“Kamala Harris was not a DEI hire, was not the border czar, and supports fracking, say the media. But Biden had promised a black woman VP, the media called Harris “border czar,” and she opposed fracking until a few days ago. We’re nearing totalitarian levels of media gaslighting,” journalist Michael Shellenberger said. Watch: Media Gaslighting […] The post Near Totalitarian Levels of Gaslighting appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

Former PayPal President David Marcus said he has completed “a gradual political 180” and is now backing the Republican Party and Donald Trump. Marcus led PayPal from 2012 to 2014 before he became Facebook’s vice president of Messaging Products, a position he held until 2019 when he headed up a program to develop Facebook’s cryptocurrency capabilities. The tech executive left Facebook at the end of 2021, and a year later, co-founded L.A.-based financial tech company Lightspark. Marcus, who said he backed Democrats in “every previous election,” wrote in a post on X on Wednesday that he’s become disillusioned by the current Democratic Party moving “increasingly” to the Left. While Marcus said he disagrees with Trump and the GOP on some issues, especially abortion, he supports the party’s pro-America, pro-Constitution, and pro-business platform. “I am crossing the Rubicon and backing the Republican Party and President Trump,” Marcus wrote. “Many — including a former version of myself — get trapped in a mental framework that becomes their identity and prevents them from radically evolving their thinking with new facts and information. I finally broke free from it.” Marcus adds his name to a growing list of tech executives and investors who have said they are flipping from voting for Democrats to Republicans in the 2024 election. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, and Sequoia partner Doug Leone have all recently backed Trump’s campaign. “My journey has been a gradual political 180 from where I stood in every previous election. It has been an eye-opening process of disenchantment, zero-basing lifelong beliefs, and rebuilding from there,” Marcus added in his post. He pointed to “a series of realizations” about the Democratic Party beginning in 2019 that pushed him to support Republicans. “At the time, I still believed the mainstream idea that Democrats were all about serving the People. However, I was shocked to learn that, for the most part, Republicans cared more deeply about their constituents, while Democrats, in my experience, cared more about government power and control,” he wrote. “This is my observation on balance, with many stories to back it up. I also found that more Republicans wanted to understand our project’s goals and took the time to learn about the risks of censoring payments and controlling the network. I found myself remarkably aligned with them.” Then, during the COVID pandemic and the Biden administration’s suppression of information about the COVID vaccine, Marcus said he “fully appreciated why Republicans value freedom of speech and preventing censorship.” He added that the “spinning and manufacturing a parallel reality to serve the Dem agenda solidified by complicit mainstream media, hit home with the Hunter Biden laptop story, the coordinated vilification of President Trump and his followers, and President Biden’s cognitive decline — depriving voters of a voice in a proper primary.” “This version of the Democratic Party is sidelining moderates and centrists and has adopted an increasingly leftist ideology,” he continued. “This drift to the left has dictated policies from which I’ve found myself estranged.” Marcus wrote, “[W]e need a President who is unequivocally pro: America, the Constitution, business, Bitcoin/crypto, innovation, Israel, small government, legal immigration, free speech, meritocracy, and common sense — and anti: regulatory proliferation, illegal immigration, unjust wars, Iran’s current regime, and domestic groups that oppose American values. These issues are central to President Trump’s platform.”

A district court in Alabama has blocked the Biden administration’s guidelines that force schools that receive public funding to allow trans-identifying males into girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports. Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina asked for an emergency stay of the rules, which were set to go into effect on Thursday after previously being rejected. The stay was granted late Wednesday evening. History professor and author K.C. Johnson posted the ruling on X. CA11 grants an administrative stay of the Biden/Lhamon TIX regs in AL/FL/GA/FL. Accelerated briefing schedule. Still nothing from CA10, SCOTUS. pic.twitter.com/6onqtr0Rko — KC Johnson (@kcjohnson9) July 31, 2024 Earlier in the day, a federal judge had denied the states’ motion to block the new guidelines, CBS 42 reported. However, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the states’ appeal of the motion, and the case will move forward with an accelerated briefing schedule. The Biden administration’s rules have now been blocked in 26 states. Oklahoma blocked the rules on Wednesday, just one day before they were to take effect. On Wednesday, Judge Jodi Dishman, a Trump-nominated judge, ruled in favor of Oklahoma’s motion for a preliminary injunction against the federal guidelines. Dishman issued her ruling even after numerous blue states filed an amicus brief arguing against the injunction. In addition to the rules being blocked in 26 states, dozens of K-12 schools and universities across the country have been blocked from implementing the rules. Title IX is a federal statute that bans sex discrimination, but the Biden administration has expanded the definition to include sexual identity and gender identification. Courts across the country have determined that this expanded definition is wrong. On June 13, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump appointee, issued a preliminary injunction against the Biden rules, calling them an “abuse of power” and a “threat to democracy.” His ruling blocked the new guidance from taking effect in Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Montana. “Title IX was written and intended to protect biological women from discrimination,” Doughty wrote. “Such purpose makes it difficult to sincerely argue that, at the time of enactment, ‘discrimination on the basis of sex’ included gender identity, sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, or sex characteristics. Enacting the changes in the Final Rule would subvert the original purpose of Title IX: protecting biological females from discrimination.” On June 17, U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves, a George W. Bush appointee, issued a preliminary injunction blocking the rules in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. A few weeks later, on July 2, U.S. District Judge John Broomes, another Trump appointee, issued a similar ruling blocking the new Title IX rules in Alaska, Kansas, Utah, and Wyoming. Broomes’ ruling went further, however,  and included a massive list of K-12 schools and universities across the country where the rules would also be blocked. That list came from schools attended by children of the defendants in that lawsuit, Moms for Liberty, and members of the Young America’s Foundation. On July 11, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, another Trump appointee, issued another ruling that blocked the Biden Title IX guidance in Texas, Newsweek reported at the time. On July 24, U.S. District Judge Rodney Sippel, a Clinton appointee, blocked the rules in Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. That brought the total number of states where the rules can’t be implemented to 21, and Oklahoma now brings the number to 22. The Biden administration has argued to at least implement the Title IX guidance that doesn’t include transgender capitulations – such as the provisions regarding reduced due process protections – in the states that have blocked the rules so far, The Hill reported. In the rulings against the regulations, however, judges have noted that because of the Biden administration’s redefinition of the word “sex” to include gender identity, transgender issues can’t be carved out from the rules as a whole. “[T]he fact that the definition permeates the entire Rule, the Court concludes that it would be a nearly impossible task to excise the remaining regulations without also eliminating those regulations that involve sex discrimination,” Judge Sippel wrote in his ruling. Other judges wrote similar statements.

Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Thursday that the July 13 strike in Khan Younis killed Mohammed Deif, the commander of the terrorist group Hamas’ military wing, who was second only to Yahya Sinwar in the Gaza Strip. “Deif initiated, planned, and executed the October 7th Massacre, in which 1,200 people were killed in southern Israel and 251 hostages abducted into the Gaza Strip,” Israel National News noted, adding, “Over the years, Deif directed, planned, and carried out numerous terrorist attacks against the State of Israel. Deif operated side-by-side with Yahya Sinwar, and during the war, he commanded Hamas’ terrorist activity in the Gaza Strip by issuing commands and instructions to senior members of Hamas’ Military Wing.” The strike also killed Rafa’a Salameh, the Commander of Hamas’ Khan Yunis Brigade, as well as other members of the terrorist organization. “[T]he air force had kept a series of five different pairs of aircraft and drones rotating through the role of hovering and passing by the residence where Deif was expected to visit Salame, such that the moment the war cabinet approved an operation, the air force would be able to open fire in practically no time at all,” The Jerusalem Post reported. Although Deif had remained a shadowy figure for years, the morning of the October 7 attack, Hamas released a recording of him declaring the “Al Aqsa Flood” operation. “Kill, burn, destroy and block the roads. Make them understand that the Al Aqsa Flood is more powerful than they think and believe,” he said. “Deif has been involved in Hamas’s operations for more than 20 years, plotting suicide bombings inside Israel, kidnapping soldiers, firing rockets and helping plan the tunnels used to launch attacks,” The Times of Israel reported in 2014, adding, “The Israelis see him as ‘the brains’ behind the campaign of suicide bombings that targeted buses and public places in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem until 2006.”

A U.S. District Court has ruled in favor of Bruce Gilley, a conservative professor at Portland State University, who filed a lawsuit against the University of Oregon (UO) after being blocked on Twitter for tweeting "All men are created equal." This decision marks a significant victory for free speech advocates and highlights ongoing tensions in academic settings over issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In June 2022, UO's Equity and Inclusion Twitter account posted a prompt encouraging users to interrupt racism. In response, Gilley retweeted with the phrase "All men are created equal," quoting the Declaration of Independence. This led to Tova Stabin, UO's communication manager for the Division of Equity and Inclusion, blocking Gilley on Twitter. Gilley's tweet and subsequent blocking sparked a legal battle centered on First Amendment rights​​. DEI maven and BLM activist Paula Parks of Bakersfield Community College just cost her institution $2.4 million for her ideological attacks on an unWoke professor. https://t.co/mYbVe5L5JG — Bruce Gilley (@BruceDGilley) July 29, 2024 Gilley argued that the blocking was an act of viewpoint discrimination, violating his constitutional right to free speech. He filed the lawsuit in August 2022, aiming to challenge the university's actions and ensure that government-funded institutions uphold constitutional protections. The case drew significant attention, with Gilley emphasizing the importance of academic freedom and the ability to critique DEI initiatives without facing censorship​. U.S. District Judge Marco Hernandez ruled that Gilley's case could proceed, denying the university's motion to dismiss. However, Judge Hernandez did not grant a preliminary injunction to prevent the university from blocking Gilley again, citing the speculative nature of future blocking. Despite this partial setback, Gilley's legal team, led by the Institute for Free Speech, filed an appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, seeking a reversal of the preliminary injunction decision​. CASE UPDATE: An important win for #freespeech, both online and on campus, in the ongoing @InstFreeSpeech case Gilley v. Stabin. A federal judge has granted the preliminary injunction protecting @BruceDGilley's speech rights. Full press release HERE – https://t.co/GQtjW6FYGb — Tom Garrett (@TomGarrettIFS) July 24, 2024 The university initially unblocked Gilley and sent a letter affirming that they did not intend to block him again. However, Gilley's attorneys argued that this action was insufficient, as it did not guarantee changes in policy or prevent future incidents of viewpoint discrimination. The Ninth Circuit's involvement will be crucial in determining whether Gilley's concerns about potential reblocking and viewpoint discrimination are valid and if a permanent injunction is warranted​​. This case underscores broader debates within academia regarding free speech and the implementation of DEI policies. Gilley, who has a history of controversial academic work, including a defense of colonialism, has positioned himself as a vocal critic of what he views as the overreach of DEI initiatives. His lawsuit represents a broader pushback against policies perceived to suppress conservative viewpoints on campuses nationwide​​. As the case progresses, it will serve as a critical test of the balance between promoting inclusive environments and protecting free speech rights in academic institutions. The outcome could set a precedent for how universities handle similar disputes in the future, influencing the landscape of academic freedom and DEI practices across the country. The post Court Rules in Favor of Conservative Professor Blocked for ‘All Men Are Created Equal’ Post appeared first on The Conservative Brief.

Harris’ policies are drastically out of step with the American mainstream.

'Indian, black, it doesn’t matter'

'I can’t impress upon you how much complicity there is'