Planned Parenthood Video Calls Virginity ‘Made Up’ and Not Inclusive of ‘Queer People’

Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood released a video Wednesday arguing that virginity is a “completely made up concept” and complains that the term leaves out queer people.

The video opens with a woman in a classroom, who argues that the word virginity was “created simply to control and shame people” and later claims that the reason “virginity is whack” is because “sex means different things to different people.” The woman says that the traditional definition of virginity, “penetration – penis into vagina,” doesn’t fit queer people or those who choose to have other kinds of sex such as anal.

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Southern States Are Growing While The Northeast Shrinks

New Home

Over the past few years, states in the American South have come to economically surpass the Northeast, owing to policies like lower taxes and better business environments spurring prosperity and population growth, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The gross domestic product of Florida, Texas, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee surpassed the cumulative economy of the Northeast in 2020 for the first time since data has been tracked and has continued to exceed growth since, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis compiled by Bloomberg. The growth comes as businesses and people flock to the region seeking affordability, job opportunities, lighter tax and regulation laws and freedom from dense urban areas, according to experts who spoke to the DCNF.

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Leahy and Brewer Discuss Gov. Bill Lee’s Absence from GOP Governors Letter Demanding Biden Drop EV Mandates

EVs charging

All-star panelist Clint Brewer joined Tuesday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy where he discussed the reasoning behind Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s exclusion from a letter sent by Republican governors to President Joe Biden in regards to his administration’s “mandates” electric vehicle (EVs) mandates.

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Over 25 Percent of Gen Z Now Say They’re Queer: Poll

Gen Z

Over 25% of Americans born between 1997 and 2012 identify as LGBTQ, significantly higher than previous generations, according to a Tuesday poll from the Public Religion Research Institute.

The poll found that nearly 50% of Gen Z are more likely to identify as liberal and tend to be less religious than their millennial, Gen X or baby boomer counterparts. Meanwhile, 28% of Gen Z consider themselves LGBTQ, compared to only 16% of millennials, 7% of Gen X and a mere 4% of baby boomers.

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Reported Death Toll from Winter Storms Up to 27

As of Sunday, 27 people are dead after Tennessee was pummeled with winter weather last week, as confirmed by the Tennessee Department of Health (TDOH). 

As part of a release from the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA), TDOH said eight people in Shelby County, four in Knox County, two in Marshall County, two in Washington County, and two in Roane County had died as a result of the storms. 

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Top Trans Doctor Bemoans How ‘White’ the Sex Change Industry Is in Unearthed Video

Psychologist Dr. Wallace Wong claimed that transgender medical care is suffering from the influence of white people during a medical training course for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) in September 2022, according to a video obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

WPATH is an international organization founded in 1979 that seeks to train medical and mental health professionals on how to treat transgender patients, including minors, according to its website. During WPATH’s 27th annual training symposium, Wong gave a presentation on how medical professionals should handle minority clients and their families, saying transgender minorities “don’t trust the white culture,” according to the video obtained by the DCNF.

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SHOCK POLL: Nearly 90 Percent of Ivy League Grads Support ‘Strict’ Rationing of Gas, Meat, Electricity to ‘Fight Climate Change’

Nearly 90 percent of Ivy League graduates support the “strict” rationing of gas, meat and electricity to fight climate change, according to a new poll.

The conservative Committee to Unleash Prosperity, in a survey that sought to measure the beliefs of “elites,” stated the findings reveal climate change “is clearly an obsession of the very rich and highly educated.”

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Commentary: This National School Choice Week, Let’s Celebrate Return to Founding Principles

The school choice policies sweeping the nation may be among the most innovative—and promising—enacted in recent memory. Yet they also embody a return to principles first enshrined in American law nearly 400 years ago.

In 1642, when the Massachusetts Bay Colony crafted the nation’s first education law, its objective was clear: Parents must educate their children.

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REVIEW: ‘Guns, Girls, and Greed’ Offers a Ground-Level Look at Modern Warfare

History is written by the victors but rarely gives the view of the people who fought it. Politicians and military generals talk about war in platitudes, while the ones they send to combat rarely get their stories out. Guns, Girls, and Greed; I was a Blackwater Mercenary in Iraq flips this paradigm by giving the reader a ground-level perspective of the war in Iraq.

In the vein of Catch-22, the author is unrelenting in calling out the insanity of combat and diplomatic missions in Iraq in 2004–05. Lerette shows how military and political hubris collide to create a new way to wage combat—using private military contractors under the guise of diplomacy to wage war.

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Harvard Medical School Affiliate Looks to Retract Multiple Studies, Correct Papers

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

A Harvard Medical School affiliate is planning to retract six studies and correct 31 papers due to an ongoing investigation into several senior cancer researchers and administrators, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The investigation involves more than 50 papers, four of which are co-authored by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute CEO and President Dr. Laurie Glimcher, according to the WSJ. The institute has not determined whether research misconduct occurred, although several requests for retractions and corrections have been sent to journals.

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Commentary: Tips for Practicing Everyday Hospitality

Waitress Customer

It’s not hard to imagine grandiose examples of hospitality. The older woman who hosts a crop of teenagers in her home every Thursday night. The man who frequently invites church visitors to his family’s Sunday dinner. The neighbor who throws quarterly block parties and welcomes the whole town.

In these situations, hospitality is obvious (and, let’s admit, impressive). But for those of us who don’t have the financial means or living space to host large dinners or parties, offering hospitality can seem elusive. For me, without a house of my own, hospitality can even feel impossible.

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Former Trump Campaign Spokesman Steve Cortes: Chattanooga is Trying to Implement Policy ‘Straight from the World Economic Forum’

Steve Cortes, former Senior Spokesman and Strategist for the 2016 and 2020 Trump campaigns and National Spokesman of the Ron DeSantis Never Back Down super PAC, joined Monday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy where he discussed the city of Chattanooga’s embracement of the 15-Minute City concept.

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New York, California, Other Blue States Succeed in Altering 2020 Census Numbers: Report

Times Square, New York City

The Democrat-run states such as New York and Illinois are increasing 2020 census numbers after successfully asking for a review of the once-a-decade population survey that helps determine federal funding distribution as the states struggle with population losses.  

The distribution of the population of California is also being changed following a review, the Associated Press reported Thursday. That report says that “the once-a-decade census produces population figures that help determine political power and the annual distribution of $2.8 trillion in federal funding. The Census Bureau has two programs giving governments opportunities to have their population totals reviewed and adjusted if need be. Nearly 200 requests for reviews were filed by tribal, local and state governments for the 2020 census.”

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Roberts and Milei Put the Globalists in Davos on Notice

While globalists, heads of large corporations, and officials in international organizations may consider democracy more of a spectator sport than a representative political system embraced by countries around the world, at least they were willing to allow some competition into the ring this year. In addition to its usual list of drastically tired global elites such as John Kerry, Bill Gates, and U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, The World Economic Forum decided to invite a handful of conservative leaders to its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland this past week. The opposition offered a reality check to those in desperate need of one, even if it wasn’t welcome. A couple of unabashed speakers even drew a little blood. 

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Thousands Converge for Snowy 2024 March for Life, Take on Reforging New Identity Post-Roe

by Isaac Willour   The 2024 March for Life brought thousands into the streets of Washington D.C. on Friday amid driving wind and snow to show support for the unborn and address a pivotal question: After the overturn of Roe, where is the movement going? Attendees gathered on the National Mall for the 51st annual rally, then marched to the Supreme Court, which in 2022 decided Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, overturning Roe v. Wade and giving the decision on abortion laws up to individual states. Tens of thousands took part in Friday’s march—far fewer than many marches in the pre-Dobbs era. Yet, the smaller turnout didn’t dampen the spirit of the event’s organizers. “There’s a lot of you,” March for Life President Jeanne Mancini told attendees. Among the signs peppering the crowd on Friday: “Abortion is murder,” “Gay rights starts at conception,” “Life is our revolution,” “Forceps off their bodies,” “Make more babies,” and “Let their hearts beat.” The marchers included high school and college students, families, retirees, priests, pastors and lawmakers. The rally, preceded by a concert courtesy of American Idol finalist Danny Gokey, featured speakers ranging from legislators to cultural icons. “This is what the heart of the pro-life movement is about: helping women…

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Commentary: The Loss of the Sacred in American Culture

Catholic Church

There’s a grim scene near the end of The Iliad in which the Greek hero Achilles, because of his rage and grief over the death of his comrade Patroclus at the hands of the Trojan prince Hector, slays Hector in battle and drags his corpse behind his chariot, day after day, desecrating the body in a manner unthinkable to the ancient Greeks. In fact, the affront to the dignity of this hero and prince, as well as the violation of the sacred customs of Greek society, eventually compels the gods to intervene. They tell Priam, the elderly king of Troy, to go to Achilles and plead for the body of Hector so that it may be properly honored and buried. The gods will not allow such a desecration to continue.

In these final lines of this epic poem—which, along with The Odyssey forms the bedrock of Western literature and arguably Western Civilization as a whole—Homer reaffirms a notion that all Greeks would have agreed with: There are certain lines that must not be crossed, certain sacred realities that cannot be defied, even by the semidivine hero Achilles.

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Commentary: No, Ladies, We Cannot Have It All

Woman Stressed out at work

The phrase “having it all” came from the title of a 1982 book written by Helen Gurley Brown, then editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine. As Antoinette Lattouf, writing in The Guardian in early 2023, put it, this self-help book for women focused on “money, sex, diet, exercise, and appearance.” Notably, it made no mention of children or family.

Since then, of course, the phrase has come to take on an even broader meaning. Today, “having it all” is touted as a woman’s reaching her full potential by having an education, lucrative formal career, rewarding marriage, happy children, and an active social life. Of course, this ideal is vague at best and destructive at worst.

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Nashville School Hosts ‘LGBTQ+ Identities’ in ‘Diversity Night Speaker Series’ to ‘Support Elementary Kids’

Sylvan Park Paideia Elementary School PTO

An elementary school Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) affiliated with Sylvan Park Paideia Elementary in Nashville is holding a “diversity night” featuring guest speakers who will offer information about “LGBTQ+ identities” and “how to support elementary kids through these identities” on February 8.

According to an event listing on the Sylvan Park school website, supporting elementary school children who do not identify as heterosexual “starts with educating and supporting the parents/caregivers and educators about these identities so children feel comfortable to talk about their own process as well as their peers’ process.”

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Commentary: DEI Destroys Excellence, Military Cohesion at Service Academies

Military

Applicants who self-identified as a member of a race the Academy wished to privilege—at the time I was on the Admissions Board it was African American, Hispanic, and Native American—were briefed separately to the committee not by a white member but by a minority Navy lieutenant. Briefings (a minute and forty seconds per applicant, no more) ran through a number of factors quite quickly and offered a recommendation that we had been told was appropriate: “qualified” for USNA if grades A/B for white applicants (but not minorities, who needed only C grades), 600 score in each part of the SAT for white applicants (but about 550 for minorities who come to USNA without remediation), and Whole Person Multiple (points given for grades/tests, school leadership positions, and sports) of at least 55,000 for whites, no bottom for minorities.

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14 Tennesseans Dead Due to Extreme Winter Weather, Health Department Confirms

Nashville Snow

The Tennessee Department of Health (TDH)  confirmed 14 Tennesseans died due to the winter weather and extreme cold in the state.

“The Tennessee Department of Health has confirmed 14 weather-related fatalities. Five in Shelby County, one in Hickman County, one in Madison County, two in Washington County, one in Carroll County, one in Knox County, one in Van Buren County, one in Lauderdale County, and one in Henry County,” the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) wrote in its Wednesday evening Flash Report.

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Commentary: Only Trump Can Save America

I believed that Republican voters were ready for a new post-Trump chapter of the America First movement. I now believe I was wrong. Those of us who backed Ron DeSantis – or the other Republican candidates – should read the room. Former President Trump winnowed the field effortlessly and then crushed the remaining three candidates in Iowa. He leads in the polls everywhere else. It is time to coalesce and unite behind the clear preference of the GOP grassroots, Donald John Trump.

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Senator James Lankford Commentary: The Abortion Industry’s ‘Very Safe’ Lie Is Putting Women at Very Big Risk

James Lankford

It sounds so simple. Take these pills, and your problem will be over—except, it isn’t. People do not forget an event so significant. A few months ago, social media went into a frenzy when Britney Spears shared that she was pressured by her boyfriend 20 years ago to take abortion pills. After two decades she still described the chemical abortion as “one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life.” She is not alone.

The abortion industry has worked overtime to convince women that chemical abortions are “very safe”—even making the claim that they are safer than Tylenol. They attempt to conflate chemical abortions with contraceptive pills to push them on moms as a “safe” way to end a pregnancy. But the drugs used in a chemical abortion are far more dangerous.

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Gates Foundation Announces Intentions for Record-Breaking Donations in 2024

Gates Foundation

On Monday, the left-wing Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced from the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland that it intends to spend billions of dollars on left-wing causes in the year 2024.

According to the Daily Caller, the foundation’s board of trustees voted in favor of a record-high budget of $8.6 billion in 2024, up from the previous year’s $8.3 billion and $7 billion in 2022. The foundation has a history of spending millions on such causes as abortion, pro-Democrat nonprofits, and Chinese government entities.

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Commentary: Four Things People Can Do to Change the Culture in 2024

People Praying

Maybe I am on a new year high, but as I consider the West’s cultural renewal, I sense an optimism in the air I haven’t felt for years.

In 2023, we saw a growing public awareness about the dangers and futility of transgender surgery. Alongside that, many woke up to the hypocrisy of the climate alarmists. And building on the success of Roe v. Wade’s demise, many states have now passed heartbeat bills, providing robust protections for many of the nation’s unborn. Surprisingly, pollsters even picked up on a decline in support for same-sex relationships.

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Tennessee Lawmakers Propose Legislation Banning Banks, Credit Card Companies from Tracking Purchases of Guns and Ammo

State Rep. Todd Warner (R-Chapel Hill) and State Sen. Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald) introduced legislation on Wednesday that would prohibit banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions from tracking purchases of firearms.

Warner filed HB 1784 and Hensley filed SB 1702 to make it “an unfair or deceptive trade practice” for any “financial institution to require a firearms retailer to use firearms-specific transaction codes” after the industry began creating a new credit card merchant category code for purchases of firearms and ammunition, which they claimed would help identify dangerous gun owners or suspicious transactions. 

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Georgia Universities Rebrand, Rename Diversity Efforts in Wake of New Anti-DEI Regulations

As Georgia universities respond to new anti-Diversity, Equity and Inclusion regulations in the state, at least one outspoken scholar argues the efforts are not actually eliminating DEI.

The University System of Georgia in 2023 banned the use of DEI statements for hiring, and colleges and universities in the state were also told to discontinue the use of DEI terminology in teaching training standards.

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Lawmakers, Veterans Say ‘Woke Diversity Initiatives’ Cost Taxpayers, Hurt Military

A growing concern about progressive ideology on race and gender at all levels of the U.S. military has sparked outrage and became the center of a Congressional hearing. Critics have launched a barrage of attacks on the progressive ideology they say is infiltrating the ranks, calling it a waste of taxpayer dollars and arguing it hurts morale, breeds division among troops, and hurts recruitment.

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Commentary: ‘To Have and to Hold’: Marrying Young and Making It Last

Marriage

Kate Z. works in childcare and as a part-time barista in my local coffee shop. She’s the oldest of 10 children, with seven brothers and two sisters. Home-educated during elementary school, Kate then entered Padre Pio Academy here in Front Royal, Virginia, a hybrid school which combines homeschooling with three days a week in the classroom. She graduated in 2021 and currently lives in an apartment.

Jesse R. is adopted and the youngest of three siblings. For the most part, he was homeschooled before entering Padre Pio. He also graduated in 2021 and works as a chef de partie in the restaurant of a retirement community. He shares a house with a friend.

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Commentary: Americans Embrace Religion, Reject Religious Bigotry

People Praying

More than half a century ago, Time magazine famously asked, “Is God Dead?” The black and red cover, the magazine’s first to include only text, sparked countless angry sermons and thousands of letters from readers accusing Time of engaging in tasteless nihilism, Marxist pandering, and outright blasphemy.

The question, which typified the counter-culture movement and the intellectual radicalism of the 1960s, was far off the mark both then and now. The United States has always been and remains a very religious nation despite steep declines in attendance at churches, synagogues, and mosques – trends that have captured far more headlines in recent years than the nation’s enduring faith. America is also a majority Christian nation, though other religious groups and affiliations and those identifying as non-believers are growing.

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Riley Gaines, Other Prominent Female Athletes Protest NCAA Convention in Phoenix For Allowing Transgenders in Women’s Sports

Some of the top female athletes in the country, including swimmer Riley Gaines, attended and spoke at a protest Thursday outside the annual National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) convention in downtown Phoenix. Organized by the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) and numerous other groups, the athletes demanded that the NCAA stop allowing transgender females to compete against women in collegiate sports, and each one spoke about their own experiences.

Gaines opened the event, which took place at the Marvin A. Andrews Plaza outside Phoenix City Hall. Gaines is a 12-time All-American swimmer and IWF ambassador. She said allowing men who identify as women to compete against women “is not progressive, it is regressive. It’s taking us back in time at least half a century. … Title 9 was enacted and enforced to protect women and girls, not men who want to be like us.” She repeated a line featured on the signs the women held, “We have come too far to be erased.”

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Walz Compares Keeping Minnesota State Flag with ‘Saving the Confederate Battle Flag’

On a Twin Cities radio show earlier this week, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz dismissed Republican efforts to keep Minnesota’s current state flag.

“Minnesota is a diverse state, it continues to grow. This flag was crafted in the 1890s,” said Gov. Walz regarding Minnesota’s current flag. “It’s highly offensive to a large number of people, and there’s very little debate about that.”

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Arizona Department of Education Demands Evidence Schools Are Complying with Mandatory Holocaust Education

Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne sent a letter on Tuesday demanding each school in Arizona provide evidence demonstrating compliance with a state law mandating students learn about the Holocaust by January 24.

Horne notified schools via email to “report us by close of business” on January 24 “what you are doing to implement ARS Section 15-701.2 regarding instruction on the Holocaust and other genocides,” and for schools to “indicate how much time is devoted to the subject and what you use for curriculum.”

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Hispanics Most Likely to Say Immigration Is a Top Priority: Poll

Illegal Immigrants Walking

Hispanics were the most likely racial group to rank immigration as their most pressing matter, according to an Associated Press (AP)-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll published on Wednesday.

A total of 43% of Hispanic adults identified immigration as the number one priority for the government to address, surpassing 36% of white respondents, 29% of Asians and Pacific Islanders and 19% of black respondents sharing the same sentiment, according to the AP. Moreover, 35% of American adults surveyed named immigration as a main issue, consisting of 55% of Republicans and 22% of Democrats, according to the poll.

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Commentary: America’s ‘Social Justice’ Nightmares Have Only Intensified

Pills

Seattle is in King County, Washington, where Joe Biden got 75 percent of the vote in the 2020 election. King County had more than 1,000 drug overdoses involving fentanyl in 2023. These two facts are almost certainly related, but which is the cause and which the effect? Or could it be that both (a) the tendency to vote for Democrats and (b) the addiction to dangerous drugs are caused by some unknown factor? Without a careful analysis of the available data to identify that unknown background factor, is it wrong to hazard a guess that the overdosing dopeheads and Democratic voters in King County are just plain stupid?

Beyond sarcastic put-downs, it behooves those interested in public policy to take a look at what’s going on in places like Seattle, where Democrats dominate and “progressive” ideas therefore advance unhindered by any effective opposition. In the case of King County’s skyrocketing drug overdoses — which increased nearly 50 percent in just the past year — local officials have declared the problem “a public health crisis.” However, fentanyl is illegal, which means that the overdoses are also indicative of a crime problem, and progressives are against putting criminals in prison.

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Commentary: The Inherently Destructive Uniparty Agenda

Congress

It’s easy enough to blame Democrats for everything, but as a rapidly increasing percentage of American voters have realized, Republicans share the blame. These politicians are controlled by their donors, and in America today, the big donors are in agreement regardless of which party or which candidate gets their money.

This, then, is what has become dubbed America’s uniparty. And while wealthy elites have always exercised disproportionate influence in American politics, and, for that matter, the politics of virtually every nation that has ever existed, what is happening in 21st century America is unique.

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Commentary: Biden Lashes Out at the Half of the Country That Refuses to Vote for Him

Joe Biden

Neither gender policy, nor multiculturalism, nor climate change. It’s all nonsense that entertains politicians but is useless for winning elections, because voters see it as just that: nonsense. The Democrats have already realized this and have a new reason for you to vote for them: saving democracy. It is funny that the Left, the ideology that has caused more poverty, crimes, and totalitarianism in history, comes to save democracy. But Joe Biden’s speech on Jan. 5 left no room for doubt. It’s your choice: Democrats or chaos. 

The only thing they show with this change of direction (they don’t so much as mention Bidenomics anymore) is that they are desperate. After all they’ve committed against Donald Trump, after all they’ve done to muddy the playing field, with all the traps laid out and all the lies, the guy is still leading in the polls, while the zombie in the White House is becoming more and more zombie-like and less and less in the White House.

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Commentary: America’s Last Stand Is the Most Important Book in America

Thomas Paine

Nearly two and a half centuries ago, the 18th-century American colonists were confronted with a choice: whether or not to continue living their lives as British subjects and supporting the crown or to sever their ties with Great Britain and declare their independence. The choice may seem obvious and easy today, but at the time—circa 1776—a great many colonists were hesitant to choose freedom, and others even supported the crown. They needed persuading.

Fortunately, a virtually unknown immigrant named Thomas Paine felt compelled to persuade the American colonists to choose freedom. His pamphlet, Common Sense, was published on January 10, 1776, and its influence cannot be overstated. It was read by the modern equivalent of 15 million people at the time and provided the fuel the colonists needed to choose independence.

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