What can conservatives DO?

art credit:  medium.com

It is alarming to see the riots, violence, lawlessness, and, well, insanity everywhere.  Most of the GOPe / Uniparty are standing around, wringing their hands in despair and doing not much of anything.  What can the concerned citizen do in these frightening times?  Fletch Daniels at American Thinker has an idea of what conservatives can actually DO.

Cultural tyranny reigns in America, the last step before full-fledged political tyranny. 

Lurking beneath the surface of virtue signaling leftists are tyrants seeking to exert their will over those they despise.  The defining leftist culture enables them to ruthlessly use all the power at their disposal, both real and imagined, to enforce a single acceptable viewpoint on society. 

. . .

Democrats in this country do not feel they need to hide their political allegiance or culturally approved viewpoints.  Most never shut up about it, believing they are speaking truth to power, even as they bask in the approval of the corrupt and wicked power centers. 

.. .

I wish I had a dollar for every American who uttered the phrase, “Never in my lifetime did I expect to see…” over the last few weeks.  We are living in the upside-down when patriotism is outlawed, the vilest of criminals are celebrated, and brave law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line daily are slandered as the worst of society so thoroughly that it descended into evil farce, when a kid’s show “Paw Patrol,” came under attack since it is apparently racist to have a positive police character in a children’s show.  

This is war and the left is playing to win.  Anyone who doesn’t get that by now, to include most of the NeverTrumpers, is either irredeemably stupid or an active collaborator.  Every pillar of cultural power in America, to include the unholy trinity of academia, the media, and government has declared cultural war on at least half the country.  And yet NeverTrumpers reserve almost all of their scorn for those with the audacity to not drop to their knees and surrender. 

. . .

The problem is that the silence enables the leftists to continue to drive the narrative and normalize ideas and behaviors that would have been considered unfathomable just a few short years ago while winning more converts, which shrinks that sane majority.  It is their toxic ideas that are being force fed to every young person in America and we are paying a heavy price for that. 

And here’s Mr. Daniels’ suggestion:

I’d like to see far more people vocally pushing back against the mob within their social circles.  Every person who pushes back emboldens others to do the same. 

Even if you don’t want to spoil the party or make everyone at the picnic uncomfortable, it’s worth the try.  My own batting average is low, but I count at least half a dozen in my circle who were apathetic liberals before I started speaking up, and they are now committed and vocal conservatives.  Mr. Daniels' full article is here.

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COVID-19 panic: the agenda

There’s a political agenda with the never-ending coronavirus hype.  Sundance at Conservative Treehouse reports:

In order to support the most important political objectives of the DNC writ large in the 2020 election, COVID-19 hype is essential:

• Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot easily achieve ‘mail-in’ voting; which they desperately need in key battleground states in order to control the outcome.
• Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot shut down rallies and political campaigning efforts of President Trump; which they desperate need to do in key battleground states.
• Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot block the campaign contrast between an energetic President Trump and a physically tenuous, mentally compromised, challenger.
• Without COVID-19 panic Democrats do not have an excuse for cancelling the DNC convention in Milwaukee; thereby protecting candidate gibberish from himself.
• Without COVID-19 panic Democrats do not have a mechanism to keep voters isolated from each-other; limiting communication and national debate adverse to their interests.  COVID-19 panic pushes the national conversation into the digital space where Big Tech controls every element of the conversation.
• Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot keep their Blue state economies easily shut-down and continue to block U.S. economic growth.  All thriving economies are against the political interests of Democrats.
• Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot easily keep club candidate Joe Biden sealed in the basement; where the electorate is not exposed to visible signs of his dementia.
• Without COVID-19 panic it becomes more difficult for Big Tech to censor voices that would outline the fraud and scheme.  With COVID-19 panic they have a better method and an excuse.
• Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot advance, influence, or organize their preferred presidential debate format, a ‘virtual presidential debate’ series.
• [Comrade Gretchen Whitmer knows this plan, hence she cancelled the Michigan venue]
• All of these, and more, strategic outcomes are based on the manufactured weaponization of the COVID-19 virus to achieve a larger political objective.  There is ZERO benefit to anyone other than Democrats for the overwhelming hype surrounding COVID-19.

Read the full report here.

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Resist the lockdown

cartoon credit: leadersedge.com

Heather MacDonald hits the nail on the head, as she always does.  Her column at Spectator USA (“Where are the deaths?: The drum beat to halt the re-openings gets louder by the day. It should be resisted”) begins:

The coronavirus doomsayers could not even wait until the fall for the apocalyptic announcements of the dreaded second wave. Because the red states recklessly loosened their lockdowns, we are now told, the US is seeing a dangerous spike in coronavirus cases. ‘EXPERTS SKETCH GLOOMY PICTURE OF VIRUS SPREAD: FAUCI TELLS OF “DISTURBING” WAVE, WITH A VACCINE MONTHS AWAY,’ read the front-page lead headline in the New York Times on Wednesday. ‘VIRUS SPREAD AKIN TO “FOREST FIRE”’ read another front page headline in the Los Angeles Times on Monday, quoting Michael Osterholm, one of the media’s favorite public health experts. Osterholm had told NBC’s Meet the Press: ‘I’m actually of the mind right now — I think this is more like a forest fire. I don’t think that this is going to slow down.’

The ‘this’ is an uptick in daily new cases from 19,002 on June 9 to 38,386 on June 24. The high to date in new daily cases was on April 24 — 39,072. Since April 24, the daily case count started declining, then began rising again after around June 9. What virtually every fear-mongering story on America’s allegedly precarious situation leaves out, however, is the steadily dropping daily death numbers — from a high of 2,693 on April 21 to 808 on June 24. That April high was driven by New York City and its environs; those New York death numbers have declined, but they have not been replaced by deaths in the rest of the country. This should be good news. Instead, it is no news.

. . .

There are no crises in hospital capacity anywhere in the country. Nursing homes, meat-packing plants, and prisons remain the main sources of new infections. Half the states are seeing cases decline or hold steady. Case counts are affected by more testing; the positive infection rate captured by testing is declining. The current caseload is younger, which is a good thing. The more people who have been infected and who recover, the more herd immunity is created. Meanwhile, daily deaths from heart disease and cancer — about 3,400 a day combined — go ignored in the press.

But the drum beat to halt the still far too tentative reopenings gets louder by the day. It should be resisted. The lockdowns were a mistake the first time around; to reimpose them would be disastrous for any remaining hope of restoring our economy. The damage that has been done to people’s livelihoods and future prosperity will continue to outweigh the damage done by the coronavirus. The only vaccine against poverty and resulting despair is a robust economy. 

Read the full column here.

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Leftists virtue signaling

This one via Bookworm Room:

Click to embiggen.

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Cleveland did not make the cut – and that’s good

CBS News published a chart showing “The 65 Deadliest cities in the United States in 2018.” Several cities in Ohio are on the list, but Cleveland is not!

Click to embiggen.

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Destroying our heroes and culture: coming to Cleveland

photo credit from Portland: pamplinmedia

Daniel Greenfield is an associate of David Horowitz at the Freedom Center, and he blogs at Sultan Knish.  Several days ago, he posted a sobering essay, “Here Are the Heroes Whose Statues Black Lives Matter Has Attacked,” about the destruction and defacement of monuments.  Highly recommended, pretty upsetting, but a must-read. Here are a few extracts:

The statue of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, stands at the corner of Fairfax and Beverly in Los Angeles. When the racist mobs swept through the area, looting Jewish stores and defacing synagogues with "BLM" and "Free Palestine" graffiti, the statue of a man who risked his life to resist fascism and bigotry was one of their targets.

The racists and leftists vandalizing statues across the world claim that they’re fighting hate, but their targets have often been the men and women who courageously stood up to racism and hatred.

. . .

In Washington D.C., the Lincoln Memorial and the National WW2 Memorial were both defaced. This is not the work of anti-racists, but of racists. It’s not the work of anti-fascists, but of fascists.

While the media has upheld the racist narrative justifying the Taliban campaign against America by focusing on confederate memorials, the vandalism has been extensive, targeting both sides in the Civil War, and spilling over to vandalize statues that have absolutely no relevance to contemporary politics.

. . .

As every statue falls, is defiled, and disgraced, a part of America dies. When Democrats and even Republicans collude in the desecration and stand aside for the mob, a part of America dies.

The soul of a nation lies with its heroes. The radicals and racists tearing down our statues are out to destroy that soul. They want our heroes to be Karl Marx and Angela Davis, they want terrorists, totalitarians and criminals celebrated, and heroes, explorers, founders, officers and soldiers condemned.

They aren’t just coming for the “controversial” statues as the media likes to tell us.

They are coming for all the statues, for our entire history, for every great man and woman who sacrificed, strove, and struggled to move the course of human history forward by even one inch.

They are coming for America. And they intend to destroy it, one statue and one city after another.

When the history of this period is written, we will learn whether we had any heroes in our time.

Mr. Greenfield full article is here.

The Cuyahoga County Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument honors Civil War soldiers and sailors from Cleveland and Cuyahoga County.  It is located at Public Square. And it was defaced during the recent riots.  

How much longer before it is destroyed? 

To make matters even worse, Cuyahoga County is considering “declaring racism a public health crisis.” This blog already reported that Cleveland Council unanimously approved a ‘Black Lives Matter’ mural outside City Hall   All this support for an organization that is utterly destructive to our way of life.

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A meme to start the week

Seen on social media:

The Summer of Our Gaslighting Discontent

Overwhelmed by the riots, statue-toppling, and other manifestations of insanity? Brian Cates at UncoverDC expects we are in for 4½ months of more of the same. But there is a brighter side to all this. His article “The Summer of Our Gaslighting Discontent” begins:

I’ve got some bad news for you, folks. To get to that massive Trump landslide in November, we’re going to have to go through an ordeal because there will be a relentless and almost overwhelming amount of gaslighting until the election gets here.

A massive amount of time, effort and money will be invested by the Progressive Left to hide the real cultural shift going on in this country, as they use the legacy media to try to manufacture a fake cultural shift in the other direction.

Confederate statues were the start, now in less than two weeks the mob has moved on to founding father Thomas Jefferson and President Abraham Lincoln.

. . .

Mr. Cates concludes:

So keep this truth in mind the next 4½ months as you watch many prominent celebrities, newscasters, sports stars, musicians, and major companies all endlessly babbling about this awesome cool cultural shift away from America’s systemic racism [and Donald Trump!] to Marxist Social Justice and Joe Biden.

Well, let them babble. This 2020 election is not the referendum on America’s Systemic Racist Past as the gaslighters are so desperate to frame it.

It’s about a return to SANITY. That’s what most Americans will demand, and the elections results will demonstrate that.

Mr. Cates’s column is here. (And I hope he’s right.)

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Cleveland City Council bows down

Cleveland Tea Party’s Ralph King shared a link and comment:

Council unanimously approves‘Black Lives Matter’ mural outside City Hall 

So I guess no other lives matter... 

An unveiling ceremony will take place on Juneteenth at 2 p.m.

[An earlier Cleveland Tea Party blog on David Horowitz's eye-opening essay on the mission and background of Black Lives Matter is here.]

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Lion lyin' media

The media manipulates just about everything we read and see.  Here's a meme from social media:

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Face masks and indoctrination

art credit: shutterstock.com

Why is anyone still wearing a face mask? 

The title: “Another day, another bogus report from CDC seeking to entice the public to continue wearing masks”. Jack Hellner reports at American Thinker:

The CDC now says they have proof that wearing face-masks reduced COVID 19 cases in NYC by 66,000 from April 17th to May 9th.

. . .

There is no way they would know this, and it is as made up as the modeling numbers that CDC put out in March that showed that hundreds of millions would get the disease and millions would die. That is the study that destroyed the economy and caused governors throughout the country to require us to wear masks, social distance and avoid large groups for the first time in our lives. 

If they wanted a legitimate story, they would have looked at cases in states without the face mask requirement to see how many cases they had from April 17th to May 9th. Instead of doing that they just made numbers up and the media, like puppets, repeat the bogus numbers to indoctrinate people into wearing masks.

The full article with more stats is here.  This is all about power and control. 

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Prager on "roots of evil"

image credit: sonomasun

The Four Horsemen Of America’s Apocalypse:

Roots of evil guaranteed to destroy a civilization

We are living in an Orwellian world.  Up is down, right is wrong, and so on.  Dennis Prager’s column subtitled “Roots of evil guaranteed to destroy a civilization” at Front Page Magazine brings the chaos into finer focus.  I have a few quibbles, but as usual, Mr. Prager has some wise words. He identifies and expands on four principal “roots of evil”:

No. 1: Victimhood.

No. 2: Demonization.

No. 3: A Cause To Believe In.

No. 4. Lies

Mr. Prager’s column is here. I found some of the reader comments interesting as well.

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Happy Birthday, Mr. President

Amidst all the bad news, here’s some fun.  The U.S. Sun reports:

A two-mile-long boat ‘MAGA boat parade' [in Michigan] boasting more than 2,000 boats set sail to celebrate Donald Trump's 74th birthday.

American flags appeared to outnumber sailors, however, as every boat in the impressive flotilla rippled red, white and blue.

There’s a video "Boaters For A Brighter Future" (about a minute and a half long) at the link here.

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Today is Flag Day

Because it's Flag Day

GIF credit: pinterest

Panic Porn and the COVID Experts’ Credibility

Matt Vespa at Townhall is right.  The health experts were wrong, and we should all be preparing for our post-lockdown Fourth of July picnics and celebrations.  From his article “And That's Why the COVID Experts’ Credibility Is in Smoldering Ruins”:

People were shamed for going outside. They were selfish, right? People wanting to re-open their businesses were going to get people killed. The overreaction was already apparent by mid-May. And now, with how the medical community has responded to the Floyd demonstrations, it’s now quite clear we’ve been had. Is it still contagious? Yes, but why the blasé attitude towards the Floyd rioters? Where was their public shaming which was shared ad nauseum on social media? The medical experts have been exposed as being no better than CNN, MSNBC, or the entire Democratic operative class. For the millions who lost their jobs to see a narrative reverse overnight because “orange man…bad,” I would be furious. To those who lost their businesses, couldn’t attend graduations, or even funerals—I would be livid as well. In general, we all know that racism isn’t as deadly as a virus. You don’t need to be a doctor to know that, but these clowns think so. We had medical workers clapping and kneeling with protesters. That’s the kill shot to this entire lockdown narrative. We were told to stay home and help not overwhelm the hospitals—and this is the end result. 

The liberal media, Democrats, and the medical expert community, who are now no better than DNC operatives, are trying to weaponize the virus to trash the markets in order to hurt Trump again. They want us back inside. Don’t go back inside, folks. Go outside, go shopping, go to the lakes, go to the beach, and do whatever. The experts have no authority, no high ground—nothing. You cannot sit there and make the argument that protesting in the streets in support of liberal causes is fine, but any other activity is going to spread the virus. You look like a total clown if you do. The experts are finished. So, they can peddle the panic porn all they want. People should do whatever they want because they have zero credibility. 

Panic Porn.  Good phrase.  Read the rest of Mr. Vespa’s article here.

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David Horowitz on the wolf in sheep's clothing

David Horowitz

Many of my relatives and friends are in a state of alarm over George Floyd’s death.  They are sufficiently upset to voice their support for Black Lives Matter, even though nobody knows if race was a motive in police officer Derek Chauvin’s knee-on-neck restraint.  Nevertheless, Black Lives Matter and its offshoots are employing aggressive tactics to increase the scope of their influence.  

But nothing is at it seems.  A go-to source on the history of Black Lives Matter and its core mission is David Horowitz.  He posted on the subject recently at FrontPage Magazine.  Highly recommended if you know anyone who is attracted to Black Lives Matter out of guilt or sympathy or a misunderstanding.  Here’s a short extract (numbers in brackets indicate a footnote in the article):

The power of Black Lives Matter stemmed from its exploitation of the ideology of oppression – Identity Politics – a ready-made indictment looking for a crime. Black Lives Matter was at the center of a very large network, including hundreds of leftist organizations sharing the same vision. Among them: The Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Dream Defenders, Hands Up United, Black Left Unity Network, Black Workers for Justice, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Right to the City Alliance, School of Unity and Liberation, Dignity and Power Now, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Causa Justa/Just Cause, Organization for Black Struggle, Communist Party USA, Showing Up for Racial Justice, and others.

Many of these organizations are funded by America’s largest corporations and philanthropies, including the Ben & Jerry Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Margaret Casey Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and George Soros’s Open Society Institute.

. . .

Black Lives Matter was formed in 2013 by three self-styled “Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries,” who selected as their movement icon convicted cop-killer and Black Liberation Army member Assata Shakur.[4] Shakur had fled to Cuba after being convicted of the homicide she committed when her car was stopped for a broken tail-light by two New Jersey state troopers. Without any warning, Shakur shot trooper Werner Foerster. The 34-year- old Vietnam veteran was lying wounded on the ground pleading for his life, when Shakur walked over and executed him. Officer Foerster left a widow and a three-year-old son.[5] Black Lives Matter activists refer to the murderer as “our beloved Assata Shakur” and chant her words as a ritual, “at every meeting, every event, every action, every freeway we’ve shut down, every mall we’ve shut down.” [6] The chant is this: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love and support one another. We have nothing to lose but our chains.” The last line is lifted directly from the conclusion to the Communist Manifesto, a document and war cry that has led to the murders of millions.[7]

. . .

The full account is here.

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Mark Steyn is back!

Programming note:  The great Mark Steyn has not made his usual twice-a-week guest appearances on Tucker Carlson for about three months. As of this evening’s (Weds.) 9pm broadcast, HE’S BAAACK!

And this evening’s severe thunderstorm passed through downtown Cleveland.  It inflicted far less damage than the riots and ended with a rainbow:

Photos by Cleveland Tea Party’s roving photographer

Pat Dooley Photography

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We're being played

Are you wearing a mask and practicing social distancing?  Via Instapundit:

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A good guy without a gun

photo credit:  Baltimore Sun

In the riots over a week ago in downtown Cleveland, property was destroyed, looted, and torched.  The Cleveland Police explained that they were “unprepared” for the riots.  “Unprepared”?  Despite having seen the violence and rioting in Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Columbus in the days preceding?  Now comes a report about how a citizen in California stopped further killings.  From CBS News:

U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant Steven Carrillo, who allegedly killed a Santa Cruz deputy and wounded two others with gunfire and improvised explosives in a weekend ambush in the Santa Cruz Mountains, was captured by a local resident who wrestled him to the ground and disarmed him of an AR-15, pipe bomb and pistol in a life-or-death confrontation, CBS San Francisco Bay Area reports.

Angry and emotional Santa Cruz Sheriff Jim Hart called Carrillo "a dangerous man intent on bringing harm to police officers."

"I want to talk a little about Steven Carrillo, I don't even want to say his name again," Hart told reporters at a Monday afternoon news conference. "It's the last time you are going to hear me say it. This guy was active Air Force. He was dangerous and he was an angry man intent on bringing harm to police officers. He murdered Sergeant (Damon) Gutzwiller. He injured another deputy."

But Hart said it was the actions of a local resident who stopped Carrillo from claiming more victims Saturday night.

"This guy (Carrillo) went into the backyard of a local resident and the local resident confronted him and wanted to know what he was doing on his property," Hart said. 

"The suspect told him that — actually he had an AR-15 slung, he was carrying an AR. He told the resident he wanted his car keys. The resident very calmly went into his house, obtained a key and came back out and handed it to him."

"As the suspect turned around, the resident tackled him and the AR-15 fell away and the resident took this guy to the ground. At that time the suspect reached into his pocket and pulled out a pipe bomb and tried to ignite a pipe bomb while being held down."

"This resident was able to knock the pipe bomb out of his hand and then the suspect reached into his waistband and pulled out a pistol. There was a wrestling match over the pistol. The resident was able to knock the pistol out of his hand, detain this guy. Multiple other community members from Ben Lomond jumped on this guy and held him until our deputies sheriffs were able to get there and take him into custody."

The full report is here.  So if this citizen could prevent more violence in California, why did the Cleveland Police – who did such a great job with security at the RNC in downtown Cleveland in 2016 – drop the ball?  What were their marching orders?  Inquiring minds want to know.

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The Future Success of the Republican Party of Cuyahoga County (RPCC)

Seen on social media over the weekend:

RALPH KING·SUNDAY, 7 JUNE 2020·READING TIME: 2 MINUTES

Dear Fellow Central Committee Member,

My name is Ralph King and I am a member of the Central Committee representing Bedford Ward 6. I have served the Republican Party of Cuyahoga County in excess of 15 years. Currently I also serve on the Scanning Committee. In addition to years of grassroots activism & organizing at the local, state and national level for conservative causes and candidates, I served as a Delegate for President Trump in 2016 and had the honor of also representing our area as a member of the 54th Ohio Electoral College for President Trump.

With my years of activism and dedication to the Republican Party at all levels, especially in Cuyahoga County, I can honestly say we here in Cuyahoga County face an important crossroads offering two very distinct yet starkly contrasting choices.

The Republican Party in Cuyahoga County has been run like a social club for many, many years. The county party is so incestuously intertwined with lobbyists, consultants, political patronage, etc... nothing can get done. This broken strategy of $100K salaries & cronyism consulting fees has left the party literally broke. Do not believe the recent claims that we are on stable financial ground, otherwise why would the RPCC do an emergency fundraising initiative to keep the doors open past June? See attached RPCC special funding initiative letter. (Click Here)

Their old strategy has not worked, will not work and most importantly the old strategy will not change unless WE change it with your VOTE. Elect the “CUYAHOGA FIRST” slate —led by Lisa Stickan as the Chairman — in charge of the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Cuyahoga County. VICTORIES are certain to follow.

Do we continue with the same strategy of being mired with the current swamp-filled ways of political patronage & this financially strapped County party unable to help candidates? Or do we stand up & embrace a new fresh Cuyahoga First leadership built on transparency, strong fundraising ability & grassroots support that will lead them to a path of vibrancy, success & winning in Cuyahoga County again!

This all important Central Committee chairman’s race is not as much about the candidates as it is about US — the members of the Republican Party of Cuyahoga County Central Committee & Republican voters in Cuyahoga County. And today with our vote together WE can choose a new path, a new successful way to start winning by electing the “Cuyahoga First” slate with Lisa Stickan as our new Chairperson.

In Liberty,

Ralph King

Cleveland Tea Party Patriots

Bedford Ward 6

Central Committee Republican Party Cuyahoga County

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The Power of “No”

art credit: callcenterhelper.com

Kurt Schlicter over at Townhall makes good points:

For way too long, too many conservatives and other normal people have failed to deploy our most potent weapon in the defense of free thought and expression – the utter refusal to go along with the demands of the carnivorous left. As has been said before by me and others, we need to introduce these spoiled brats to the concept of “no.”

. . .

But a larger, more comprehensive information operation is still ongoing, one in which a bunch of pampered SJW stormtroopers, aided and abetted by the weak and frightened elder caste of liberals occupying the heights of the establishment, are attempting to define the tolerable range of ideas and expression within our culture. In a shocking turn that would surprise only stupid people, the tolerable range of ideas and expression they wish to establish corresponds exactly to the ideas and expressions they agree with. The Venn diagram of what they think and what they allow to be thought is a single circle.

The rest of us are expected to shut up, and thereby concede and recognize their mastery over us.

We could do that, sure. 

Or we could tell them “no.”

The first four of his bullet points for effectively saying "no" are:

• ·         Never apologize.
• ·         Reject their demands. 
• ·         Speak truths they want suppressed. 
• ·         Laugh at them.

Read the rest here.

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76th anniversary of D-Day

Today is the 76^th anniversary of the 1944 D-Day landings 

on the beaches of Normandy.

Image credit: National Geographic

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Downtown Business Owner Tony George Sends Open Letter To Cleveland

I heard from several sources that Cleveland's "leadership" issued a stand-down order for law enforcement during the weekend riot.  Whether or not that is true, earlier today, Lou Dobbs reported on Fox Business that many cities under liberal leadership issued stand-down orders during the riots. Below is a letter by Cleveland businessman Tony George on the subject. 

Via WTAM News Radio:

My family has lived in the Cleveland area for generations. We are business people who provide more than 1600 jobs. We are invested in Cleveland financially, emotionally and spiritually. That is why it is heartbreaking to see the great damage done to our community by those who hijacked a protest held in the name of justice and peace.

Dozens of downtown businesses, including ours, sustained substantial damage during this past weekend’s riots. Those aren’t just businesses, they are the dreams of people who believe in Cleveland, who put life savings into enterprises to provide food, drink, music, baked goods, groceries, clothing, and other products and services for the benefit of our community.

We are Clevelanders. We support peaceful protest. We stand for the equality of all people. We abhor race-based violence, no matter who commits it. What makes Cleveland special is that people of every race, color and creed want to live and work together. I look around and I see the looting and the destruction to our downtown - - that is not who we are.

It is not enough to say that violence is happening everywhere, in response to the killing of George Floyd. Someone has to take responsibility for what happened, or didn’t happen in Cleveland. The city had 24-hour notice before the march. There was no preparation by city leaders to establish a strict parade route, to block off commercial districts, to protect against the infiltration of a peaceful march by those who came prepared to commit violence. There was no call-up of off-duty police to provide additional protection, in case things went out of control.

When the destruction and looting began it would appear that police were told to stand down. We must have an explanation! Who is in charge of Cleveland? Where were the elected leaders in this moment of crisis?

I have raised this question about our absent leadership repeatedly. This failure of leadership is why I supported council reduction. I reluctantly withdrew the issue from the ballot, in the hope that a renewed effort toward unity would be a wake-up call. Nothing doing.

Cleveland City Hall leaders, especially the Mayor, continue to be asleep at the switch, with devastating results for our city.

First Cleveland’s businesses had to shut down during the height of the Covid-19 virus. Then, when we try to open back up, the riots start and shut us down again. Add to that, the reduction in business, due to the curfew.

This is a nightmare, which can end only when we have leaders who can rise up to meet the moment.

A four-day curfew is not leadership. It’s a confession of an inability to control lawlessness, or a capitulation to thugs. We don’t pay taxes for the police to be ordered to stand down in the face of looting. We don’t pay taxes to ensure the security of our streets, only to see the streets taken over by gangsters.

Tony George

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Aftermath of the “peaceful” riots

Michael P. Ramirez cartoon via Townhall

Many media reporters and anchors turned into Baghdad Bobs, as they reported that the “protests” were/are mostly peaceful -- while buildings burned to the ground behind them.  And yet we all know liberals who buy into this phony narrative that the riots were indeed mostly peaceful and the "protesters" were spontaneous participants, expressing anger over George Floyd’s death. 

The riot in Cleveland was pre-organized.  Rocks were pre-set in various locations.  In other cities, pallets of bricks were pre-staged.  But it’s the rioters’ playbook that gives them away.  Let the local protesters who are there out of genuine outrage and anger start things off with signs and chants. Then the rent-a-mob rioters start doing what rioters do:  they throw objects to injure, deface, or damage; vandalize; loot; set buildings and cars on fire; and so on.  Peaceful? 

Here is a link to Instapundit with a compilation of videos of destruction in Minneapolis, Atlanta, Santa Monica, DC, etc.  Click here.  

And here’s what downtown Cleveland looks like today in the aftermath.  Every door or window that is now boarded-up was deliberately smashed, and in the case of several stores (Geiger’s and Heinen’s among others) looted and trashed.  Clevelanders will recognize downtown restaurants, businesses, theaters, and landmarks.  Click here.

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