Commentary: The Left Knows Leftism Doesn’t Work

Joe Biden in front of a burning building (composite image)

Do not expect the radical left to survey the wreckage of socialism and communism in history and accept that statism impoverishes people and erodes their freedoms. There will never be admissions by our elite that progressivism exists mainly for the acquisition of power by the utopian and virtue-signaling few, who ensure that they are never subject to the baleful implementation of their ideological agendas on the rest of us.

Still, leftists look around at what they have done to America in the last four years and implicitly know that the plan did not work, the people detested it, or both.

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Pro-Palestinian Protesters Vandalize Statues Outside White House During Massive Protest

Pro-Palestinian Protesters

Pro-Palestinian protesters vandalized statues and threw items at a National Park Service ranger near the White House during a Saturday protest calling for a cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas, according to multiple videos.

“Surround the White House for Gaza” was held Saturday afternoon and deemed a “national mobilization” to call for an “immediate ceasefire, an immediate end to the siege on Gaza, the freedom of all Palestinian prisoners, and an end to the occupation of Palestine,” according to a description of the event. Videos posted on social media appeared to show protesters vandalized statues, harassed a National Park Service ranger and set off smoke bombs.

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SPLC Changes Number of ‘Radical Traditional Catholic Hate Groups’ in Latest ‘Hate Map’ After FBI Backlash

You may have heard that, early last year, the FBI issued a memo targeting Catholics—specifically “radical traditional Catholics”—that relied on the work of the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center. The FBI rushed to rescind the memo on Catholics after a whistleblower published it and The Daily Signal demanded answers.

This week, the SPLC released its annual list of “hate groups” and the “radical traditional Catholic” category remains.

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Investigation Reveals Two Arizona Cities Spent Millions on Homelessness with Little Result

Homeless Encampment

Arizona’s two largest cities allocated tens of millions of dollars to fight homelessness in the past several years, but little has changed, according to a Goldwater Institute investigative report released Thursday.

“We’ve seen Phoenix and Tucson spend, combined, almost half a billion dollars on this issue with very minimal improvements in the area of homelessness,” Austin VanDerHeyden, municipal affairs liaison for the Goldwater Institute, told The Daily Signal.

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Commentary: Christianity, Capitalism, and Colonialism Are Nothing to Be Ashamed Of

Catholic Chapel

We’ve all heard the rhetorical attacks on Western Civilization—often centered on Christianity, capitalism, or colonialism, and often on all three. Among radical leftists, the consensus is that these elements are evil, but given that each is currently or historically integral to civilization as we know it, it’s worth examining the data to determine whether they deserve to be so despised.

First, Christianity. A 2018 study found that religion was “the decisive background factor” determining how much human rights were respected in any given country. And not all religions had the same impact. The percentage of Christians in the population was closely associated with a nation upholding human rights, whereas the percentage of Muslims was the opposite—that is, Muslim countries were less likely to uphold such rights. Another study reached similar conclusions about the effects of Christianity vis-à-vis Islam on nations’ ranking in the Good Country Index. (The index measures countries’ “contributions to global prosperity in domains such as peace, climate and health.”)

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Olympic Committee Warns Media Against Using ‘Biologically Male,’ ‘Female’ When Referring to Trans Athletes

Olympic athletes

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued media guidelines on Thursday that urged reporters not to use specific terms while covering transgender athletes.

The IOC, which governs the Olympic Games, published its Portrayal Guidelines ahead of the 2024 Paris event to “provide practical checklists and advice to help ensure gender-equal and fair representation of all athletes across all forms of media and communication,” the press release reads. The guide includes a section on “Problematic Language” that included the phrases “biologically male” and “biologically female.”

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Maryville College Refuses to Hold Blount County Pride Event

A gay pride group in Blount County said on its Facebook page that it was denied rental space at Maryville College to host an event during “Pride Month.”

“In hopes of replicating the joy and success of our 2023 event at Clayton Center for the Arts, we once again submitted an application to Maryville College for Blount Pride 2024,” Blount Pride said. “Our application was considered for several months, after which we were asked to exclude drag from the festival. We asked the college several questions, including asking them to define drag performance. They did not answer our questions, but instead, two weeks later, denied our application.”

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Commentary: Bob Iger, DEI, and Wokism Broke Disney’s Trust with America

Bob Iger Disney

There is something of a subculture on YouTube of armchair analysts and commentators, WDW Pro, Valliant Renegade, and ClownfishTV, to name just three (beyond traditional financial websites like CNBC and Seeking Alpha), who track every cultural, corporate, programming, and financial move of The Walt Disney Company, previously one of America’s most iconic and trusted companies. Note: I used the past tense in describing The Walt Disney Company. It is no longer one of America’s most trusted brands, and it’s about to lose its iconic status.

How did this happen?

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Ohio Attorney General Sues to Stop Potential Sale of Rare Jewish Books and Manuscripts

Dave Yost

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost wants to stop the sale of ancient Jewish texts and books at the nation’s first permanent Jewish institution of higher learning in Cincinnati.

Yost filed for a temporary restraining order to prevent Hebrew Union College from selling copies of the Talmud and other ancient books after the school expressed interest in parting with them to offset growing deficits.

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Commentary: The New Fundamentalism and the Religion of Politics

Congress at Night

Those who would abolish religion and prohibit the free exercise thereof, are themselves religious. Those who would replace religion with the cult of reason, and sacrifice the soul before the altar of science, are unreasonable in the extreme: they are political extremists whose religion is politics.

This religion, with contempt for one nation under God, is in opposition to our civil religion. This religion, with contempt for the idea of God, that God exists, that God is true, that God is just, is without mercy. This religion, with contempt for the sons of Abraham, and of all who are children of God through faith, is a declaration of war against Jews and Christians

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SPLC Adds Openly Gay Group to List of ‘Anti-LGBTQ+ Hate Groups’

Gays Against Groomers

The Left’s main smear organ has targeted an openly gay organization and groups of doctors who oppose “gender-affirming care” in efforts to silence opposition to the transgender agenda and drag queen story hours.

The Southern Poverty Law Center released its “Year in Hate and Extremism” report Tuesday, warning about encroaching “theocracy” and an “authoritarian takeover” as part of the “organizational infrastructure … upholding white supremacy in the United States.”

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D-Day: The Bold Invasion That Turned the Tide Against Hitler’s Germany

Tennessee Star

Eighty years ago on June 6, 1944 the United States joined with Great Britain, the free French forces, and Canada to mount a bold invasion of the beachhead in Normandy, France as a last-ditch effort to gain a foothold in Europe against the conquering forces of Hitler’s Germany.

The 160,000-soldier seaborne operation would mark a massive pivot in the Allies’ defense against the Nazis and the bloodthirsty Axis.

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Commentary: The Declaration of Independence Is Now Problematic for the Authoritarian Left

Flags Across America event at Arlington National Cemetery

In George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984,”the authoritarian government had power over every aspect of people’s lives, especially their thoughts. To reshape minds, even history could be changed:

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered,” Orwell wrote. “And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped.”

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Michigan State Has over 140 Employees Working on 222 DEI Action Items

Michigan State University

Michigan State University currently has more than 140 employees working on 222 different “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” agenda items.

The salaries for those employees, some of whom work on DEI full-time, totals more than $18 million dollars according to a College Fixanalysis. One of these goals included an “inclusive language” guide that instructed university employees not to say “America” or use Easter and Christmas imagery.

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Commentary: Joe Biden’s America Is a Gay Version of the Soviet Union

President Joe Biden at a pride event

“Show me the man and I will show you the crime,” so said Lavenitry Beria, the longtime head of Stalin’s secret police.

The Trump conviction shows that the same crooked principle of justice animates American courts today. Should we be surprised? The alliance between the United States and the USSR during the 1940s—the American taxpayer funded the Soviet takeover of half of Europe and Asia to the tune of 300 billion inflation-adjusted dollars—was the central event of the 20th century.

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Math Professor Fired After Criticizing Slavery Reparations Continues Legal Battle Pennsylvania College

Saint Joseph's University campus

A math professor’s two-year-old lawsuit against Saint Joseph’s University, filed in the wake of controversy over his social media posts criticizing slavery reparations and other comments, continues to wind its way through the court system.

Gregory Manco sued the institution he taught at for nearly two decades, as well as coached baseball for, alleging some administrators conspired with a few left-leaning alumni to effectively “cancel” him over tweets that ran afoul of progressive dogma.

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Tennessee ‘Furries’ Will Have Float in Nashville Pride Parade

People dressed up in furry suits

A group of Tennessee furries will have a float in Nashville’s 2024 gay pride parade. 

“Wowie! We’re so proud to be doing this again! If you guys remember from last year, we made international news and were seen by Jill Biden, First Lady of the United States! Pretty dang cool, huh?” said a group called MurfreesFurs on its website. “Well, now EVERY FURRY GROUP IN TENNESSEE is joining us! We are sponsoring and paying for everyone to get involved with us in unity, and we can’t wait to see the fandom united under a beautiful cause! Each furry group is going to get together in decorating and building the float with their own designs, and then we march or ride in the parade!”

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Reports: California Exodus Continues, Southeastern States as Primary Destinations

Austin, Texas

As the California exodus continues, a new migration trend is occurring, with southeastern and Appalachian states taking the top spots as inbound migration destinations, according to new reports.

According to a new Consumer Affairs 2024 Migration Trends report, “California’s mass exodus continues to ensue,” with the South and Southeast region of the country being the “hottest regions for people moving.”

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Commentary: A Spark In the Minds of the People

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams

What really happened in New York this past week in the prosecution of Donald Trump?  The breathless paid script readers of the controlled “press” wanted to gloat and heap disdain on the former President. Their glee was only matched by the vapid analysis of how the verdict might impact the election this year. And a few of the quislings of the Republican In Name Only (RINO) persuasion began to daydream about a return to the Republican Party that played the role of shill to the state, supporting ever more wars of imperial design and furthering the “project” of globalization.

But of course all of these things are mere momentary delusions.  In the scheme of things, the Soviet show trail in New York will have little impact on any of these things. It will, however, leave a lasting mark.

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Commentary: The Destructive Generation Proves America’s Weakest Link

Burning American Flag draped over fence

Governor Ronald Reagan, in his 1967 inaugural address, famously remarked, “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction.”

Reagan today might have expanded on his theme by declaring that civilization itself is both fragile and can lost by a generation that recklessly spends its inheritance while neither appreciating nor replenishing it—if not ridiculing those who sacrificed so much to provide it.

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Commentary: Armed Teachers Save Lives

Nikki Goeser

My husband Ben and I used to run a mobile karaoke business in Nashville, Tennessee. Every Thursday evening, we would load up our vehicle and head to a popular restaurant to help facilitate a night of good music and great memories.

As a woman who was concerned for her safety, I usually carried my permitted concealed handgun with me. But in April of 2009, Tennessee did not allow carrying firearms in restaurants that served alcohol, so I left my handgun locked inside of my vehicle.

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Democrat Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee Announces Pancreatic Cancer Diagnosis

Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee

Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas announced that she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer Sunday.

Jackson Lee, who has been in office since 1995, made the announcement in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. The Texas representative did not elaborate on the severity of her diagnosis or course of treatment but said that her team of doctors had created the “best possible plan.”

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Commentary: Trump’s Trial Is a Symptom of a Larger Crisis in American Justice

Donald Trump

Naturally, the cataract of commentary on Thursday’s Stalinist guilty, guilty, guilty verdict against Donald Trump has divided itself into two distinct pools. One is gleeful. The other is alarmed. Rather than anatomize the differences between the two, I’d like to start by simply noting the size and fervor of the response.  There are, I believe, two essential points to bear in mind.

The first is that the outpouring is only incidentally about Trump.  You might find this a surprising statement since the news has been full of little besides Trump.

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Tennessee Politicians, Others Celebrate Pride Month

LBGTQ supporters

On the first day of June, politicians, political organizations and private companies took to X, formerly Twitter, to celebrate gay pride month. 

“Happy Pride, everyone!” said disgraced former Nashville mayor turned congressional candidate Megan Barry. “I proudly stand with the LGBTQ+ community. Let’s celebrate love, diversity, and equality for all. Together, we can build a Tennessee where everyone feels seen, heard, and valued.”

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Commentary: Civil Unrest and Radical Reappraisals are Shaping the Future of American Culture

Pro-Palestine Protesters at Ohio State University

Sometimes unexpected but dramatic events tear off the thin veneer of respectability and convention. What follows is the exposure and repudiation of long-existing but previously covered-up pathologies.

Events like the destruction of the southern border over the last three years, the October 7 massacre and ensuing Gaza war, the campus protests, the COVID-19 epidemic and lockdown, and the systematic efforts to weaponize our bureaucracies and courts have all led to radical reappraisals of American culture and civilization.

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‘Chattanooga Youth Pride’ to Host Drag Shows at Seed Theatre

To kick off Pride Month on June 1, a group called “Chattanooga Youth Pride” will host drag shows for children at the Seed Theatre in the Scenic City.

“The highlight of the event, there’s a stage set up for live performances by talented LGBTQ+ youth artists, including singers, dancers, poets, and drag performers,” says an online invite to the event. “The performances showcase the diversity and creativity of the community, while spreading messages of love, acceptance, and pride.”

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American Tax Dollars Fund Laundry List of Left-Wing Books

People sitting under a transgender flag

American tax dollars are funding an array of book projects covering topics like “trans reproduction” and the “neglected queer history” of homosexuality in post-colonial Ireland, federal records show.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) spends hundreds of thousands of tax dollars a year funding academics to write full-length books on a variety of subjects, according to grant records. While many of the books center on innocuous topics, like the history of criminal procedure in China or philosopher Immanuel Kant, others the NEH funded in 2023 and 2024 veer into left-wing topics.

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State of Oregon Attempts to Force Christian Ministry to Remove Christian Beliefs in Order to Receive Funding

71Five Ministries

The state government of Oregon enacted a new restriction on a Christian youth ministry group, withholding crucial funding on the condition that the group specifically hire non-Christians or people who otherwise don’t agree with the group’s beliefs.

As reported by Fox News, the group, 71Five Ministries, is struggling with a large budget deficit following the Oregon Department of Education’s decision to revoke its funding due to its Christian beliefs. The ministry filed a lawsuit against the state in March, with the support of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), declaring the state’s decision to be a violation of their First Amendment right to freedom of religion. Oral arguments in the case ended last week, and both sides are now waiting for the judge’s decision.

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The GlockStore to Host Fourth Annual Open House Celebrating the Company’s Move to Nashville

Lenny Magill

Lenny Magill, founder and CEO of the GlockStore, said the store’s fourth annual open house event will be held this Saturday to celebrate the company’s move from San Diego, California, to the Volunteer State.

“Our open house is this Saturday at 10 a.m. This is our fourth year of celebrating the move from California to Nashville. We love Nashville. At the event this weekend, we’ll have two shooting competitions. We’ve got a lot of fun. Excellent prices on guns. Gun prices that you never see again. They’re super low. Of course, all of our parts and pieces that we manufacture here in Nashville are going to be on sale as well. We’ve got free ice cream. We’ve got food trucks. We’ve got the shooting competitions, which I said, which is a low light competition and a speed competition and we are going to be raffling off a full fledged Glock 17 custom gun,” Magill said on Wednesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.

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Big Tech Championed Zero Emissions but Now Its Power-Hungry Data Centers are Straining the Grid

Data center

For years, tech giants in California and Washington have been leading the charge to eliminate fossil fuels from the grid. Microsoft, Google, Meta and Apple, for example, are members of Climate Group RE100, an organization of major corporations who are dedicated to accelerating “change toward zero-carbon grids at scale by 2040.”

In 2018, Apple proclaimed that it was globally powered entirely by 100 percent renewable energy.

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Maricopa County Homeless Population Sees Small Decline

Homeless Camp

The annual point-in-time count of homeless conducted by the Maricopa Association of Governments presented stabilized news for the county.

The count that took place in January 2024 determined that there are 9,435 people who are experiencing homelessness in the county, 57% of which are sheltered and 43% are unsheltered. This figure was a 2% decline from 2023, which marked 9,642 people as homeless. When broken down, there was a 17% decline from 2023 in unsheltered and a 13% increase in those who were sheltered.

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Biden Admin Shells Out Taxpayer Cash on Foreign LGBT Events as Pride Month Approaches

Pride event in France

The State Department is funding an array of LGBT pride events across the globe ahead of June, some of which include events focused on children, federal grant records show.

Biden’s State Department is bankrolling a gay film festival, an LGBT community conference and other pride events in Australia, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria in the lead-up to June, according to grant records. Some observe June as “Pride Month” to commemorate the Stonewall riots, a series of clashes between LGBT people and the police after law enforcement raided a gay bar.

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Pro-Palestinian Protests Evolve Off Campus, Hinting at What’s to Come This Summer

United Auto Workers Union strike

The past spring semester for universities across the United States was marked with “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” and pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas protests largely at commencements – that is, if commencement wasn’t canceled completely due to demonstrators – but now, the protests appear to have reached a new phase, potentially foreshadowing what is to come for America this summer.

A pro-Palestinian encampment popped up in Clark Park in West Philadelphia this week, according to local outlet 6ABC, marking the first encampment on city property.

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Study Finds Teen Marijuana Use Tied to Dramatic Increased Risk of Psychosis

Teen boy in trouble

A study published Wednesday found that teens who use cannabis are 11 times more likely to be diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, according to NBC News.

The study was led by researchers from the University of Toronto and examined teenage patients who used cannabis within the last year and those who did not, according to NBC News. When the study was further limited to teens who were sent to the emergency room or hospitalized, it showed a 27-fold increase in the likelihood of being diagnosed with psychotic illness.

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I-65 Interchange at Buckner Road Expects to Reopen Next Week: Report

I-65

The new I-65 Interchange at Buckner Road in Spring Hill is expected to open on May 31 after being under construction for more than two years, according to a report by Williamson Source.

On its website, Spring Hill called the new interchange a “game-changer” for the area, as there is currently only one I-65 access point to the city through the Saturn Parkway Exit.

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Commentary: Most U.S. Population Growth Last Year Occurred Outside of Largest Cities

There are 124 cities with a population over 200,000 in the U.S. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s population estimates for last year, over 90 percent of the U.S. population growth last year took place outside of its 124 largest cities. About a third of those cities lost population last year.  The total growth in the population of cities with over 200,000 residents grew by .23 percent, less than half of what the U.S. grew last year.

Roughly a third of those that lost population were located in New York and California. The three largest cities in the U.S., New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, all lost population again in 2023. Between the three cities, over 700,000 people have left since the 2020 census. New York is by far the biggest loser at 546,000. That is about 6.2 percent of its 2020 population.

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Tennessee Judge Blocks Attempt to Sell Elvis Presley’s Former Home Graceland

Graceland

A Tennessee judge on Wednesday ruled to block the auction of Elvis Presley’s (pictured above) home, Graceland, by a company that alleged the singer’s daughter didn’t repay a loan that used the home as collateral.

The auction had been slated for this week, though Shelby County Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins issued the temporary injunction, according to The Associated Press.

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