GARDNERVILLE, Nev. (AP) — In a western battleground state that could decide which party controls the U.S. Senate, Republican Adam Laxalt has early on targeted those who feel angered and afraid, telling them the stakes of next year’s race against Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto are no less than existential.
From rural towns to Las Vegas, people he’s met campaigning ask: “What in the world has happened to this country? And so fast,” he said Sunday in Gardnerville, near where cattle lined the highway. “We have a role to play in saving the whole country with this race.”
Since launching his campaign with a good-versus-evil, “Star Wars”-themed ad titled “The Good Guys,” Laxalt has railed against Democrats and an unholy trinity he says is working in parallel to “radically transform” the United States — the media, Hollywood and Big Tech.
The high stakes messaging mirrors early campaigns in rust belt battlegrounds like Ohio,Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and hints at a national Republican strategy focused on drawing stark contrasts with Democrats on cultural issues.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/10/virginias-hated-dominion-energy-monopoly-secretly-daniel-greenfield/
The Virginia energy monopoly has been accused of using its lobbyists to run a shadow government. It’s unique in that it’s widely hated not only by conservatives, but by leftists. Conservatives have warned that its ‘greeniness’ will cause massive blackouts while leftists hate it for the usual environmentalist reasons. The last time Terry McAuliffe was booed by leftists on his way out for his ties to Dominion Energy.
It was bad enough that the Washington Post ran an op-ed accusing Terry McAuliffe of betraying Virginia.
Dominion Energy was supposed to stay out of the governor’s race. But considering McAuliffe’s history, what were the odds of that?
McAuliffe has said from the outset of the 2021 race that he would not accept Dominion contributions, a pledge he also made during his unsuccessful 2009 gubernatorial run.
During his successful 2013 bid, though, Dominion donated $75,000 to McAuliffe’s campaign and another $50,000 to his inaugural committee.
Hala Ayala, the Democratic nominee for Virginia lieutenant governor, also swore off Dominion support this year, but later accepted six-figure sums from the company. “People change their minds all the time,” she said of the shift.
The money is in.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/10/16/2022_the_year_of_the_maga_outsiders_146575.html
With Donald Trump out of office, Democrats and their media allies posit that the America First movement is waning. The stellar abundance of proud outsider candidates running for office in 2022 dispels that notion. Like Trump himself, these new outsiders come from beyond the world of politics. They bring the lessons and vigor of careers in the military and business to the world of politics.
Arizona
In the race to replace Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, one Republican challenger stands out: Blake Masters. The successful COO of Thiel Capital, Masters takes a clear-eyed stance on migration and sovereignty. He vows to oppose all amnesty efforts for illegal aliens, and supports hiring even more Border Patrol agents even as President Biden tries to punish federal employees who are just doing their jobs.
Masters doesn’t shy away from discussing the clear possibility of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, pointing out that a combination of factors, from COVID-related lockdown measures to direct interference by Big Tech CEOs played a role in determining the outcome. On this topic in particular, Masters contrasts sharply with the current Republican frontrunner, Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who repeatedly insisted that there was no voter fraud in Arizona in 2020.
Despite having never run for office before, Masters raised over $1 million in the third quarter of 2021, far more than any of his competitors. Brnovich, by contrast, raised around $600,000. This advantage will be aided by the $10 million Saving Arizona PAC, supported by his mentor Peter Thiel, the only Silicon Valley mogul brave enough to openly support the America First movement. Come next autumn, only Masters will command the resources to successful challenge Mark Kelly’s massive financial operation.
Ohio
With the retirement of Sen. Rob Portman, the Buckeye State has a chance to finally elect a true America First populist nationalist. Within a crowded GOP primary field, outsider J.D. Vance is the candidate most clearly espousing working-class values.
Vance has also never run for office before, but his seminal autobiography, “Hillbilly Elegy,” perfectly captured the travails of the declining working class in Appalachia and the Rust Belt. Though non-political, this book exposed the trauma inflicted upon Americans who once formed the backbone of U.S. industrial might. Vance focused on the communities hollowed out by the offshoring of jobs, the rise of the welfare state, and the plague of opioids and other drugs pouring through porous borders.
Like Blake Masters, Vance is supported in his Senate bid by Peter Thiel. Other prominent voices on the right have recognized Vance’s power, including Tucker Carlson and Turning Point Action, the 501(c)(4) arm of Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, the largest and most influential conservative student group in the country.
Pennsylvania
The MAGA movement finds widespread support among military veterans. Among these heroes is decorated U.S. Army combat veteran Sean Parnell, who came on the radar of populists during his near-upset of Democratic Rep. Conor Lamb in 2020. Despite narrowly losing, Parnell proved his mettle to Trump supporters and delivered a rousing speech to the 2020 Republican National Convention.
Now, he’s running for the U.S. Senate seat of retiring incumbent Pat Toomey. Parnell (pictured) naturally prioritizes our military and our veterans in his campaign platform. But also stands for election integrity and border security.
Armed with a Trump endorsement, he is the favorite to win the nomination. Polling overwhelmingly indicates that Parnell has the strongest chance of keeping the seat red as the only Republican who would beat the top two candidates for the Democratic nomination: Conor Lamb and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman.
Washington state
Another military veteran outsider candidate is former Green Beret Joe Kent, in the state’s 3rd Congressional District. Kent is challenging establishment Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler, one of the 10 Republicans in the House to vote in favor of the second sham impeachment of President Trump. Not only did she support the Democrats’ last-ditch witch hunt against an outgoing president, but she also actively bad-mouthed Trump, repeating Democrats’ claims that he supported the breaching of the Capitol.
Joe Kent intrinsically understands the failures of the entrenched political establishment: His wife, Shannon, was killed by ISIS fighters in Syria in January of 2019, roughly one month after President Trump initially ordered the withdrawal of American forces from the region. Kent says that his wife’s death was directly the result of the establishment defying Trump’s orders and delaying the withdrawal in pursuit of their interventionist agenda.
He, too, has earned a Trump’s endorsement.
The odds favor a Republican wave in 2022. But this upcoming election is not merely about defeating the radical Democrats and stopping Joe Biden’s dreadful agenda. This plebiscite will also determine whether the GOP evolves into an America First party for the middle class, energized by populist nationalism. These four outsider candidates embrace their vital roles in that transformation.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/576462-schools-become-crucial-battleground-heading-into-midterms
Schools are emerging as the latest battleground for both parties ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Debates over coronavirus restrictions and curriculum in the classrooms have dominated campaign messaging, forcing candidates to address the issues head-on in key areas like the suburbs.
It’s also left parents and experts concerned that kids are on the front lines of a political battle that has turned highly contentious over the past year.
The battle has also turned highly personal for families and educators debating how much of a role parents should play in their students’ education.
Republican candidates have seized on conservative complaints about issues like critical race theory and LGBTQ issues in school curriculum, while Democrats have zeroed in on the importance of coronavirus restrictions in classrooms.
Both parties are looking to use the education-related issues to appeal to parents on issues that impact their children’s day-to-day lives.
“When it comes to issues like education, you can view that as a quality-of-life issue,” said Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright.
While schools and classrooms have been at the center of some of the country’s most hot-button issues in the past, including racial integration and prayer in the classroom, the coronavirus pandemic has reinvigorated the education debate in 2021.
Republicans say conservative enthusiasm around education reached a fever pitch during the pandemic, when parents became more aware of their children’s curriculum when they were home during lockdown. The party also pushed back against coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions, arguing it negatively affected the learning environment.
Democrats, on the other hand, have argued that coronavirus restrictions are needed in schools to keep children safe and to stop the spread and mutation of the virus.
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-10-15-how-to-be-a-conservative-student-on-a-university-campus-today
It gets harder and harder to be an independent thinker in the midst of one of those indoctrination and groupthink factories known as a university. Step out of line, and at any moment someone can claim to be offended or “triggered” by something completely bland that you may have said. Next thing you know, someone will have tattled on you to the administration. And you know exactly what the administration will do: They will simultaneously mouth platitudes about “free speech” while making every kind of threat, veiled or not, to bring you into line.
Is there any way for you to come out ahead? Within the last few days, a small number of students — one at Yale and two at Arizona State — have given tutorials on how to win at this game. To be fair, these students got a big assist from the fact that the crazy leftists who run these places have gotten so confident of never facing any pushback that they no longer hesitate to engage in conduct that is completely indefensible.
Example number one for today comes from perhaps the looniest of all the loony left schools, the Yale Law School. It all started with plans by the Native American Law Students Association to co-sponsor a Constitution Day (September 17) get-together with the Federalist Society. On the 15th, a second-year law student named Trent Colbert — who is a member of both organizations and, unlike Elizabeth Warren, is actually part Cherokee — sent out this email inviting NALSA members to the event:
Before reading further, see if you can spot what about the email may be offensive to the finely tuned antennae of an uber-woke Yale Law School “diversity” monger.
Aaron Silbarum, writing on October 13 at the Washington Free Beacon, recounts what happened next:
Within minutes, the lighthearted invite had been screenshotted and shared to an online forum for all second-year law students, several of whom alleged that the term “trap house” indicated a blackface party. “I guess celebrating whiteness wasn’t enough,” the president of the Black Law Students Association wrote in the forum. “Y’all had to upgrade to cosplay/black face.” She also objected to the mixer’s affiliation with the Federalist Society, which she said “has historically supported anti-Black rhetoric.”
http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com
Whether the current Administration is the most corrupt in the history of our nation, I leave to those better qualified to decide. But, as we know from the influence peddling of Hunter Biden and the recent revelations of Merrick Garland’s son-in-law’s business ties to the teaching of critical race theory, there is no question as to its corruption. S.W.
Terry McAuliffe was correct in the sense that it would be impossible for a school to design individual syllabuses for each child. Nevertheless, the input of parents should be sought, not denied. As the NCPIE (quoted above) expressed, when parents do take an active interest in the education of their children they achieve higher grades, gain better social skills and more easily adapt to school.
It was once rare for any American of any political persuasion to deny the importance of parents in the education of their children. As educator and author Dorothy H. Cohen (1915-1979) once observed. “No school can work well for children if parents and teachers do not act in partnership on behalf of the children’s best interests.” Now, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s weaponization of the Justice Department has put that partnership at risk. In response to a letter to President Biden from the National School Boards Association, which likened parents’ protests to acts of domestic terror, Mr. Garland said he would use the Patriot Act against those parents who have “threatened” school boards for the teaching of critical race theory-type themes, adopting NEA New Business Item 39[1], cancelling history and tradition, distributing sexually explicit curricular materials, and allowing transgender bathrooms.
Violence against any person, including school board members, is a crime, but disallowing dissenting voices of parents is a violation of their First Amendment rights. As for the rights of public schools to teach what they choose, consider Justice Clarence Thomas’ 2011 dissent in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants: “The ‘freedom of speech’ as originally understood, does not include a right to speak to minors without going through the minors’ parents or guardians.” To arbitrarily ignore parents’ concerns is what one would expect of a totalitarian regime more interested in indoctrination than education, not from the world’s foremost and oldest constitutional republic.
In America, education flourished when it emphasized the basic elements or reading, writing and arithmetic, and, as students progressed, when it encouraged skepticism, inquiry and empiricism. Unfortunately, public school education today de-emphasizes education in favor of equity, to achieve graduation rates that reflect the racial composition of the student body. Standardized tests have been eliminated. The Regent Exams in New York have been watered down over the years, and in 2019 a commission was established to potentially eliminate the exams as a requirement for high school graduation. In this past year, New York’s Mayor de Blasio ordered the elimination of the city’s gifted and talented programs. In Oregon, Governor Kate Brown signed a bill ending a requirement that high school students prove they are proficient in reading, writing and math before they are granted diplomas.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/10/12/panorama-education-owned-by-us-ag-merrick-garlands-son-in
Last week, AG Garland sent a memo to the head of the FBI, directing him to work with local law enforcement “to address threats against school administrators, board members, teachers and staff.”
Critics say that Garland made the move in response to parents vocally opposing mask mandates and race-related teaching implemented by local school boards.
Nevertheless, the move by Garland to have the FBI investigate parents at school board meetings quickly put his son-in-law’s nationwide education business in the spotlight.
Garland’s son-in-law is Xan Tanner, co-founder, board member, and president (2012-2020) of Panorama Education. Panorama Education sells surveys to school districts across the country that focus on the local “social and emotion climate.” These surveys are then used as justification for new curriculum from other providers that some parents call critical race theory and find objectionable.
Tanner’s company has a large footprint with contracts in 50+ of the nation’s 100 largest school districts. The company describes its business as supporting “13 million students in 23,000 schools and 1,500 districts across 50 states.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/here-hidden-150-trillion-agenda-behind-crusade-against-climate-change?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=147
We now live in a world, where bizarro headlines such as the ones below, have become a daily if not hourly occurrence:
*TREASURY TO STUDY IMPACT OF CLIMATE ON HOUSEHOLDS, COMMUNITIES
*TREASURY LAUNCHES EFFORT ON CLIMATE-RELATED FINANCIAL RISKS
*BRAINARD: CLIMATE-SCENARIO ANALYSIS WILL HELP IDENTIFY RISKS
*BRAINARD: CLIMATE CHANGE COULD HAVE PROFOUND ECONOMIC EFFECTS
*MESTER: FED LOOKS AT CLIMATE CHANGE FROM VIEW OF RISKS TO BANKS
*FED IS TAKING THE RIGHT COURSE ON MONITORING CLIMATE CHANGE
*FED SHOULD CONSIDER CLIMATE-CHANGE RISK TO FINANCIAL SYSTEM
Now, in case someone is still confused, none of these institutions, and not a single of the erudite officials running them, give a rat’s ass about the climate, about climate change risks, or about the fate of future generations of Americans (and certainly not about the rising water level sweeping away their massive waterfront mansions): if they did, total US debt and underfunded liabilities wouldn’t be just shy of $160 trillion.
So what is going on, and why is it that virtually every topic these days has to do with climate change, “net zero”, green energy and ESG?
The reason – as one would correctly suspect – is money. Some $150 trillion of it.
Blog: www.PaulSchnee.com
All you have to do is look at the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens from around the world who have crossed our southern border unimpeded, unvaccinated, uneducated and generally unwashed. They are being ushered in by anti-American activists and NGOs and transported to purple states where, it is confidently assumed, they will vote for Democrats once they have been granted amnesty by the treacherous oligarchs and high members of the gated-community now running and ruining our country.
Only people who really hate their own society would instigate and collaborate with this sort of cultural vandalism.
Demography is destiny. One gets what one voted for. The difference between genius and stupidity, said Einstein, is that genius has its limits!
Paul S.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17860/biden-iran-china-empowered
In another blow to the US, after many years of Iran trying to be a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), SCO members finally agreed in September to elevate Iran’s status from “observer” to “full member,” even though the global financial watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force, had placed the Islamic Republic on its terrorism financing blacklist.
The SCO is a political, military, economic and security alliance that currently includes China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, India, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. This alliance will likely… assist the mullahs of Iran to defy the West.
In the face of these critical developments, the Biden administration has remained silent
The Chinese regime is profiting as well. This [25-year deal with Iran], which appears similar to a colonial agreement, grants Communist China significant rights over the nation’s resources. Leaked information reveals that one of its terms is that China will be investing nearly $400 billion in Iran’s oil, gas and petrochemicals industries. In return, China will get priority to bid on any new project in Iran that is linked to these sectors. China will also receive a 12% discount and it can delay payments by up to two years. China will also be able to pay in any currency it chooses. It is also estimated that, in total, China will receive discounts of nearly 32%. Another secret element of the agreement has a military dimension: China will deploy 5,000 members of its security forces on the ground in Iran.
Such a strategic and economic deal is a clear win for the Chinese Communist Party…. China will have full authority over Iran’s islands, gain access to Iran’s oil at a highly deeply rate and increase its influence and presence in almost every sector of Iranian industry, including telecommunications, banking, energy, railways and ports.
For the ruling clerics of Iran, appeasement means only more weakness.
The Chinese Communist Party has openly been helping the Iranian regime evade US sanctions — most likely due to what reports have been referring to as the weak leadership and “top national security threat” of the US Biden administration.
This Communist Chinese salvage operation could partially explain why the ruling mullahs of Iran see no incentive to halt their nuclear program or come to the negotiating table.
