Commentary: Five Stupid Things the Left Would Have You Believe

I was on a media panel talking about what the Left has done to the Fourth Estate in America and how that damage might ultimately be repaired. And afterward, I spent a lot of time interacting with sponsors and attendees, and a common thread seemed to run through those conversations.

Namely, the multiplicity of utterly indefensible, absurd propositions that make up the narratives and constructs by which our left-wing current ruling class seeks to base its power over us.

Read the full story

University of Colorado Boulder Website Declares Misgendering an ‘Act of Violence’

In his report Wednesday that the University of Colorado (CU Boulder) is facing backlash for a statement on its “Pride Office” website that claims misgendering people can be considered an “act of violence,” legal scholar Jonathan Turley observed that when schools declare opposing views to be “violence,” they allow professors and students to “rationalize their own acts of violence or censorship.”

Read the full story

Soros-Funded Dugan Chosen Over Incumbent Pittsburgh-Area Prosecutor Who Could Run As Republican

Leftist attorney Matt Dugan won the Democratic primary for Allegheny County, Pennsylvania district attorney Tuesday night, rejecting six-term incumbent Steve Zappala.

With 97.8 percent of precincts reporting, Dugan, the county’s head public defender, received over 93,000 votes to Zappala’s 74,000. This doesn’t mean the latter can be counted out just yet; if GOP write-in votes — which are still being tallied — number 500 or more for him, he can run against Dugan in the general election this fall. 

Read the full story

Pennsylvania Lawmaker Rebukes Ben Franklin’s Defense of Liberty in Call for Hate-Crimes Bill

Rallying for hate-crimes legislation on the steps of the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg on Monday, state Representative Napoleon Nelson (D-Glenside) rebuked founding father Benjamin Franklin.

The representative observed that a Franklin quote etched into a wall 40 feet from him read, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” 

Read the full story

Pennsylvania State House Members Support State Police Funding Increase; Off-Budget Account Questioned

Pennsylvania’s House Appropriations Committee members signaled general agreement with  Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro’s budget-increase goals for Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) on Monday, though some related issues remain contentious.

Representatives questioned PSP Commissioner Christopher Paris, Acting Deputy Commissioner of Operations George Bivens and other lead staffers at the agency in preparation for the budget process which lawmakers aim to wrap up by June 30. 

Read the full story

AG Merrick Garland Faces Republicans on Senate Judiciary Committee Over Weaponization of DOJ Against Parents, Catholics, and Pro-Life Activists

Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland is expected to face tough questions from Republican senators Wednesday regarding what many in the nation say has been the purposeful weaponization of the Department of Justice against parents of schoolchildren, Catholics who live their faith in the public square, and activists who fight for the vulnerable unborn.

Read the full story

Trump Releases Video Statement on His Plan for Dealing with Atlanta Riots

Former President Donald Trump released a video statement Friday prompted by the riots in Atlanta, calling out the perpetrators and declaring what his actions would be as president under the same circumstances.

Protests against the construction of a new police training facility on Wednesday, January 18 turned violent days later when a man allegedly shot a state trooper during a law enforcement operation at the site. When police shot back, the man died, The Georgia Star News reported.

Read the full story

Philadelphia Again Surpasses 500 Murders, Though Down Slightly from 2021

Philadelphia has again failed to stop murders in the city, as it repeats a homicide toll that surpasses 500 deaths. While murders are down compared to a year ago, the level of violence dwarfs recent years, when as few as 277 murders happened in 2016.

As of December 28, 514 people have been victims of homicide in Philadelphia. That number is down 7% from 2021, when a record 562 people died, but higher than the 499 deaths in 2020 and 356 in 2019.

Read the full story

Florida School Board Meeting Reveals ‘Everyday’ Violence, Chaos in Schools as Teachers Flee

Dozens of teachers have fled a Florida school district amid startling reports of ongoing student violence and chaos there, a contentious school board meeting revealed this week.

Brevard County’s lengthy school board meeting on Thursday revealed what one teacher called “an everyday basis” of violent and disruptive behavior from students in the district’s schools. 

Read the full story

Cleveland Area Gets Nearly $8 Million in State Grants for Anti-Crime Efforts

Governor Mike DeWine (R) announced this week that a new $12.3 million funding package would go to local law enforcement agencies to address violent crime, with Cleveland and Cuyahoga County getting two-thirds of those funds. 

Nearly $1 million will go to the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s office, mainly to hire three new staff attorneys to help the jurisdiction make headway in its backlog of sexual and domestic violence cases. The Cleveland Division of police, the Cleveland State University Police Department and the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office will meanwhile receive an approximate total of $6.5 million, largely to enhance police-officer pay. Euclid’s Police Department will also get $107,000, for technological improvements. 

Read the full story

Ohio Violent Crime Reduction Funds Raised to $100 Million

During a visit to the Whitehall Police Department this week, Gov. Mike DeWine (R) indicated he will expand funding for the Ohio Violent Crime Reduction Grant Program from $58 million to $100 million, citing a nationwide spike in violence.

According to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 2011 and 2020 Uniform Crime Reports, homicides in the Buckeye State rose sharply in the decade between those years. Five hundred murders occurred in Ohio in 2011 and 820 took place in 2020. Regional figures also show violence worsening, with one poll of Franklin County police chiefs showing that aggravated assault increased by 36 percent in that jurisdiction between 2020 and 2021.

Read the full story

Commentary: Even with ‘Defund the Police’ Discredited, Some Schools May Still Shun the Police

Des Moines Police standing at a crime scene

Des Moines this week suffered its first fatal school shooting – reigniting a controversy in the city after the district removed police officers from its schools last year.

Police say a group of teenagers in vehicles outside Des Moines’ East High School fired multiple rounds onto school property on Monday, killing a 15-year-old boy and critically wounding two female students who were bystanders. Six teenagers, some of them current Des Moines students, have been charged with first-degree murder.

The deadly drive-by shooting now hovers over the decision by Des Moines officials, along with about 30 districts across the country, to exile cops from schools. These moves were part of the “defund the police” movement that erupted after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. It’s a movement now reeling in the face of violent crime surging nationwide, punctuated by President Biden’s State of the Union vow last week to “fund the police.”

Read the full story

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee Announces Intent to Regulate Lying

Jay Inslee

Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced plans Thursday to introduce legislation that would regulate candidates and elected officials from spreading lies about elections that are likely to result in violence.

The legislation, which is still being written and has yet to be released, would be “narrowly tailored” to cover “false statements” made for the “purpose of undermining the election process or results,” according to Inslee’s announcement.

“This legislation attempts to follow the relevant U.S. and state supreme court opinions on this issue. We’re talking about candidates and elected officers knowingly throwing bombs at democracy itself when doing so is likely to result in violence,” Inslee said in a statement.

Read the full story

Attorney General Garland Grilled by GOP Senators over Department of Justice Memo Targeting Parents at School Meetings

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday faced a litany of hard-edged Senate questions about agreeing to allow federal law enforcement to investigate alleged incidents of outspoken parents at school board meetings.

Garland, in a memo, agreed to responded to a Sept. 29 letter from the National School Board Association to President Biden asking that the FBI, Justice Department and other federal agencies to investigate potential acts of domestic terrorism at the meetings. Parents across the nation have been voicing their concerns about the curricula being taught to their children, in addition to instances like the one currently playing out in northern Virginia, in which there was an apparent coverup of the sexual assault of a female student in a bathroom.

Read the full story

‘Just Unconscionable’: Parents Protest Outside the Justice Department Against ‘Domestic Terrorist’ Label

Parents protesting

Frustration at school boards boiled over for some parents and activists who protested outside of the Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C. Sunday.

A small crowd gathered for the “Parents Are Not ‘Domestic Terrorists’ Rally,” a reference to Merrick Garland’s Oct. 4 memorandum that called on the FBI to “use its authority” in response to the “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.”

Garland’s statement followed a letter from the National School Board Association (NSBA) that asked the federal government to get involved in the alleged “immediate threat” of violence from parents against American public schools and education officials. The letter encouraged President Joe Biden’s administration to use statutes such as the USA PATRIOT Act to address actions that could be “equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”

Read the full story

‘Majority of Faculty Agree with Many or Even Most of My Positions’: Canceled Professor Speaks Out

Dorian Abbot

A University of Chicago professor, whose prestigious lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was cancelled at the behest of a Twitter mob who disagreed with his viewpoints, warns that “free society is at risk” as “woke ideology” and cancel culture takes hold.

Dorian Abbot, a professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago, had his appearance at the Carlson Lecture cancelled on Sept. 30 “to avoid controversy” just eight days after a Twitter mob consisting of MIT students, postdocs and recent alumni went after him, according to a written account published on Common Sense by Bari Weiss

For 10 years, Abbot has been teaching and researching climate change and the possibility of life on extrasolar planets, never considering himself a very political person until about five years ago when he noticed a shift in attitude toward discussions involving a difference in opinions, Abbot wrote on Weiss’ Substack.

Read the full story

Several Dozen Killed in Friday Suicide Bombing at Afghan Mosque

Afghanistan mosque

Several dozen worshippers were killed Friday in a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque in Afghanistan’s northern city of Kunduz. The attack is the deadliest in the country since U.S. forces completely withdrew from the region in late August.

It is not yet confirmed which group is responsible for the attack, though it displayed key elements of those carried out by the Islamic State-Khorasan Province, an Islamic State regional affiliate that has targeted Shiite civilians in the past.

The attack was conducted at about 1 p.m. local time as weekly mosque-goers were attending a sermon. A spokesman for the provincial government reported that at least 46 people were killed, though that figure is expected to rise significantly. Hundreds of patients in critical condition were admitted to local hospitals following the blast.

Read the full story

Commentary: Little Outcry over Antifa’s Equal-Opportunity Beatdowns of Journalists Left and Right

From covering displaced refugees around the globe to the obstacles faced by protesters seeking change in America, freelance photojournalist Maranie Staab believes her camera can be a force for truth and social justice. The work of a “conflict photographer” often requires physical courage in places she has reported from, such as Africa and the Middle East. It certainly did so on Aug. 22, while Staab was covering demonstrations in Portland, Ore.

Members of the left-wing group antifa called her a “slut” and then demanded that journalists assembled to cover the protests “get the f— out.” Staab, a 2020 reporting fellow for the liberal Pulitzer Center, tried to calm the situation. She was assaulted. She told the Willamette Week that they grabbed her phone and smashed it. Then they threw her to the pavement and sprayed her with mace. The ugly assault on Staab (below) was filmed and distributed quickly online, resulting in widespread condemnation.  “If we’re on a public street and a newsworthy event is occurring, you’re not going to tell me what I can and cannot film,” Staab told the weekly newspaper.

Read the full story

Journalism Professor Deletes Tweet That Appeared to Advocate for Violence Against Rand Paul

University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism Professor Mike Wagner appeared to encourage Republican Senator Rand Paul’s neighbor to assault him in response to the libertarian politician’s comments on COVID mandates.

Rene Boucher, the senator’s Kentucky neighbor, attacked Paul in 2017, allegedly over a dispute about a pile of sticks. Boucher had to pay damages to Paul and served home confinement and time in jail, according to NBC News.

Read the full story

Arizona Supreme Court: Schools Not Responsible for Students Off-Campus

Arizona Supreme Court

The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that schools cannot be held accountable for off-campus incidents of violence between students. 

Diannah Dinsmoor, the mother of high school student Ana G., who was shot and killed by her classmate in 2014, brought claims for wrongful death, negligence, and gross negligence against the Deer Valley Unified School District and the City of Phoenix in Dinsmoor v. City of Phoenix. Dinsmoor argued that school officials knew that Ana and her classmate, identified by court records as Matthew B., were dating and that Matthew had a history of violence with an ex-girlfriend, known on court records as Raven. Ana met Matthew at a friend’s house after school where he shot and killed her and then himself.

The superior court ruled on Friday that the defendant did not owe Ana or Dinsmoor a duty as necessary to support Dinsmoor’s claims.

Read the full story

California Professor Who Started Wildfires and Tried to Trap Firefighters Predicted Trump Would ‘Get Violent’ If He Lost 2020 Election

Dr. Gary Maynard, the California professor allegedly behind a number of wildfires raging in Northern California, who is accused of intentionally trying to trap fire crews with his fires, is an anti-Trumper who said in an interview last November that President Trump suffered from Malignant Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and could become violent and destructive in response to defeat.

“Donald Trump’s lack of or unwillingness to self-reflect in order to self-improve, and his lack of empathy while being threatened with his first major, public, political and personal defeat, might activate a sense of the need for the use of violence, violent protests by his supporters or outright sabotage of the nation by locking down the economy or some other major act to damage the nation before he is forced to leave office, if he loses,” Maynard told left-wing journalist Charles Krause, who writes for The Globalist.

Read the full story

Rising Crime Forces Liberals to Reckon with Their Stance on the Police

by Ailan Evans   As rates of violent crime continue to rise across the country and once-safe neighborhoods face increased dangers, many liberal communities are having to confront their complicated relationship with the police. Following the killing of George Floyd in May 2020, the defund the police movement attracted attention and support among liberals, earning endorsements from celebrities and lawmakers alike. Roughly 50% of Democrats supported defunding the police in June 2020, according to a June 2020 poll from FiveThirtyEight. The movement, defined by Brookings Institute Fellow Rashawn Ray as support for “reallocating or redirecting funding away from the police department to other government agencies funded by the local municipality,” arose in response to systemic police brutality and racism. The movement achieved some success, with over 20 cities cutting or diverting police department budgets, The Guardian reported. However, as police departments endured budget cuts, crime has skyrocketed. Faced with increasing violence in their communities, some residents of liberal cities have begun looking to the police for help. Liberal Communities Fear For Their Safety The Greenwich Village neighborhood around Washington Square Park in New York City has a strong liberal base, with around 90% of voters selecting President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, according to data from The New York Times. Last week, residents…

Read the full story

Commentary: The Inevitable Fruits of Critical Race Theory

Captured in a metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia primary school, seated amongst his classmates, this photograph depicts a young Asian-American school boy, who was in the process of creating a drawing, and was choosing from a box of crayons, the colors he’d use in order to bring his ideas to life. It is important to know that these objects are known as fomites, and can act as transmitters of illnesses.

A black man went on a multistate shooting spree recently. The suspected gunman, Justin Tyran Williams, said he specifically targeted white men in his rampage that left five wounded. “Basically, [Williams] explained throughout his life, specifically white males had taken from him, and also what he described as military-looking white males had taken from him,” Columbus (Georgia) Police detective Brandon Lockhart testified Monday.

A racially motivated mass shooting would be the number one news story on CNN . . . were the races reversed. But a black man intentionally shooting white men is just not that interesting to those outside of conservative media.

Read the full story

New York Psychiatrist Admits in Yale Lecture to Fantasizing About Shooting White People

Aruna Khilanani

A psychiatrist from New York City went on a racist rant back in April in which she expressed her desire to kill White people simply because they are White, as heard in recently-revealed audio of the lecture, the New York Post reports.

The comments were made by Dr. Aruna Khilanani during a lecture to the Yale School of Medicine on April 6th. She said that she dreams of “unloading a revolver into the head of any White person that got in my way,” and that if she did so, she would leave the scene of the crime “with a bounce in my step.” She added that White people “make [her] blood boil,” and also believes that White people “are out of their minds and have been for a long time.”

The lecture was titled “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind.” During the speech, Khilanani talked about “learning objectives” such as “[setting] up White people’s absence of empathy towards black rage as a problem,” and also claiming that “White people are psychologically dependent on black rage.” These details, along with the full audio of the lecture, were posted online via Substack on Friday, by former New York Times editor Bari Weiss.

Read the full story

Commentary: Time to Confront the U.S. Capitol Police About Its January 6 Lies

The body of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick wasn’t even cold before his employer leveraged his untimely death to stoke more outrage about the events in the nation’s capital on January 6.

“At approximately 9:30 p.m. this evening . . . United States Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick passed away due to injuries sustained while on-duty,” read a press release issued January 7. “Officer Sicknick was responding to the riots [and] was injured while physically engaging with protesters.  He returned to his division office and collapsed.  He was taken to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. The death of Officer Sicknick will be investigated by the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch, the USCP, and our federal partners.”

The agency intentionally included the word “homicide” to suggest Sicknick was killed by homicidal Trump supporters. The next day, the New York Times, citing two anonymous law enforcement officials, claimed “pro-Trump rioters . . . overpowered Mr. Sicknick, 42, and struck him in the head with a fire extinguisher.”

Read the full story

Journalist and Author Andy Ngo Discusses Being Canceled by Culture Summit and the Slow Creep of Critical Race Theory in Evangelical Christianity

Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Conservative Journalist and Author Andy Ngo on the newsmakers line to discuss his disinvitation from the upcoming Culture Summit Christian conference in Nashville and the trending critical race theory in the evangelical community.

Read the full story

Commentary: Our Government Is Oblivious to Invasion

Recently while driving from town to my house, I was running through some radio stations when I landed on the Glenn Beck show. His guest was Lara Logan, a journalist and commentator unfamiliar to me, and I was sickened and horrified by what I heard. I wish I were exaggerating, but what that woman had to say left me depressed for the rest of the day.

We are being invaded—and not just by illegal immigrants.

Logan, an expert on the situation at our border with Mexico, had much to say about the cartels that are behind the current influx of illegal immigrants into the United States. She relayed that the cartels no longer resemble what most of us, including me, have believed them to be, drug gangs battling for power with one another. No, they are now making millions each and every day smuggling immigrants into our country, including sexual criminals, murderers, and slaves.

Read the full story

Black Lives Matter Linked to 91 Percent of Riots Over Three Months, Study Finds

The Black Lives Matter movement is linked to more than nine-in-ten riots across the country, according to a recent study.

The U.S. experienced 637 riots between May 26 and Sept. 12, and 91% of those riots were linked to the Black Lives Matter movement, according to the US Crisis Monitor, a joint project of the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project and the Bridging Divides Initiative at Princeton University.

Read the full story

Opioids, Violence and the Supreme Court Largely Omitted from DNC Convention Speeches

Democrats focused on coronavirus, climate change, racial inequality and more during their party’s convention, but none pf the keynote speakers mentioned rising violence in cities across the country or the opioid epidemic during the primetime program.

The two issues have been worsening in part due to nationwide unrest and the pandemic, media reports and studies say. The Supreme Court — a large focus of the 2016 election — was also largely ignored.

Read the full story

Ohio’s Elyria Residents Mourn as Apparent Murder-Suicide Claims Five

The City of Elyria is in mourning after what’s being called a ‘murder-suicide’ claimed the lives of five people yesterday. Police conducted a health and wellness inspection of the home where they discovered the scene. The bodies of at least three children were among the dead. 

Police are investigating an apparent-murder suicide that claimed the lives of five Elyria residents. Police arrived yesterday morning at the Willow Park Road home to conduct a health and wellness inspection. Upon arriving they discovered the bodies, including at least three children aged between six and twelve.

Read the full story

GOP Senate Candidate Dr. Manny Sethi Received Grants from Anti-Gun Rights Foundation for Violence Prevention and Conflict Resolution Programs

Dr. Manny Sethi has ties with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), an organization that does not support gun rights. But, the NRA considers the GOP Senate candidate to be pro-gun and he has made statements against gun control.

Sethi and former Ambassador to Japan Bill Hagerty are competing for the Republican nomination to succeed retiring Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) in the U.S. Senate. Election day is next Thursday, August 6.

Read the full story

DOJ Announces Twin Cities Violent Crimes Task Force In Response to ‘Extraordinary Spike’ in Violence

The Department of Justice announced the formation of a new Twin Cities Violent Crimes Task Force Wednesday in response to an “extraordinary spike in gun violence and violent crimes.”

Erica MacDonald, U.S. attorney for the District of Minnesota, said the task force will bring together federal and state resources to assist local law enforcement in investigating, arresting, and prosecuting individuals responsible for gun violence.

Read the full story