A scenario they could never have imagined. The post A Plot to Stop Trump in 2016 May Lose Dems the White House appeared first on Frontpage Mag.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is investigating whether doctors have visited Joe Biden at his home, his beach house, or Camp David. Since the discovery of a neurologist visiting the White House eight times in eight months, people have been concerned that the White House is hiding a lot more about his health issues. […] The post Biden Introduces Zelensky as President Putin at the Big Boy Event appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

A huge brawl broke out in Charlotte between fans and members of Uruguay’s soccer team after players entered the stands following the team’s 1-0 loss to Colombia in the semifinals. It happened Wednesday night in North Carolina at the Bank of America Stadium where the city was hosting CONMEBOL Copa America match, that represents all 50 states and around 60 countries, WSOC TV reported. Immediately following Uruaguay’s loss, forward Darwin Núñez and about a dozen of his Uruguay teammates ran into the stands where the major fight broke out. In one clip, Nunez can be seen throwing a punch to a fan wearing Colombia colors, the outlet noted. Things then got out of control between fans and players, with beverages and trash being thrown back and forth and people being shoved.  “This is the best game I’ve ever seen in my life,” Daniel Arias, a fan, said. A contentious Copa America match between Colombia and Uruguay led to angry post-match moments. About a dozen Uruguayan players confronted Colombian fans in the stands after Colombia’s 1-0 semifinal win in Charlotte, North Carolina. https://t.co/ErTwNlXiDU pic.twitter.com/vghPgTgtfC — ABC News (@ABC) July 11, 2024 “Whether you were cheering for Colombia or Uruguay the atmosphere at Bank of America Stadium was unmatched,” he added. “It was once in a lifetime.” Another fan, Jorge Gonzales, said, “When I saw the players running, I was like OK, this is about to get ugly.” Gonzales said he got out his phone and captured the fight which he said appeared to first start between fans and Uruguay players’ family members, the outlet noted. “I was able to witness a Colombian fan, you know, start crying as his national anthem was played,” Gonzales said. “So, look more for those moments versus, you know, drinking a little bit too much and letting things spiral into chaos.” The federation that oversees the match released a statement after the fight in Spanish, then translated into English, that read, “La Conmebol strongly condemns any act of violence.” “Our work is based on the conviction that soccer connects and unites us through its positive values,” the organization statement added. “There is no place for intolerance and violence on and off the field. We invite everyone in the remaining days to pour all of their passion into cheering on their national teams and having an unforgettable party.” The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department was on scene to stop the fight and no one was arrested in connection to the brawl.

The fallout from the Winter War directly influenced World War II

Conservatives should focus more on building “alternative political structures” than the next election cycle, speakers said Wednesday at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington.  Celebrated author, educator, and former slave Booker T. Washington offers three key lessons for building these alternative institutions, noted Delano Squires, a research fellow in the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at The Heritage Foundation.  “Construction and collaboration must be built on what we believe, not who we oppose,” Squires told conferees at the Capital Hilton.  The second lesson, Squires said, is that “building is better than bellyaching.”  And the third lesson is “institutions must be built to weather the storm.” In part, he said, that means the focus must be “the next generation, not the next election cycle.”  Squires and others on a panel called “Alternate Political Structures” discussed the Left’s hold not only on government and the political system, but on the media, universities, and other elite institutions.  Squires, a contributor at TheBlaze Media, elaborated on each lesson and discussed some of the racial tensions in the United States.  “On one side, there are a subset of black progressive pundits and institutions that associate the nuclear family, objectivity, punctuality, rational thinking, and even mathematics itself with whiteness,” he said. “On the other side are a subset of white conservatives who associate Juneteenth, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ with wokeness. So what is a patriotic black conservative in the Washington mold to do?” Squires said the answer is to build institutions based on core principles to rival media outlets such as The Root and The Grio and advocacy groups such as the NAACP that “see black conservatives as racial turncoats.” “New institutions will need to be built on a core set of values— faith, family, free enterprise, dignity, and self-respect—in order to survive,” the Heritage scholar said.  N.S. Lyons, author of “The Upheaval,” a Substack newsletter, looked at the rise of conservatives in Hungary as a model for conservatives in the United States.  Conservatives in Hungary began to work outside politics in what Lyons called “civic circles,” earning trust and legitimacy through community organizing. The conservative movement in Hungary ultimately achieved electoral landslides and now “runs its own conservative deep state, transforming the media, culture, industry, the universities, and ultimately the whole country,” he said. “If the bulk of the people turn first to an organization outside the state and its institutions, whether because those state institutions are too incompetent or too actively hostile to help them, then that parallel organization has more legitimacy than the state,” Lyons said. “And once that organization has more legitimacy than the state, there’s a real possibility that it may soon replace the state, such is the way of nature and nature’s law.” Lyons said he was describing traditional conservatism as expressed by French philosopher and historian Alexis de Tocqueville, who chronicled the United States in the 1800s and concluded that Americans had stronger independent spirits than Europeans, who were more prone to rely on government. “You, being good conservatives, may be disturbed by all my allusions to learning from the lessons of the Left or even from revolutionaries,” he said. “You’ll be reassured that what I am suggesting is only really an extension of the finest traditions of American conservatism. Consider this classic observation from Alexis de Tocqueville’s ‘Democracy in America.’” However, many conservatives are looking for Tocqueville in the wrong places, argued William Schambra, a senior fellow emeritus at Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. Many alternative structures are already in place, operating in the tradition of conservatism but lacking  the label of conservative or Republican, Schambra said.  He referenced conservative black commentator and activist Bob Woodson, founder of 1776 Unites and the Woodson Center.  “Bob reminded us that it was precisely black America’s historical ability to create its own parallel policy that allowed it to survive and even flourish, giving the lie to the 1619 Project’s narrative of black helplessness in the face of America’s settler colonialism,” Schambra said.  The Hudson Institute scholar said conservatives shouldn’t try to create their own social services complex.  “Following Bob Woodson’s lead, it’s instead possible to discover local institutions that make up in moral authority what that they lack in material resources,” Schambra said, adding:  The problem is, they don’t look conservative to us. They’ve never written an op-ed calling for tax cuts for the wealthy. They don’t subscribe to National Review. … Nonetheless, through the very act of assuming responsibility for solving their own problems, they embody Tocqueville’s principles. They thereby reject progressivism, this claim that only professional experts are competent to address our problems. They also thereby reject the contemporary Left’s claim that only revolution can address the disabling effects of settler colonialism. American conservatives are quick to talk about the dangers of the “woke mind virus,” but are themselves caught up in the “vote mind virus,” said Ernst Roets, executive director of the newly established Afrikaner Foundation and also head of policy at the Solidarity Movement in South Africa.  “The vote mind virus would like us to believe that the most important, or the only thing, we can do to bring about change is to vote in the next election,” Roets said. “Because the vote mind virus tells us that the world will end if our party loses the next election, but that we will flourish if our party wins the next election.”  “The vote mind virus proclaims that every upcoming election is the most important election we have ever had,” he said. “This is because the vote mind virus is built on the idea that the government is always the source and the solution to all our problems. Don’t get me wrong, voting is important. Voting is very important. But what we do between elections is much more important than what we do on Election Day.” The post ‘Alternative Political Structures’ Called More Important Than Elections for Conservative Victory appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A new report examines the possible outcomes of the Nov. 5  election and the prospect of President Joe Biden’s using government force to hold onto power. “President Biden is very well-positioned to hold the White House by force in the case of an unfavorable electoral outcome,” says the report from the 2024 Transition Integrity Project, which is led by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project.  Looking at a scenario of a victory by Donald Trump, who lost the presidency to Biden in 2020, the report adds: The lawlessness of the Biden administration—at the border, in staffing considerations, and in routine defiance of court rulings—makes clear that the current president and his administration not only possesses the means, but perhaps also the intent, to circumvent constitutional limits and disregard the will of the voters should they demand a new president.”  The Transition Integrity Project included scenarios  involving over 50 participants from politics, government, law, national security, media, and academia. The project looked at how mass illegal immigration and potential interference from Russia, China, and Iran could affect the 2024 election.  Election integrity shouldn’t be viewed through a partisan or ideological lens, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said at the end of a press conference Thursday about the report. “This is neither a Left problem or a Right problem. It’s an American problem,” Roberts said. “As I have mentioned to members of the media, particularly left-of-center media outlets—whom we love and respect but disagree with—we have to aspire in this country to get back to an election cycle when every American wakes up and believes that their vote will be counted, that there will be a successful transition, that there are no longer any problems with election integrity.”  The name of the Heritage-led effort is similar to the 2020 Transition Integrity Project produced by a group of Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans, but is unrelated to it. The 2020 project was founded by Georgetown University law professor Rosa Brooks and Nils Gilman, a vice president at the Berggruen Institute think tank. It included numerous political veterans who participated in “war games.” One scenario in the 2024 report is a Trump victory after which Biden calls for Democrat governors to send alternate slates of electors if Trump carried their states.  Most of the information about “war games” conducted before the 2020 election came out through leaks to the press. In this case, Heritage’s Oversight Project released a report detailing the findings.  “We’re not like the 2020 shadowy Transition Integrity Project,” Mike Howell, executive director of the Oversight Project, said at the press conference before opening it up for reporters’ questions about the report.  During the event, several of those who participated in the 2024 scenarios discussed the report’s conclusions.  Howell brought up concerns about Biden’s Executive Order 14019, which put all federal agencies behind a voter mobilization effort.  “Right now, every single one of you here is actively supporting the reelection campaign efforts of the Biden administration with your taxpayer dollars,” Howell said of the implementation of Biden’s order. “They are particularly active in places that I frankly view as predatory.” Scenarios in the 2024 report include Attorney General Merrick Garland’s ordering Trump’s arrest days after he wins the Nov. 5 election. In another scenario, Trump is victorious, but Biden and Garland’s Justice Department immediately launches a multistate investigation into voter intimidation and tells local officials to stop announcing vote tallies.  “If people accept the lie that a Trump win would be the end of the nation, some may feel justified in manipulating the process to ensure against such an outcome,” the report concludes. “TIP 2024’s exercises suggest that President Biden and his allies—with assistance from a weaponized governmental bureaucracy and loyal proxies in corporate media—are well-equipped to undermine electoral procedures or to challenge results that run counter to their interests.” The post Lawfare, Foreign Meddling: Analysis Examines Scenarios for Inconclusive Election appeared first on The Daily Signal.

(Warning: This op-ed concerns hate speech, which is impossible to discuss without using it. Reader discretion is advised.) As America hurtles deeper into July, Pride Month shrinks ever smaller in the rearview mirror. This is the perfect time to wave goodbye to the word “queer.” That word is at the heart of the identitarian letters that are strung together like a shabby pearl necklace, in all its blinding squalor: LGBTQQIA2s+ For the understandably baffled, this stands for (take a deep breath) “Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Questioning Intersex Asexual 2-Spirit+.” While it is hotly debated, the + might represent a partridge in a pear tree. As with many gay and bisexual men, my stomach turns at the Left’s hijacking of nearly one third of the alphabet to bulldoze into a giant pile everyone who is not 100% heterosexual—including (amazingly enough) some heterosexuals. The most rebarbative letter is Q, as in “Queer,” a hideous word that previously had sunk between the waves as Americans became more tolerant of homosexuality and less likely to hurl homophobic expressions at others. These terms varied in their severity, much as “blackie,” “darkie,” “spade,” “spook,” and the N-bomb increased in direct relation with the animus that propelled those slurs from haters’ mouths. Likewise, “homo,” “fag,” and “faggot” tend to erupt in proportion with a speaker’s anti-gay bias. Worst of all is “queer,” the ugliest anti-gay epithet. This always has been the term that made me think, “Uh-oh! Someone is about to get gay-bashed.” As a gay man, “queer” rubs me the wrong way, just as “n—–” hits me as a black man. The former I hear far, far too often. The latter I hear almost never, save for fellow black people using “nigga” as a term of endearment that’s verboten to non-blacks. (Sorry! As John F. Kennedy once observed: “Life isn’t fair.”) The inter-black expression “Nigga, please!” may be the American language’s most potent delivery system’s for good-natured dismissal of someone else’s childish nonsense. As for “Queer cinema,” “Queer studies,” “Queer history” … Stop, stop, stop! Gay rights radicals have argued that “reclaiming” the word “queer” somehow disarms a key arrow that anti-gays could fire at us. This reclamation is a bit like excavating an old, ripped, filthy college sweatshirt and proudly wearing it at an elegant dinner party. There are better ways to avoid mockery over one’s alma mater.  Other “marginalized” groups rarely, if ever, follow this idiotic example. Please forgive the inescapable ugly language as I reflect that Jews do not celebrate “Kike cinema.” Hispanics do not enroll in “Spic studies.” And the Smithsonian does not operate a National Museum of N—– History on the Mall in Washington. The public would deride any such endeavor as deeply offensive, and deservedly so. And yet normal gays are supposed to smile as the Wokistanis slam the homosexual equivalent down our throats?  No, thank you! Not only is “queer” jarring and grating. It increasingly means little more than sexually unconventional, angry, and left of center—often tumbling-over-the-edge left. “Queer” has become amorphous to the point of incoherence. “But today, the word Queer has been appropriated by mainstream (heterosexual) culture to mean absolutely everything and nothing,” Substack contributor Nevline Nnaji observed on June 18. “When someone says they’re Queer, you can never be sure if they mean that they’re into BDSM, Polyamory, Kink, or whether they’re just good ol’ bisexual.”  The invaluable Douglas Murray observed likewise in Great Britain’s The Spectator: “Queer” is a strange one. Not so long ago, it was solely pejorative. But in recent decades some gays decided to reclaim it for themselves. Not everybody agreed. In time, though, it proved a handy divide. On the one hand were the gays, who just wanted to get on with their lives. On the other hand were the “queers,” who wanted to use their sexuality as a way to bring down everything in society—from the patriarchy to capitalism. Revolutionaries, in other words. Any sensible gay person should want to keep a million miles away from these people. And the singer of the Irish Eurovision entry proved why. A hideously scrawny, mangy-looking swamp creature, she had a voice like sandpaper and a personality that was rougher. She was a self-declared “witch” and also “queer.” In fact, she is straight and has a boyfriend. Nevertheless, she kept poking her tongue out and screaming, “The queers are coming” and the like. Which is lovely for the actual gay teenagers and their parents. To crank the “Queer” absurdity one notch higher, June 30’s Pride Parade in New York City featured the usual collection of revelers. They ranged from low-key gay guys all the way up to and beyond the motorcycle-straddling, self-proclaimed Dykes on Bikes. The flamboyance of some drag queens made Western wildfires resemble scented candles. Somewhere in between were the Queers for Palestine, an organization more confounding than Salmon for Sushi or Roaches for Raid. (Screenshot: FreedomNews.TV) Question: What do you call Hamas marching two male lovers toward execution? Answer: The Gaza Gay Pride Parade. The mere presence of Queers for Palestine was not good enough for pro-Hamas protesters. They attacked the Pride Parade as it rolled through the West Village. Behind a banner that read, “NO QUEER LIBERATION WITHOUT PALESTINIAN LIBERATION,” demonstrators sat down on Christopher Street and ground the procession to a halt. Other miscreants, clad in T-shirts that read “Queer as in Free Palestine,” sprinted forth and then vandalized the Human Rights Campaign’s float and the truck that dragged it through the streets. These criminals splattered both with red paint. As Tucker Carlson frequently reminds us: “The revolution eventually eats its own.” (Angela Van Der Pluym (@anjewla90) via X) As for LGBTQQIA2s+, let’s dial this back to GB: Gays and the Bisexuals who love us (sometimes). We have nothing in common with the other Alphabet People. Gay men enjoy men. Lesbians enjoy women. Asexuals sleep alone. As for TQQI2s+ … WTF? In short, there is no overlap in this Venn diagram. This does not mean that anyone should be abused or oppressed. Consenting adults should be free to live as they wish, especially behind closed doors. However, the Transgender and “Queer” activists who seem desperate to sex up children must be watched as relentlessly and vigilantly as nuclear power-plant operators monitor reactor cores. Any of these freaks who so much as attempt pedophilia should be handcuffed immediately.  Also, vaginas, not penises, should fill female athletic teams, locker rooms, swimming pools, and playing fields. And let’s stop pretending that there is some giant community in which gay men and lesbians hold hands and step out at night together to meet other gay men and lesbians who also hold hands and wait to meet us—all while the Bs, Ts, Qs, Qs, Is, As, 2Ss, and +s wave their pom poms. This is a collective hallucination. Fred Sargeant had it right. At a September 2022 protest in Vermont, the Stonewall Uprising veteran waved a sign that read: “Gay, not Queer.” Excellent sentiment! Too bad Transgender and “Queer” extremists robbed and beat him for carrying that placard. Surely, they greeted him with fists of love. Until the joyous day when “Queer,” once again, is just an old-timey word for odd or weird (and why aspire to either?), we all can amuse ourselves with this Venn diagram. It overlaps plenty and seems about right.  The post Time to Wave ‘Queer’ Goodbye appeared first on The Daily Signal.

NYT Shock Editorial: Donald Trump Is Unfit to Lead!

Homelessness, unfortunately, has become a persistent and growing problem in the United States. The Supreme Court, in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, just dealt with one big issue associated with this problem — the ability of cities to prohibit camping on public property. Per the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, the answer has been that the municipality can prohibit such activity. Violators are subject to fines and jail time. This prohibition was challenged by homeless advocates, arguing that, per a 2018 decision of the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court, such prohibitions violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. The court, in an ideological breakout of the six conservatives against the three liberals, ruled in favor of the right of the city to prohibit such activity, whether done by a homeless person or anyone else. The reasoning on both sides highlights the very different way conservatives and liberals see the world and understand our constitution. The majority opinion, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, argues that the Eighth Amendment is not relevant here because the issue is about prohibition of, and penalties on, a given activity and not about the appropriateness of a given punishment following a criminal conviction. That is, the issue is camping on public property. It doesn't matter who is doing it or why. Writing for the dissenting minority, Justice Sonia Sotomayor argues that the decision criminalizes homelessness and penalizes someone for essential activity for which they have no choice, and hence the Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment is relevant. Per Sotomayor, “Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime. For some people, sleeping outside is their only option. ... For people with no access to shelter, that punishes them for being homeless. That is unconscionable and unconstitutional. Punishing people for their status is 'cruel and unusual' under the Eighth Amendment.” Sotomayor continues that the majority, “focuses almost exclusively on the needs of local governments and leaves the most vulnerable in our society with an impossible choice: either stay awake or be arrested.” I work in Washington, D.C. Per a recent compilation by U.S. News and World Report, Washington, D.C., is 15th among cities in the nation in incidence of homelessness. I leave my building in the morning and return in the evening. I have to encounter the unpleasantness of homeless individuals who with some frequency attempt to engage me. When Sotomayor says that the court “focuses almost exclusively on the needs of local government,” she speaks as if local government is an entity unto itself, independent of the local citizens it represents. Perhaps Sotomayor needs to reread our Declaration of Independence that, after noting the rights with which individuals are endowed, notes that “to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their Just powers from the Consent of the Governed.” Local governments represent local citizenry. The public space they create and protect are for local citizens, not for government. When the city of Grants Pass, or any other city, prohibits unseemly camping on public property, they are protecting local citizens from visual, and sometimes physical violations of their life and rights. What we do know is homelessness keeps growing. California, which has almost 30% of the nation's homeless, has spent $20 billion on the problem over the last five years yet still saw an increase of 6% in 2023, and the incidence is 53% above where it stood in 2013. Per HUD, homelessness nationally stood at 650,000 at year end 2023, up 12% from 2022. Hopefully this important decision will help move homelessness away from the failed one-size-fits-all government answers and return the problem to private charities, who are equipped to deal with the complexity of this issue and the unique problems of different individuals. Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education and host of the weekly television show “Cure America with Star Parker.” Her recent book, “What Is the CURE for America?” is available now. To find out more about Star Parker and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Wearing a shirt that said “Queer,” Alex Stein once bravely ventured into the New York City Pride Parade and asked attendees a question that, unsurprisingly, almost none of them could answer. That question was: “How many genders can have a baby?” “There’s a difference between gender and sex,” one man wearing a flamboyant outfit responded. “It takes two sexes in order to have a baby.” Stein, clearly entertained, continued his line of questioning. “How many sexes can have a baby out of their womb?” he asked, before the man responded, “Any individual that has a womb,” adding that “if you have a womb, your gender can be in spectrum.” “A birthing person,” Stein confirmed, before the man agreed. As Stein meandered around the parade, he found another man who claimed “the limit does not exist” regarding how many genders are capable of giving birth to a child. Really, the “limit does not exist” to how many Pride attendees are willing to double down on their delusion — but that’s for them to figure out. Many more attendees answered “all of them,” while one angry man dressed as a woman simply said, “Go away from me.” Shockingly, two women he stopped on the street claimed not to know the number of genders there are, but they did answer that “only one” can have a baby. “If you’re talking about biological sex, there’s more than two sexes because what about intersex people?” another woman answered smugly. “I’m saying intersex people can’t have a baby, though, right?” Stein fired back. “That’s not necessarily true, intersex is a spectrum,” she responded, before Stein said, “It’s a confusing question, I know.” Want more from Alex Stein?To enjoy more of Alex's culture jamming, comedic monologues, skits, and street segments, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.