One thing the left does much better than the right — other than shut down city blocks for days at time — is agitate for their needs. They grab the megaphone, collar the media outlets and raise Cain. Consequently, they find the odds that their grievances are acted upon increased. It’s a nice little cycle, or racket, which is why it has been in the liberal playbook forever.
The American electorate’s apparent decision to replace their leadership amid a tumultuous pandemic is adding energy to progressive ambitions worldwide to engineer “a Great Reset,” a reordering of society along socialist principles. Enthusiasm is no substitute for wisdom, though, and the current apostles of radical change will be hard-pressed to surpass the prudence of the intrepid sojourners who disembarked from the Mayflower 400 years ago this Saturday to found a society unmatched in history.
Presidential elections are typically nerve-wracking affairs, and the usual advice for nail-biters is to trust the system. But maybe not this time. Considering the depths of deceit plumbed by Donald Trump's adversaries who have attempted unsuccessfully to upend his presidency, there is reason to suspect underhanded efforts are afoot to thwart his re-election. Law-abiding voters should keep a sharp eye on the electoral process to ensure that both the Republican president -- and his Democratic opponent Joe Biden receive every legitimate ballot, and not one more.
On Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020, Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic will play host to the first 2020 presidential debates. Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace will moderate.
Perilous confrontations that result in police fatally shooting a civilian can only be described as tragic. The death of Breonna Taylor is once again in the news. Cases in which Black men were shot triggered social unrest this summer, with the rippling effect of widespread violence only adding to the heartbreak.
As we all now know, there is a Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg whose casket, as of this writing, is reposing in the Supreme Court. Former clerks, friends, and soon the president of the United States, will pay their respects. Next week Justice Ginsburg will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery. By that time Mr. Trump will have announced his nominee for her replacement.
For years, progressive politicians and groups have tried to prove the more effective conservative groups are just fronts for monied interests and corporate America. They've alleged time and again, without proof that the National Rifle Association the nation's largest mass membership civil rights group is merely a tool of the firearms industry. Or that certain research and advocacy groups that question climate change at any level are beholden to the oil companies and are doing their bidding in exchange for contributions.
Forests afire as far as the eye can see have become a common, heartbreaking occurrence in the American West when summer fades into autumn. The devastation hits hardest those residents who must breathe in smoke for months on end and, sometimes, face fleeing the infernos. Some are quick to blame the flames on human-caused climate change, but the destruction will persist without recognition of human-caused failure to manage the wilderness environment.
In a Sept. 16 op-ed in The Washington Post, Maimouna Doucoure stoutly defended her controversial film "Cuties," which debuted a week earlier on Netflix. It has come under deserved fire for its hyper-sexualized depiction of prepubescent 10- and 11-year-old girls. You read that right: Her film. "Cuties" — which surely will qualify as "must-see TV" for pedophiles everywhere — demonstrates that women can be perverts, too. But the larger problem with the enterprise is what it says about the state of America's culture.
The corporate world of professional sports is a sad place these days. And perhaps it has always been so, but now the public is better attuned to the hypocrisy with which decisions are made. The National Basketball Association and Nike, for instance, are happy to provide a platform for the ugliest critiques of America, while happily ignoring the genocide their financial overlords, the Chinese, currently carry out on the Uyghur population.
Professional football has opened its pandemic-era season over the past few days and by the looks of it, America's favorite sport has flubbed the kickoff. If games played in nearly empty stadiums to minimize coronavirus exposure weren't dismal enough, the league has apparently decided to sponsor "wokeball." Attempting to mix pigskin and politics is a mistake, though, and Americans are choosing to punt.
Professional Democracy-watchers — that group of people who yell from the top of every bell-tower in America that President Trump has eroded nearly every civic norm holding our country together — have been silent about what's going on in Richmond, Virginia, where the Democrat-led House of Delegates recently voted to conduct their legislative affairs "virtually." As in over the Internet, not in person and not even in Mr. Jefferson's Capitol.
Plato had Socrates. Henry VIII had Thomas Cromwell — for a while. Donald Trump, alas, has had no one able keep him on course. As president, Mr. Trump is supremely confident of his ability to manhandle any interlocutor and, apparently, won't harken to wise counsel advising caution. He has now bared his unguarded thoughts to Bob Woodward, the siren of Washington who has spent two generations enticing commanders-in-chief to wreck their fortunes on the sharp edges of his reporting. Someone should hide the president's phone.
Americans who lived through Sept. 11, 2001, can never forget that fateful day. The fear and anguish the Islamist terror attacks triggered, though, does not mean that the United States must remain at war forever.
Tops in the extremist strategy for transforming U.S. culture is the effort to convince the 63% of Americans born with a light complexion that they are guilty of the secular sin of "White privilege." Condemning a whole class of people based on their skin color, rather than their conduct, is the very definition of racism. For that reason, the undertaking is un-American and deserves to be discarded.
As the summer of pandemic fades toward fall, federal and state governments are still groping for the key to beating the killer coronavirus. Social distancing serves as the default recommendation, and a combination of mandatory and voluntary sequesters have forced millions of Americans to stay home.
Earlier this summer, James Bennet, editorial page editor of The New York Times, resigned from his post after internal and public outcry over his decision to allow an op-ed by sitting U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton arguing for military intervention as a response to the recent riots. The paper's publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, noted that a "significant breakdown in our editing process" had occurred, adding that both he and Mr. Bennet "concluded that James would not be able to lead the team through the next leg of change that is required."
During the next two months, Americans face a contest between an incumbent president who campaigns like the underdog he is and a favored challenger who prefers to stump from his basement.
To the men and women of Virginia law enforcement, this week our hearts are with you.
Above the din of protests surging across 2020 America echoes the conviction that systemic racism is everywhere, and peace won't prevail until it is finally expunged. The notion that racism is ingrained in our culture has become the dogma of this era, not only among angry Blacks, but also young Whites attempting to authenticate their "wokeness" by joining them in the streets. It is a myth, though, untethered from fact.
Just last week Virginia state Democrats introduced Senate Bill 5032, which eliminates the mandatory minimum prison sentence (currently six months) for an assault of a police officer.
Last week, Fox News host Tucker Carlson delivered what we thought was a righteous opening monologue to his evening show. His segment went live the night after Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old, was arrested and charged with first-degree intentional homicide in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where the third night of rioting was in full, unchecked swing.
