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Over 1,000 Former Military Members Sign Letter Warning About ‘Wokeness’ in the Military By Debra Heine

Posted By on June 26th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/25/over-1000-former-military-members-sign-letter-warning-about-wokeness-in-the-military/

Over 1,000 former members of the military have signed a scathing public letter warning that the increased priority placed on “wokeness” in the military is a threat to the Constitution and the nation’s military readiness.

The letter comes after Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley defended the teaching of critical race theory in the military during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday.

Former President Donald Trump blasted Milley as “pathetic” for defending the toxic ideology during an interview Friday morning on Newsmax.  

“General Milley – I watched his statements and it was pathetic. I watched the statements of some others – your head of the Navy. It was pathetic,” Trump said. “They didn’t talk that way when I was around, I can tell you. They didn’t talk that way or I would have gotten rid of them in two minutes. In particular Navy and Milley, just sad, pathetic statements,” the former president added.

Two military groups—Flag Officers 4 America and the Committee to Support and Defend—have joined forces to warn that the military’s embrace of the woke ideology is a major national security issue.  LTC Allen West is a member of the Policy Board of the American Constitutional Rights Union’s Committee to Support and Defend, and leads its military initiatives.

The purpose of the letter, according to a press release, is to encourage citizens and leaders “to assess the outlined public policy threats to the nation and work together to constructively and cooperatively advance freedom.”

“Over 1000 signers to date have reaffirmed that the oath they took to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic has no expiration date, and that current military leadership promoting ‘wokeness’ undermines the military’s warfighting mission,” the Committee to Support and Defend said.

The letter, posted below in full, condemns “dismantling of the rule of law” in the United States, “the erosion of fair and honest elections,” the “politicization and ideological purging of our military,”  social media censorship, the abusive Covid lockdown policies, and the collapse of border security.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Canceling Critical Race Theory As states pass laws disallowing the teaching of the bogus and downright harmful Critical Race Theory, its proponents erroneously claim they are being censored. By Larry Sand

Posted By on June 26th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/25/canceling-critical-race-theory

Just four weeks ago, I wrote about the beginnings of a resistance to the teaching of Critical Race Theory, which is Marxist in nature, and asserts that the United States is systemically and irredeemably racist. Parents and other citizens started filing lawsuits and joining emergent activist groups. And now, many state governments have entered the fray. According to Education Week, as of June 18, 25 states have introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict the teaching of the controversial theory. In fact, eight states have already enacted bans.

The activity varies from state to state. In Florida, the state board of education has voted to approve a rule that prohibits schools from teaching CRT and the 1619 Project. Iowa governor Kim Reynolds recently signed a law that will ban schools from making students “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress” because of their race or sex, among other provisions. In D.C., a bill has been introduced that would ban the promotion of “race or sex stereotyping or scapegoating.” And Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt signed a law limiting the ways that teachers can discuss racism and sexism in class. As Education Week’s Mark Walsh explains, “The laws passed or proposed so far generally prohibit schools from teaching that one race or sex is inherently superior, that any individual is consciously or unconsciously racist or sexist because of their race or sex, and that anyone should feel discomfort or guilt because of their race or sex.”

And now, ironically, the wokesters—the same crowd that brought us “cancel culture”—is screaming “Censorship!” National Education Association president Becky Pringle said her union is contemplating the use of “legal action against laws restricting how racism and history are taught.” American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten weighed in on Florida’s law, insisting that lesson plans from the debunked 1619 Project help students “discern fact from fiction,” and laughably accuses Florida governor Ron DeSantis of “pretending this history doesn’t exist.” And now, teachers in 22 cities are planning protests over laws “restricting racism lessons in schools.”

The born-again First Amendment zealots are dead wrong, however. The 1619 Project is a lie. The original document maintained, for example, that slavery was a primary motivation for the colonists’ revolt against England and the Pilgrim’s subsequent trek across the Atlantic to the New World in 1619. The bogus document also claims that 1619, not 1776, was the year of “our true founding.” After receiving criticism from historians, some tweaks were made, but the document is still a fraud. 

And banning the teaching of falsehoods should not get under the skin of any honest person. If the Flat Earth Society demanded that their ideas be taught in government-run schools and were shunned, would anyone be at the barricades with fists clenched? Of course not.

Regarding Critical Race Theory, it is, well, just a theory. And not all theories belong in schools. If I came up with a theory that women are dumber than men, and could produce no facts or scholarship to substantiate my claim, would educators be pushing for schools to teach it? Hardly. Additionally, the teaching of CRT actually runs afoul of the law. As legal experts Rick Esenberg and Daniel Lennington of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty point out, the Constitution, along with federal and state statutes, protects “freedom of conscience.” Hence, public schools “cannot force students to affirm certain points of view—such as critical race theory’s ideas of white supremacy, white privilege, or systemic racism. The Constitution also prohibits ‘compelled speech,’ meaning that teachers cannot force a student to speak a certain message, such as a confession that ‘I am a racist.’”

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Censuring China Would Help The Earth Far More Than Banning Steak, Gasoline, And Cow Flatulence By Kyle Sammin

Posted By on June 26th, 2021

https://thefederalist.com/2021/06/25/censuring-china-would-help-the-earth-far-more-than-banning-steak-gasoline-and-cow-flatulence/

Every hindrance on industry made in the name of the Earth is a lie if it does not include similar restrictions on imports from countries without laws like ours.

Bashing America is popular on the radical left, but it betrays just how much they really don’t know about the rest of the world. For leftists concerned about the environment, incessantly focusing on the United States is an especially big mental failure. While American stewardship of our land, water, and air have gradually improved over the last 50 years, real degradation of the natural environment has been increasing overseas.

Politicians on the left preach piously about the need to protect the Earth while decrying any sort of restriction on trade with the world’s greatest polluter, China. Anyone who cares about good stewardship of the Earth should consider that trade with China is the United States’ most anti-environmental activity. If you want to be green, you must call for tariffs on China.

Communism’s Anti-Environmental Legacy

China is by far the world’s biggest user of coal, and unlike the west, they make little attempt to clean up the byproducts. They burned more coal than ever in 2020 and so far in 2021, they are on pace to use even more. Pollution in their major cities, where mask-wearing was a thing long before anyone heard of COVID-19, is telling.

Their uncaring attitude even extends to space, like earlier this year when bits of a Chinese rocket were left to fall wherever they might. Even when China pretends to be green, the efforts are an obvious sham. The Chinese Communist Party cares as little for the Earth as they do its inhabitants.

The exact statistics from Beijing cannot be fully trusted, but their environmental record is in line with other Marxist regimes. As China does, the Soviet Union put a premium on rapid industrialization. While an advanced economy offers a better standard of living, the Soviets allowed a possibly worthy end to justify a host of atrocious means. In addition to executions, gulags, and famines, they also wrecked the environment, leaving behind a legacy of pollution Russia is still battling today.

China’s actions are similar. In their drive to rival the United States in economic output and industrial strength, they have committed atrocities against their own people and against the world. Mao Tse-Tung’s Great Leap Forward and its “backyard furnace” program are well-known examples. Instructing every communal farm to build a furnace to increase steel production, the CCP mainly succeeded in forcing farmers with no knowledge of steelmaking to melt down their iron and fuel forges by cutting down trees, only to result in inferior steel of no use to anyone.

China, Not the U.S., Needs Environmental Reform

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Is the new rule that Ivy League generals are beyond criticism? By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on June 26th, 2021

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

General Barry McCaffrey (retired, thank God), graduated from West Point, served in Vietnam, and put an end to his honorable career by attaching himself to the Clinton White House. Instead of fading decently away as old generals should, McCaffrey continues to insert himself into military politics, always with an eye to tilting the military towards the left. His latest opinion is that Tucker Carlson, a civilian, should be fired for daring to say that General Mark Milley, who is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is an idiot and overall disgrace to the fine tradition of the American military.

As always when I write, I need to put into place a few basic predicates:

Up until the Obama administration started meddling with it, the American military was the most effortlessly diverse and harmoniously racially mixed institution in America. Not only was the military a meritocracy, every person serving understood that a military divided amongst itself is deadly, not to the enemy, but to the troops who serve.

Were and even are there racists in the military? Absolutely. In any group of people, you’re going to have idiots who are insecure or stupid enough to assume negative things about someone based upon the color of his skin or the shape of his eyes. The military, however, has always had an efficient system for getting rid of these people because their very existence endangers the troops and the missions.

The Obama administration, however, disliked the traditional military. What it did overtly was to open the military to openly homosexual and transgender troops. There is no way to tell whether this affected military readiness, unit cohesion, or anything else because there will never be an honest report on the subject. What the Obama administration did less openly was to purge the military of officers who thought that the military’s structure was good. Ultimately, he fired almost 200 military officers.

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Maoist thought reform imposed on first January 6 defendant to be sentenced By Thomas Lifson

Posted By on June 26th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/maoist_thought_reform_imposed_on_first_january_6_defendant_to_be_sentenced.html

Anna Morgan-Lloyd, the 49-year-old grandmother from Indiana who strolled into the US Capitol and spent several minutes peacefully walking around, got the same message that was delivered to Chinese dissidents and “bad elements” during Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: confess to thought crimes, embrace the state-sanctioned ideology, and you will be shown mercy. In the case of Morgan-Lloyd, the message was delivered to her by her own defense lawyer, a public defender paid by taxpayers.  And it worked. She received three years’ probation, a $500 fine, and no incarceration beyond the two days she had spent in jail following her arrest.

Julie Kelley describes at American Greatness the imposition of an ideological test on a defendant whose own lawyer was in on the brainwashing initiative:

My lawyer has given me names of books and movies to help me see what life is like for others in our country. I’ve learned that even though we live in a wonderful country things still need to improve. People of all colors should feel as safe as I do to walk down the street.”

That passage is part book report, part white privilege mea culpa submitted to a federal court this month by Anna Morgan-Lloyd, one of the more than 500 Americans arrested for her involvement in the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6

Her lawyer, Heather Shaner, also represents other 1/621 defendants, and apparently is recommending the thought reform confessions to toher clients:

In an interview with Huffington Post, Shaner explained her belief that “this is the most wonderful country in the world, it’s been great for all kinds of immigrant groups, except for the fact that it was born of genocide of the Native Americans and the enslavement of people.” 

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Election Integrity: The Firewall That Keeps America Free By Scott S. Powell

Posted By on June 26th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/06/election_integrity_the_firewall_that_keeps_america_free.html

During the last year and half it’s become obvious to anyone whose head is not in the sand that America has been under assault on multiple levels from within. There is no denying that the COVID-19 viral invasion was a catalyst for so much of the disruption of 2020, culminating in election irregularity in November.

By spring 2020, normal activities and businesses were largely shut down nationwide by federal and local governments’ response to COVID-19.  Antifa and BLM protests and riots in May and June brought the costliest manmade damage to American property in history. Then the cancel culture, already ensconced and in control of college and university campuses, came to the streets and parks of America in the tearing down historic monuments — all the while law enforcement was coming under severe attack with numerous police departments facing prospects of defunding.

This lockdown-crisis environment gave Democrats an opportunity to push for change in state election rules to their advantage, such as allowing wholesale distribution of mail-in ballots, extension of deadlines for counting those ballots, and legal challenges to voter ID and signature verification laws. And we all now know the result: the November 3rd election was characterized by unprecedented election irregularities and charges of vote fraud in more states than any prior election.

The confluence of all this has certainly brought on confusion for many Americans.  But a significant group of people believe they see things with clarity. Where I live in South Florida it’s an incredible melting pot of people — immigrants from all over the world. Many of my acquaintances and friends — from Eastern and Slavic Europe and Russia, Latin America, and Southeast Asia — have commented that what they see going on in America is a fairly classic communist-type subversion.  They believe that the takedown of America is well advanced and now poses a real threat to continuation of the United States as a free nation.  

My immigrant and refugee friends point out that the communist playbook is really quite easy to understand. Several who lived under communist systems commented that communist revolutionaries are masters at using false fronts, whether Critical Race Theory or social justice Marxist theories of wealth redistribution to advance their real objective which is one-party rule and total control of society. While my friends see this so clearly, they are dumbfounded and mystified that so many American people remain so naïve and passive in the face of cancel culture, censorship, and creeping cultural totalitarianism that is so obviously and rapidly redefining the country.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

How China Sees It by Pete Hoekstra

Posted By on June 26th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17501/how-china-sees-it

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has much to lose, both domestically and internationally, if the truth comes out. A muddled debate about the origins of the virus serves China just fine. Evading accountability — and suffering no little negative fallout — for unleashing a pandemic on the world that killed millions of people is not a bad outcome. And the economic results may even be better for China than for the rest of the world, thereby strengthening the CCP further.

And now, in response to China’s obfuscation, the international community seems unable to go beyond the empty threat of calling for the World Health Organization (WHO) to follow up its original investigation, which was abysmal, with another probe.

For the West to maintain the WHO as the agency of record is embarrassing. It was a puppet of China the first time around and will be again.

China has been soundly condemned by the U.S. and others for practicing genocide against the Uyghurs. No consequences. China has been cheating ever since it was invited to join the World Trade Organization in 2001. No consequences. See a pattern? If you don’t, you can bet that the Chinese do. They expect that spreading misinformation and hiding the facts about the pandemic will lead to the same fate, no consequences.

It seems that the European Union and the United States are now calling for a renewed investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. They are “urging” China to cooperate fully and provide “complete access.” Them’s fightin’ words! The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) must be quaking in its boots — especially after President Joe Biden’s national security advisor stated that the consequences of not cooperating would be international “isolation.” This half-hearted approach will not get the job done. It’s long past the time to get serious with China, and we all know it.

Why will this “powerful” unified initiative by the U.S. and its allies fail? From the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, China has been totally uncooperative. It has evaded accountability and responsibility for its actions. It has gone beyond just hiding the facts and conducted a massive disinformation campaign. This strategy has been successful. Regardless of increasing doubts about the origin of the virus, there is no reason for China to change its cover-up strategy and reverse course. Why mess with success?

In fact, China has prepared for the day when it might come under more pressure and scrutiny. By April 2020, reports forwarded to me from European sources indicated that the Chinese intelligence apparatus had already successfully purged all traces of evidence of the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s connection to a bio-weapons division operating at the facility. It had also eliminated any evidence about its connections to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Information that the virus was a result of a lab leak had been eliminated.

Not only has China been deceitful, it has also been operating a massive global disinformation/influence operation. Beginning in roughly March 2020, sources indicated that the Chinese Communist Party had organized an operation of more than 2,000 people with at least $3 billion in financing to control the narrative. Key messaging included ensuring that the theory that the virus had developed naturally would prevail, and that the lab leak theory would be totally debunked. A second primary message was that China had effectively controlled the virus inside of China and was a leading player in minimizing the impact globally. Finally, it sought to portray the U.S. — and especially President Donald Trump — as bumbling and ineffectual in responding to the threat.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Which Is The Real Party Of Racism?

Posted By on June 26th, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/06/25/which-is-the-real-party-of-racism/

The blasé response to the revelation that Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse belonged to a private “whites only” club and even owned a stake in it, should come as no surprise. In the Democrats’ race-obsessed world, only Republicans are racist.

Whitehouse confused the issue last week when asked about his membership in Bailey’s Beach Club and its alleged all-white membership, saying: “I think the people who are running the place are still working on that and I’m sorry it hasn’t happened yet.”

Well, it turns out, his family is among the “people who are running the place.”

As GoLocalProvidence online TV, which broke the story, noted:

“Both Whitehouse and his wife Sandra as well as their families have been members of the club for decades. Whitehouse did transfer his (ownership) shares in the club to his wife years ago, and she is now one of the largest shareholders in the all-white club. The club’s membership is a who’s who Newport, Palm Beach, and New York wealth.”

And on Monday, Whitehouse appeared to defend his membership, calling such clubs “a long tradition in Rhode Island.”

However, after those remarks raised even more questions, Whitehouse denied that the beach club was whites-only, and said that he “was assured that … the assertion was wrong, there is diversity in the membership and there are non-white club members.”

An honest mistake then? Nope. Whitehouse had been asked about his membership in the club dating back to 2006. But, as a Democrat, he could conveniently count on the media not letting such inconvenient facts intrude on his political career, and on his colleagues saying nothing.

Moreover, the club itself issued a statement saying that it had “people of many racial, religious, and ethnic backgrounds” as members, but refused to elaborate.

But Whitehouse did clarify that he belongs to a yacht club that, by his own admission, has only white members.

So, to ask the by-now-cliched question, if Whitehouse were a Republican would he get a pass from the Democrats? Of course not.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

As Biden Bumbles Abroad, Inflation Roars at Home Lew Uhler, Peter Ferrara, and Joe Yocca

Posted By on June 26th, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/06/25/as-biden-bumbles-abroad-inflation-roars-at-home/

While President Joe Biden was focused on being his best European/Russia-pleasing preener at the G-7 and Vice President Kamala Harris embarrassed herself in Central America, here at home Americans are suffering the beginning of wild inflationary conditions not seen since the 1970s.

Our country is in crisis. Adding to a dangerous rise in criminal behavior across the nation and especially at our southern border, our economy is adrift. As we move out from under the destructive lockdowns owed to the pandemic, this should be a time of optimism and hopefulness. Instead, many industries are sputtering to re-open as inflation is “stealing” from returning working American’s paychecks, trading economic joy for malaise. Even the stock markets are recognizing the dangers and are beginning to readjust the prices of assets.

Super-charged inflationary pressures continued to gain momentum according to a survey by the Philadelphia Fed this month, adding to alarming price jumps recorded in April.  Eighty-two percent of manufacturing companies in the recent Philly Fed’s survey reported paying higher prices for the inputs of their products, while just one percent said costs had fallen. As a result, the diffusion index (a metric of manufacturing activity and costs) moved up four points to 80.7, the highest reading since June 1979. 

But what if the Fed continues to incorrectly apply misguided inflationary policies at this critical moment? They typically get inflation “wrong” because they misdiagnose the cause for alarming increases in prices: printing too much money. The danger is revealed in the Fed’s policies to date which will exacerbate, not retard, inflation for the immediate and longer-range future.

Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman observed that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon and that even without the gold standard there were inherent limits to printing more money. The fundamental rule is the supply of money must be equal to the demand for money. But the demand for money is a slippery concept: it’s natural but dangerous to operate under the notion that the demand for money is endless. It’s anything but.

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Has the Military Gone ‘Woke’? Gen. Milley too easily dismisses the risks to recruitment and morale.

Posted By on June 26th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/has-the-military-gone-woke-11624660049?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

Army Gen. Mark Milley is getting kudos from the media for telling Congress that the military hasn’t become “woke,” even as its leadership urges soldiers and sailors to absorb woke ideas. The brass is trying to have it both ways on this issue, and that may ultimately undermine its core mission.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs told the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday that he “personally” found it “offensive” that Republicans have accused general officers of being “woke.” A pair of Florida Congressmen had been criticizing Gen. Milley over seminars at West Point about “white rage.” The Chief of Naval Operations has recommended “How to Be an Antiracist,” a book that proposes “future discrimination,” ostensibly against white people, on his professional reading list for sailors.

Gen. Milley has to be sensitive to the political realities in the White House, but he was clearly exercised about the criticism, saying it’s “important actually for those of us in uniform to be open-minded and be widely read.” He later added: “I’ve read Mao Zedong. I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin. That doesn’t make me a communist.” So, he asked, “what is wrong” with “having some situational understanding about the country for which we are here to defend?”

Of course sailors and Marines should read widely. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday said similarly last week that he was merely exposing sailors to new ideas. But one can still wonder why “How to Be an Antiracist,” a book promoting sectarian racism, is on the reading list as “foundational” material on par with Jim Hornfischer’s classic naval histories.

The Navy’s reading list for sailors also includes “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” and “Sexual Minorities and Politics.” Contrary to Gen. Milley and the Navy brass, it is not an assault on open-mindedness to ask whether an institution that requires esprit de corps and a common purpose can function if sailors are primed to view white shipmates as potential “oppressors.”