statements and the weight of your writings than you are.”

The Kazakhstan-born Omarova, educated at Moscow State University, where she had a Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship, which “recently disappeared from her resume,” and also at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Northwestern University, has described herself as a “free-market idealist.” She swears she knows “that Soviet-style communism doesn’t work.”

“I’ve lived through it. That system was deeply flawed. It’s dead.”

Yet she envisions the creation of “National Investment Authority,” which would bypass Congress and use public and private resources to fund “vital infrastructure and the real economy.”

This Foreign Country Ran A Misinformation Campaign in 2020 to Elect Biden By Robert Spencer

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2021/11/18/this-foreign-country-ran-a-misinformation-campaign-in-2020-to-elect-biden-n1534322

We have all heard ad nauseam about how the Russians supposedly manipulated the 2016 presidential election in order to ensure the election of their man, Donald Trump. The whole thing has been thoroughly exposed as a massive hoax designed to discredit and ultimately destroy Trump, but that doesn’t mean that there are no foreign entities trying to influence American elections.

On Thursday, the Justice Department indicted Seyyed Kazemi and Sajjad Kashian, two hackers from the Islamic Republic of Iran who worked for a company that has worked with the Iranian government. They are accused of spreading disinformation among American voters during the 2020 presidential campaign. It isn’t hard to figure out which candidate they were trying to help get elected, which makes it all the more surprising that Merrick Garland’s corrupt and politicized Justice Department has indicted them at all.

According to the Washington Post, Kazemi and Kashian, 27, “allegedly sent threatening emails to try to scare voters, attempted to break into several states’ voting-related websites and gained access to a U.S. media company’s computer network.” This was a major operation: “Kazemi and Kashian allegedly tried to break into 11 state voter registration and information websites, according to the indictment. In one case, it alleges, they found a vulnerability that allowed them to successfully download information about more than 100,000 of that state’s voters.”

They did all this to help their candidate, Old Joe Biden: the hackers “sent threatening emails to thousands of voters in October, including many Democrats. They allegedly claimed to be Proud Boys and threatened the email recipients with physical attacks if they did not change party affiliation and vote for President Donald Trump.”

How Activist Teachers Recruit Kids Leaked Documents and Audio from the California Teachers Association Conference Reveal Efforts to Subvert Parents on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Abigail Shrier

https://abigailshrier.substack.com/p/how-activist-teachers-recruit-kids

Incensed parents now make news almost daily, objecting to radical material taught in their children’s public schools. But little insight has been provided into the mindset and tactics of activist teachers themselves. That may now be changing, thanks to leaked audio from a meeting of California’s largest teacher’s union.

Last month, the California Teachers Association (CTA) held a conference advising teachers on best practices for subverting parents, conservative communities and school principals on issues of gender identity and sexual orientation. Speakers went so far as to tout their surveillance of students’ Google searches, internet activity, and hallway conversations in order to target sixth graders for personal invitations to LGBTQ clubs, while actively concealing these clubs’ membership rolls from participants’ parents.

Documents and audio files recently sent to me, and authenticated by three conference participants, permitted a rare insight into the CTA’s sold-out event in Palm Springs, held from October 29-31, 2021. The “2021 LGBTQ+ Issues Conference, Beyond the Binary: Identity & Imagining Possibilities,” provided best practices workshops that encouraged teachers to “have the courage to create a safe environment that fosters bravery to explore sexual orientation, gender identity and expression,” according to the precis of a talk given by fifth grade teacher, C. Scott Miller

“How We Run a ‘GSA’ in Conservative Communities”

 Several of the workshops advised teachers on the creation of middle school LGBTQ clubs (commonly known as “Gay-Straight Alliance” clubs or “GSA”).  One workshop—“Queering in the Middle”—focused “on what practices have worked for successful middle school GSAs and children at this age developmentally.”

But what makes for a successful LGBTQ middle school club? What to do about meddlesome parents who don’t want their middle schoolers participating in such a club? What if parents ask a club leader—point blank—if their child is a member?

“Because we are not official—we have no club rosters, we keep no records,” Buena Vista Middle School teacher and LGBTQ-club leader, Lori Caldeira, states on an audio clip sent to me by a conference attendee. “In fact, sometimes we don’t really want to keep records because if parents get upset that their kids are coming? We’re like, ‘Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe they came?’ You know, we would never want a kid to get in trouble for attending if their parents are upset.”

Sydney Williams: A Reviews of “Woke Racism” by John McWhorter

https://swtotd.blogspot.com/

John McWhorter is an independent thinker – a rare (at risk of becoming extinct) individual in today’s academy. He is professor of linguistics at Columbia University, where he also teaches American studies and music history. At age 56, with a PhD from Stanford, he has written almost two dozen books. In his spare time, he is a contributing editor at The Atlantic and an opinion columnist for The New York Times. He describes himself as a “cranky, liberal Democrat.” He is a black man who believes that affirmative action should be based on class, not race, and that woke racism hurts those it claims to help.eview

In this book, he argues that woke racism represents a third wave of anti-racism, “…from people wishing they hadn’t missed the late 1960s.” This wave, he claims, has assumed the traits of a religion, with white privilege as original sin. The third wave “has taken it from the concrete political activism of Martin Luther King to the faith-based commitments of a Martin Luther.” He castigates the proselytizers of this religion, “The Elect,” as “pious, unempirical virtue signalers.” They resemble, in his words, early Christians who “thought of themselves as bearers of truth, in contrast to all other belief systems…” Like other such movements, they appeal “to an idealized past, a fantastical future, and an indelibly polluted present.” For the Elect, black people’s noble past is Africa, a glorified future is one without hate, but the present consists of oppressors and oppressed. He finds the Elect’s sanctimony insulting to blacks, who are led to believe that victimhood is destiny and success is due to special treatment. When conservative blacks deny victimhood, they are smeared by the Elect: Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor-elect Winsome Sears is a “white” supremacist and South Carolina’s Senator Tim Scott is an “Uncle Tom.”

America at the Intersection of Woke and Incompetent Brian Lonergan

https://amgreatness.com/2021/11/17/america-at-the-intersection-of-woke-and-incompetent/

We may have never had such a poisonous combination of partisanship and incompetence at the highest levels of government as we do today.

For as long as most of us have been alive, there have been declarations that America’s best days are behind us and that we are in a slow, steady decline. Against this backdrop, there is a growing sentiment that our present leadership in Washington is something altogether different, and worse. 

We are still getting familiar levels of government waste and inefficiency, but along with those come seemingly unprecedented levels of radicalism and incompetence. This noxious combination was on full display with the recent Senate testimony of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. 

Washington is filthy with dogmatic bureaucrats, but Mayorkas stands out. He is willing to parrot the most absurd and provably false statements, such as his repeated insistence that the border is closed. When called before Congress, he defends this administration’s indefensible border policies with shameless diversions and obfuscation. 

At the heart of this administration’s border policy is a zealous adherence to far-Left ideology that flies in the face of common sense and traditional American principles. When Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) asked if the border is more under control now than during the Trump years, Mayorkas replied, “We have more control [of the border] that is consistent with our values as a nation.” 

This was a reference to the White House’s favorite talking point that Trump was “cruel” by instituting a zero-tolerance policy that temporarily separated parents from their children. But in its attempt to be all things anti-Trump at the border, this administration has empowered ruthless human trafficking cartels, enabled greater quantities of fentanyl and other illicit drugs to be brought into the country, and allowed untold numbers of children to be sexually assaulted as they are stockpiled into overcrowded detention centers. Isn’t that cruel? In what way is any of that consistent with our values as a nation?

Malign Foreign Influence: China’s United Front by Peter Schweizer

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17946/china-influence-united-front

Newsweek did an extensive report that linked 600 groups operating in the US to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

[FBI Director Christopher] Wray used a phrase common among counter-intelligence professionals: “malign foreign influence.” This phrase describes the covert efforts the FBI has seen in several cases where American politicians were influenced indirectly to adopt policies the Chinese regime desires, particularly in four areas: Hong Kong, Taiwan, human rights abuses against the Uighurs, and the Chinese government’s role in the Covid-19 pandemic.

That is fascinating considering that just this month, the U.S. State Department announced it would stop using that phrase.

The irony here is that those “PRC nationals” the State Department wishes not to offend are exactly the kinds of people that are employed by or connected to [Chinese Communist] entities operating in the US.

“This is the second time Chairman Meeks [D-NY] has blocked taking action against the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party, an organization which literally exists for the purpose of undermining our democracy and engaging in political warfare. It baffles me why Chairman Meeks seems to oppose any measure holding the Chinese Communist Party accountable.” — Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), National Review, September 13, 2021.

China obsesses over what the world thinks of it. Its rise to rival the US as the world’s greatest economic superpower includes a strong psychological element. China seeks not to be feared, but as having peaceful intentions. Looking at its use of “united front” tactics reveals how China’s messaging seeks to convince gullible people in the West that Chinese interests are really their interests, too. This is one example where Chinese communism borrows “Russian characteristics,” using the old Soviet tactic of “united front” groups that wittingly or not do their bidding.