Commentary: The Hysterical Style in American Politics

White Silence

The post-Joe McCarthy era and the candidacy of Barry Goldwater once prompted liberal political scientist Richard Hofstadter to chronicle a supposedly long-standing right-wing “paranoid style” of conspiracy-fed extremism.

But far more common, especially in the 21st century, has been a left-wing, hysterical style of inventing scandals and manipulating perceived tensions for political advantage.

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Experts Raise Concerns over History of CIA Director Overseeing Intel Push into China

William Burns

National security experts are raising concerns over CIA Director William Burns’ previous involvement with a D.C. institution that employed numerous Chinese Communist Party members, in light of his efforts to reorient the agency toward addressing the threat from China.

Recent reports have shed light on the historic shift underway at the U.S.’ most expansive intelligence directorate to rebuild a network of human spies in China, and outpace Beijing’s adaptation to a rapidly changing technological environment. However, Burns previously headed a think tank that hired people and groups professing membership to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a fact that experts say raises red flags about Burns’ credibility.

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Commentary: Our Indispensable Man

Angelo Codevilla

“The graveyards are full of indispensable men,” goes the old saying, and who could argue? The sun rose this morning as it did yesterday and will again tomorrow. Life goes on, as always, for better and often for worse. But now it is a life bereft of the remarkable intellect and insight of Angelo Codevilla, a patriot who despised what he saw his country becoming and who sought to rouse and educate his fellow Americans to resist.

Truly, he was our indispensable man.

He was remarkable, too, for his energy. It isn’t quite correct to say he was indefatigable. At 78, he couldn’t help but slow down a bit. But this was a man who survived two heart transplants and a number of recent health challenges. Even when he was sick, he kept writing and working.

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Critics Pan Biden Order Calling for Half of U.S. Vehicle Sales to Be Electric by 2030

Electric car being charged

A new executive order from the Biden administration has accelerated the timeline for electric vehicles and raised questions about the economic impacts of the transition away from gas-powered vehicles.

President Joe Biden signed the executive order Thursday aimed at making 50% of vehicles zero emission in the U.S. by 2030, an aggressive push toward electric vehicles. About 2% of new cars sold each year in the U.S. are currently electric, according to the Pew Research Center.

“The Executive Order also kicks off development of long-term fuel efficiency and emissions standards to save consumers money, cut pollution, boost public health, advance environmental justice, and tackle the climate crisis,” the White House said.

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Commentary: A January 6 Detainee Speaks Out

Joe Biden’s Justice Department notched another victory last week in the agency’s sprawling investigation into the January 6 protest on Capitol Hill against Biden’s presidency.

On Wednesday, Michael Curzio pleaded guilty to one count of parading, demonstrating, or picketing in the Capitol building. The government offered the plea deal to Curzio’s court-appointed attorney in June; Curzio faced four misdemeanor charges, including trespassing and disorderly conduct, for his role in the Capitol breach.

Curzio will pay the government “restitution” in the amount of $500 to help pay for the nearly $1.5 million in damages the building reportedly sustained. (The Architect of the Capitol initially said the protest caused $30 million in damages but prosecutors have set the figure far lower.)

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Kamala Harris Tells Illegal Aliens That America ‘Is Your Home’

Kamala Harris

On Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris met with several illegal aliens at the White House, promising them that the Biden Administration would fight against a judge’s ruling that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) amnesty program was unconstitutional, as reported by Breitbart.

The illegals, referred to as “Dreamers” because they would have qualified for amnesty under Barack Obama’s failed Dream Act amnesty plan, met with the vice president both in-person and virtually over Zoom. Addressing the recent ruling that struck a major blow to DACA, an executive order signed by Obama as the successor to the Dream Act after the latter failed to pass through Congress, Harris told the illegals that “this is your home, this is your home, and we see you, and you are not alone.”

Harris went on to claim, with no evidence, that some illegals have gone on to work for Fortune 500 companies, have worked in health care, or have served in the military. “Many have been living recently, these years, a life of uncertainty,” she said, “even though this is the only country they have ever known. They deserve a pathway to citizenship.”

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Commentary: Secure Law and Order in America

Over July Fourth weekend, according to CNN, at least 233 people were killed and 618 others were injured in more than 500 shootings across the country. Unbelievably, those tragic statistics actually represent a 26 percent decrease from July Fourth weekend in 2020. But overall, violent crime in 2021 across the nation—and especially in major urban corridors—has only increased over 2020’s horrific baseline. Nationwide murder rates in 2021 to date show a roughly 25 percent annual increase over 2020, and that number spikes to roughly 30 percent in our large cities. In New York City, there has been a 32 percent year-to-date increase in rape and a 42 percent increase in grand larceny.

Increasingly, Americans do not need to look very far to experience the horrific violence in an up-close and personal manner. Last week, for instance, a 22-year-old University of Chicago student was senselessly killed by what appeared to be a stray bullet while riding the subway system near the university’s Hyde Park campus. As a University of Chicago alum and former Hyde Park resident, that could have very easily been me. But such heartbreaks are not limited to the city of Chicago, America’s murder capital. All across the nation, “could have easily been me” is becoming commonplace, as Americans survey the carnage and destruction all around them.

The extended escalation in violent crime in America began in earnest in the aftermath of George Floyd’s unfortunate death. Black Lives Matter, an avowedly Marxist organization despite its anodyne-sounding name, immediately latched onto the post-Floyd national racial reckoning and instrumentalized it for its own agenda. Together with Antifa and various left-wing anarchist groups, BLM helped orchestrate a summer of riotous mayhem and bloodshed like the country had not seen in decades. Major cities were hit the worst, but even distant suburbs such as Kenosha, Wisconsin, were not spared the BLM-antifa warpath.

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Majority of Liberal College Students Not Proud to Be American, Favor Socialism, North Dakota State University Survey Finds

Findings from a new North Dakota State University survey reveal that the majority of students identifying as liberal or liberal-leaning are not proud of America.

In response to the question “Are you proud to be American?” 57 percent of liberal identifying students answered ‘no’. This is in contrast to the 73 percent majority of conservatives who answered ‘yes’ to the same question.

This response was generated from a nationwide survey which asked over 400,000 students from more than 1,000 American college campuses questions about their feelings on a number of social and political issues. NDSU publicly announced the survey on Thursday.

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New Movement Teaches American Kids How to Think, Not What to Think

Girl student standing and holding books in hand in a classroom

An American educator is persuading schools to implement viewpoint diversity in the classroom.

Erin McLaughlin is a teacher from Pennsylvania who is making headlines with her approach to classroom instruction. She argues that viewpoint diversity, which is teaching students how to think rather than what to think, should be at the center of many curriculums.

McLaughlin, in an interview with The College Fix, said that it is the job of educators to teach children how to process things as opposed to what to advocate for.

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More Than 120 Retired U.S. Generals and Admirals Post Open Letter Blasting Biden Regime’s Marxist Assault Constitutional Rights

American Flag blowing in the wind

More than 120 retired military generals and admirals have posted an open letter questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election, Joe Biden’s mental health, and warning that the United States is in deep peril under Biden’s divisive leadership. The former high-ranking military officers blasted the “Commander-in-Chief,” accusing him of launching “a full-blown assault on our Constitutional rights in a dictatorial manner, and summed up the situation as a “conflict is between supporters of Socialism and Marxism vs. supporters of Constitutional freedom and liberty.”

“Without fair and honest elections that accurately reflect the ‘will of the people’ our Constitutional Republic is lost,” the 124 former officers stated in the letter, which was released by the group “Flag Officers 4 America.”

“Election integrity demands insuring there is one legal vote cast and counted per citizen. Legal votes are identified by State Legislature’s approved controls using government IDs, verified signatures, etc. Today, many are calling such commonsense controls ‘racist’ in an attempt to avoid having fair and honest elections,” the letter continued. “The FBI and Supreme Court must act swiftly when election irregularities are surfaced and not ignore them as was done in 2020.”

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Commentary: What Is Radical and What is Not – On Confidence and Common Sense

by Mark Bauerlein   I just heard a fellow on CNN say that Donald Trump has radicalized the Republicans. Let’s be clear on what is and isn’t radical. A well-patrolled border is not a radical policy. An open border is a radical policy. To believe in two genders is not radical. To insert gender identity into Title IX is. To praise Western Civilization as a legacy of political freedom and artistic genius is not a radical opinion.To regard it as promotion of white supremacy is a radical opinion. To love America as an exceptional creation is not radical. To see America as founded on slavery and imperialism is radical. For a president to express support for the outcome of a vote in a foreign country is not radical. For a president to threaten a unique ally with economic hardship if a popular vote goes in a certain way, as Barack Obama did before Brexit – that’s radical. To cancel student debt is radical. To make college free is radical. To demand reparations 150 years after the end of slavery and 60 years after the end of Jim Crow is radical. To demand more public attention to the tiny population that fits the label “transgender”…

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Commentary: Journalists Dropping the Ball to End 2018

by Julie Kelly   This is almost too good to be true: Several American journalists will be in Times Square on Monday night to drop the New Year’s Eve ball and signal the end of 2018. The “esteemed group comprises a broad spectrum of journalists to be honored as the international event celebrates press freedom and journalism,” gloated the official press release. CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota, NBC News host Lester Holt, and Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal are among the prestigious ball-droppers. The symbolism is perfect—but not for the reasons these self-promoters think. After another year of embarrassing and sometimes bizarre behavior, the American news media will shamelessly celebrate themselves as 2018 draws to a close. The irony of people representing media outlets that have polluted our public discourse with some of the most flawed, biased, and conspiratorial news coverage in modern times dropping a ball together in midtown Manhattan is delicious. And their lack of self-awareness makes it even more spectacular. “It is fitting to celebrate free press and free speech as we reflect on where we’ve been during the past year and what it is we value most as a society,” puffed one of the event’s organizers. LOL. So,…

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Century-Old American Art Form Alive and Tapping

Tap dance, a young student says with a giggle, is “a bit louder than ballet.” Wearing leotards and pale pink tights, she and three other girls skip across the floor at a community center in Albany, California. Their shiny black tap shoes make them sound like a small herd of ponies clattering across cobblestones. The sound comes from metal “taps” on their heels and toes, taps that are attached to a small sounding board that makes the sounds crisp and bright. Uniquely American After just a few beginner lessons, these girls can make an explosion of merry syncopated noise doing classic tap moves such as the step-ball-change. By learning these steps, they’re part of a uniquely American art form that dates back to the 1800s, when a melting pot of ethnic percussive dances blended African tribal dances with English clog dancing, with a bit of Scottish hornpipes and jigs. Tap’s improvised inventions fit especially well with the growing popularity of American jazz. African-American dancers such as Bill “Bojangles” Robinson used their skills at tap as a stairway to stardom in the 1930s. High-stepping tap was the hallmark of dozens of movies, from “Singin’ in the Rain” to the animated “Happy…

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Higher Education and the Threat of Fascism

by George Leef   In a recent essay published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley is haunted by a spectre—the spectre of American universities aiding the rise of fascism. (The essay, “Fascism and the University” is subscriber-only content, unfortunately.) He says that “patterns have emerged that suggest the resurgence of fascist politics globally” and lists the United States as among the countries where he sees that occurring. Moreover, he argues that our higher education system could become complicit in the advance of fascism. What does Stanley mean by “fascism?” He defines it as “any ultranationalism—ethnic, religious, or cultural—in which the nation is represented by an authoritarian leader who claims to speak for the people.” He fears fascist politics pave the way for nationalists to achieve power and regards them as dangerous even if they don’t lead to an explicitly fascist state. Focusing on higher education, Stanley says that it has “historically been a bulwark against authoritarianism” but worries that “this time” (meaning the U.S. under Trump), it will instead be “its pawn.” That sounds like a troubling prospect. Ultranationalist fascism creates an overpowering, omnipotent state that serves the interests of a few at the expense of the rest of…

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Commentary: Whatever Happened to Normalcy?

by Jeffery Rendall   Under the “it was bound to happen” category comes news of an imprisoned English transgender man being accused of sexually assaulting his/her fellow female inmates. Not surprisingly the U.K. media was thoroughly confused by the case and didn’t quite know how to treat it. John Ellis of PJ Media reported, “A man who believes he is a woman was charged with raping a woman (guess ‘she’s’ a lesbian) and was housed in a female prison. In a case of ‘well, duh,’ this rapist did what rapists do – he sexually assaulted four female inmates… “[In its report] The Telegraph use[d] the deluded man’s preferred pronoun, adding to the environment that fosters the idea that it’s okay to house male rapists in a female prison. They refuse to see through the stupidity and stake out a position of sanity… “After the female inmates reported the man, he was transferred to an all-male prison, where he should’ve been in the first place. The four assaults on female inmates did not have to happen. If society hadn’t lost its mind pretending that men can be women and women can be men, these four assaults wouldn’t have happened. On at least some level, transgender…

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JC Bowman Commentary: Lives, Fortunes, and Honor

US flags w airman

JC Bowman writes: Freedom should never be taken for granted.  Today we are debating the very concept of what it means to be a citizen of the United States of America.  While many citizens are very passionate about our country, others seem disillusioned and some openly hostile.  It is why the Declaration of Independence is such an important document. It expresses what it means to be an American. 

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