'Donald Trump is going to win'

'Authority of this magnitude rests with Congress'

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left smear factory on the frontlines of demonizing conservatives in American public discourse, is unwittingly revealing just how absurd the idea of unionizing nonprofits truly is. Last month, the SPLC reportedly terminated about a quarter of its staff and reorganized many departments. The massive shift would inevitably ruffle some feathers, but the news would have been far less painful for the nonprofit had it not certified a contract with a labor union in 2022. Yes, a nonprofit organization—where employees ostensibly work in order to benefit society—unionized, creating an adversarial relationship between workers and the nonprofit’s leadership. What could go wrong? Quite a lot, it turns out. First, the SPLC Union went public with the news before the Southern Poverty Law Center could craft its own messaging strategy. The union painted the layoffs in the worst possible light, highlighting the SPLC’s “F” rating from CharityWatch and suggesting the SPLC was engaging in “union busting.” Today, @splcenter – an organization with nearly a billion dollars in reserves, given an F rating by CharityWatch for “hoarding” donations – gutted its staff by a quarter.— SPLC Union (@SPLCUnion) June 12, 2024 “This is designed to punish union activists and intimidate employees just as we saw when Mercedes-Benz fired union organizers in Vance, Alabama,” the SPLC Union posted on X. “Management’s goals here are clear, but they will not win. Our union is strong.” The union went on to release screenshots of a discussion between SPLC board members and SPLC President Margaret Huang, in which they complained about “hostile” questions from staff during a question-and-answer session in March 2024. The union went on to claim that “only 44% of the staff have confidence” in Huang’s leadership and “only 33% of staff believe senior leadership cares about them.” Were @splcenter's layoffs retaliation? President and CEO Margaret Huang might be all smiles in front of the camera, but behind what she thought were closed doors, here’s how she talks about her staff. pic.twitter.com/p8SdGVeCu9— SPLC Union (@SPLCUnion) June 25, 2024 The SPLC Union launched a petition demanding that the Southern Poverty Law Center reverse the layoffs. As of Tuesday, the petition had gathered more than 9,000 signatures. Why Does SPLC Have a Union? As I wrote in my book “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the SPLC fired its co-founder and its president stepped down in 2019 amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal. Amid that fallout, a former employee called the SPLC’s premier product—a “hate map” that plots mainstream conservative and Christian groups alongside Ku Klux Klan chapters—a “highly profitable scam,” and employees gathered to form a union. The National Labor Relations Board certified the union in December 2019 after employees voted 145-42 to unionize under the Baltimore-Washington News Guild. The new union and the SPLC signed a collective bargaining agreement in July 2022. The Problems With Unions Today The Left has recently attempted to revive the image of labor unions, which once provided real value by securing basic expectations for employment. Limiting the workweek to 40 hours and securing vacation, sick leave, and other benefits helped workers in concrete ways that reverberate today. However, labor unions have long overplayed their hand, becoming corrupt organs of the Democratic Party. Today, workers rights advocates have to fight to give workers the right to opt out of union representation. In many sectors of the economy, workers are expected to join unions, which take a cut out of every paycheck without providing much in the way of concrete services to employees. Worse, unions direct large amounts of cash to political causes many members disagree with. The 2018 Supreme Court case Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees is instructive. In that case, Illinois child support staffer Mark Janus refused to join the local union, AFSCME Council 31. Despite not being a member of the union, Janus still had to pay “agency fees,” on the theory that since he benefits from the union’s bargaining, he should chip in to support the union. These agency fees could not be used for political causes, but AFSCME Council 31 dedicated $268,855 of the fees to promoting Democrat Hillary Clinton for president at the union’s 2016 convention. Janus objected, saying he was “forced to support a government union as a condition of employment.” He called this “a gross violation of my First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of association.” The Supreme Court agreed, 5-4. “States and public-sector unions may no longer exact agency fees from nonconsenting employees,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion. “Forcing free and independent individuals to endorse ideas they find objectionable is always demeaning. Compelling a person to subsidize the speech of other private speakers raises similar First Amendment concerns.” Janus-v-AFSCMEDownload Although the high court rightly struck down mandatory “agency fees,” unions still use complicated opt-out systems to trap employees into paying. For example, an Ohio teacher’s assistant sued her former union and her school district because the district withheld union dues from her paycheck after she left the union and formally asked it to cease taking her money. The union claimed her request came outside of a 10-day opt-out window. Many unions direct large amounts of cash to Democratic candidates and left-wing causes, often redirecting the dues of employees who might object, for example, to funding Planned Parenthood. Unions lost ground in the 1980s onward, with large losses in the private sector. The right-to-work movement helps prevent unions from forcing employees to support causes they disagree with, and it grew in the 2010s after making significant gains in the 1980s. In February, Michigan repealed its right-to-work law, which initially passed in 2012. Public Sector Unions Unions lost ground in the private sector but held on in the public, or government, sector. Even Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the president who largely created the modern administrative state in his “New Deal,” initially opposed public-sector unions as inherently problematic. “The very nature and purposes of government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with government employee organizations,” Roosevelt wrote. “The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress.” Any negotiation with a public employee union would constitute a loss of the people’s authority, the founder of the New Deal said. Roosevelt considered strikes by public unions “unthinkable and intolerable” because they cause “the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it.” SPLC’s Nonprofit Union The idea of nonprofit unions suffers from a similar inherent tension. As in the case of the government, the ultimate employer of a nonprofit employee is the donor who contributes to the organization, not the organization’s management. Nonprofits must honor donor intent, and workers can’t bargain with donors to demand that they contribute more to charity. Nonprofits exist for charitable purposes, not to earn money for shareholders. If a union publicly complains about “management,” it may undermine the nonprofit’s ability to honor donor intent and advocate the causes it exists to promote. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s layoffs highlight the leftist group’s internal divisions. The SPLC Union noted that questions in the March question-and-answer session involved “support for Palestine,” a divisive issue at the SPLC. After Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, the SPLC declined to publicly comment, only speaking out three weeks later, on Oct. 29. When the SPLC did deign to comment, it falsely blamed Israel for having “targeted” Palestinian civilians in Gaza, including children. Before the SPLC spoke out, the union released an aggressive statement condemning Israel’s response to the Hamas attacks as “the violent imperialist desecration of a people—the beginnings of a genocide.” On the same day the SPLC Union released its statement, an SPLC lawyer’s name appeared in an online chat organizing an anti-Israel sit-in at a congressional office building. The SPLC seems caught between a rock and a Hamas place—straddling the gulf between young, anti-Israel activists on staff and old-style Democratic donors, who likely support Israel. No wonder Huang felt flustered when questioned about the Israel-Hamas war. Whatever turmoil the SPLC is facing, the union is making it far worse. Hopefully, this latest scandal will further delegitimize an organization that routinely defames mainstream conservatives and Christians. It couldn’t happen to nicer people. The post What Could Go Wrong? SPLC’s Latest Scandal Exposes the Insanity of Unionizing a Nonprofit appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Republican members of the House and Senate foreign affairs committees have expressed alarm over President Joe Biden’s apparent declining mental health amid a growing terror threat both in the United States and abroad. House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, told The Daily Signal, “In last week’s debate, the president sent a dangerous message of incompetence that will further embolden our adversaries. The world is already on fire and his debate performance only made it worse.” “The first presidential debate evidenced what I have been saying for months—that President Biden is no longer mentally fit for office. And this puts America at great risk,” Rep. Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas., told The Daily Signal. The Daily Signal sought comment from both Republican and Democrat members of the House and Senate foreign affairs committees concerning the president’s health and national security, but only Republicans responded. Rep.  Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., told The Daily Signal that he is “deeply concerned that the commander-in-chief is mentally unfit to do the job.” Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas., questioned how Biden could be “responsible for the nuclear codes yet oblivious to everything around him” in a statement to The Daily Signal. “Joe Biden’s cognitive state is one of the biggest threats to our national security currently — especially after our allies and adversaries saw his true, feeble state on full display at the debate,” Jackson said. “Our country is in disarray under the ‘leadership’  of a weak Commander-in-Chief, who is the one responsible for the nuclear codes yet oblivious to everything around him.” Moran also said Biden’s “weak and feckless” foreign policy decisions have prompted a “new Axis of Totalitarianism” of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. “Not only is President Biden weak, but now it is clear to the world that he also lacks the mental capacity to analyze complex information and make timely decisions critical to our national security,” the Texas Republican added. On Thursday, Biden and Trump faced off in the first presidential debate in the 2024 election cycle, hosted by CNN at the network’s private television studio in Atlanta. Biden’s performance drew a bipartisan cacophony of fear, concern, and scorn which immediately flooded social media, network television, newspapers, and radio. While some liberal pundits had voiced their concerns over Biden’s mental decline evident in fundraisers and international events, many legacy media outlets and Biden administration officials published opinions and “fact checks” claiming that unflattering footage of the president was “misleading,” “edited,” or “cheap fakes.” After Thursday’s debate, some major newspapers’ editorial boards and columnists began questioning Biden’s ability to stay in the race or remain in office at all. Axios reported after the debate that, “From 10am to 4pm, Biden is dependably engaged — and many of his public events in front of cameras are held within those hours.” Biden aides added that the president “more likely to have verbal miscues and become fatigued” at other times. These aides revealed what many Americans had suspected for years—that the president was only coherent during short windows throughout the day, neglecting evening events. On his show “Verdict,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas., decried these revelations as “terrifying.” The White House spin was, ‘Joe Biden is usually lucid between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., and so we’ve just learned to do any White House meetings during those hours because that’s when his brain operates.’ You think about that as their explanation…Maybe [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] before launching a military attack, maybe a terrorist before murdering Americans, they’ll be sure to do it between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Because you know, if you do it after the jello at the cafeteria, I’m afraid the commander in chief is just not there and not able to handle it. That is a terrifying statement from the White House. This has prompted new concerns from members of the House and Senate foreign affairs committees—questioning whether the president is able to provide leadership to the free world in the middle of several crises in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, the Pacific, and Central and South America. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., warned in a post debate interview on Fox News that “our adversaries watched that debate, and they were smiling. Our allies watched that debate, and they were trembling.” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre claimed that the president was “fine” in a press conference on Friday, suggesting that Biden’s performance was diminished by a cold and sore throat.While none of the Democrat members of the House or Senate foreign affairs committees have yet called for Biden to reconsider running for reelection or resigning from office, Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, of the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Budget Committee, called for Biden to drop out of the 2024 race Tuesday morning. The post ‘AMERICA AT GREAT RISK’: Foreign Affairs Committee Members Warn Biden’s Lack of Mental Fitness Puts US in Danger appeared first on The Daily Signal.

It is remarkable that CNN News Central host Pamela Brown managed to avoid setting the studio on fire from all the straw men she torched during a Tuesday interview with Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters over his plan to put the Bible back in schools as part of an effort to give Oklahoman children an accurate sense of American history. Instead, Brown kept pestering him over whether he wanted to teach about beheadings, while claiming the Bible is pornographic. Brown inquired, “We just referenced it, and in this, you’re saying that the teaching of the Bible in the classroom is a must, that every teacher must accept that. The Bible includes beheading, rape, and incest. Do you support teaching children about those topics?” Walters did not dignify the question with a direct response. Instead, he gave his perspective on why the move is necessary, “I support teaching children our history accurately and what we've seen is the radical left and the teachers’ union have driven the Bible out of schools.”     For Walters, teaching the Bible is not about pointing out that David cut off Goliath’s head, but about giving students a better understanding of their country's history: You can't talk about our rights coming from God, as Thomas Jefferson referenced, you can't talk about Abraham Lincoln talking about being on God's side in what he does and that inspires him. You can't talk about the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King Jr., who routinely referenced examples from the Bible, including from a ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ to say the reason I'm doing the things I'm doing is because of the tenants taught to me by the Bible, so it's essential that our kids understand our history and we're going to put it back in and the left is going to continue to try to censor our history. Well, we're not gonna allow it here in Oklahoma. Brown ignored everything Walters just said and tried again, “Okay, you didn't answer my question. We're going to get to the history and everything, and by the way, Thomas Jefferson, he advocated for freedom of religion, actually not the establishment of a religion for one, but are you okay with all teachings of the Bible? If you want to bring it back into the classroom: rape, incest, beheading. Are you—  is that acceptable to you?” Walters held firm, “Again, I'll answer your question, you might not like to answer, but it is the answer. It is our history—“ After Brown interrupted to laughably claim, “I’m not taking a position one way or another,” Walters continued, “is referenced, the Bible was referenced multiple times in American history. It had a profound influence on American history. It was the bestselling book in American history, to not teach that in the classroom is academic malpractice. Our kids have to understand our history and we're not going to hide that from them.” Not thrilled Walters wasn’t living up to the caricature she had set up ahead of time, Walters tried a third time, “Okay, so will you allow teachers to teach all aspects of the Bible? How are teachers supposed to know what of the Bible to teach and what of the Bible not to teach? It's a simple question, given the fact that the Bible includes, also, you know, pornographic material, something you've come out against and actually took a teaching certificate away from a teacher for giving access to students— a pornographic material. That's in the Bible.” Again, Walters is not mandating that kids be taught about David severing his enemies’ foreskins as a dowry to marry King Saul’s daughter, but even if he was, Walters correctly rejected the comparison, “Yeah, let me be crystal clear. The Bible is not on the same plane as Gender Queer and Flamer.” He would go on to, once again, reiterate that the plan is to simply give Oklahoma’s children the context needed to better understand the pivotal moments in American history. Here is a transcript for the July 2 show: CNN News Central 7/2/2024 2:34 PM ET PAMELA BROWN: We just referenced it, and in this, you’re saying that the teaching of the Bible in the classroom is a must, that every teacher must accept that. The Bible includes beheading, rape, and incest. Do you support teaching children about those topics? RYAN WALTERS: I support teaching children our history accurately and what we've seen is the radical left and the teachers’ union have driven the Bible out of schools. You can't talk about our rights coming from God, as Thomas Jefferson referenced, you can't talk about Abraham Lincoln talking about being on God's side in what he does and that inspires him. You can't talk about the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King Jr., who routinely referenced examples from the Bible, including from a “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to say the reason I'm doing the things I'm doing is because of the tenants taught to me by the Bible, so it's essential that our kids understand our history and we're going to put it back in and the left is going to continue to try to censor our history. Well, we're not gonna allow it here in Oklahoma BROWN: Okay, you didn't answer my question. We're going to get to the history and everything, and by the way, Thomas Jefferson, he advocated for freedom of religion, actually not the establishment of a religion for one, but are you okay with all teachings of the Bible? If you want to bring it back into the classroom, rape, incest, beheading. Are you—  is that acceptable to you? WALTERS: Again, I'll answer your question, you might not like to answer, but it is the answer. It is our history— BROWN: I’m not taking a position one way or another. WALTERS: — is referenced, the Bible was referenced multiple times in American history. It had a profound influence on American history. It was the bestselling book in American history, to not teach that in the classroom is academic malpractice. Our kids have to understand our history and we're not going to hide that from them. BROWN: Okay, so will you allow teachers to teach all aspects of the Bible? How are teachers supposed to know what of the Bible to teach and what of the Bible not to teach? It's a simple question, given the fact that the Bible includes, also, you know, pornographic material, something you've come out against and actually took a teaching certificate away from a teacher for giving access to students— a pornographic material. That's in the Bible. WALTERS: Yeah, let me be crystal clear. The Bible is not on the same plane as Gender Queer and Flamer. These are pornography, the Bible is a book that was referenced throughout American history. We have academic standards that tell our teachers that you are to talk about the Bible in reference to the Mayflower Compact, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” the Declaration of Independence, so these are all very clear. It's very clear from primary sources that these individuals reference history— in our history, they referenced the Bible. So look, when it's historically accurate, we're absolutely going to include that. I mean, think about how absurd it would be to teach about the Pilgrims if you don't mention their intention for moving to the New World, it's crucial and we're not gonna allow the radical left to continue to push a false history on our kids that said that faith played no role, well, just read the history. It's clearly there.

Welcome to Woke of the Weak, where I’ll update you about the most woke, progressive, insane, and crazy clips and stories that the left thinks is tolerable and well, point out why exactly they’re nuts. This week we took a look at how the left spent the last weekend of "pride."  Events and parades erupted across the country. We (unfortunately) witnessed full frontal nudity, lots of furries, men riding around on bikes with nothing on, lots of twerking and jiggling and even an old man getting peed on. To make matters worse, these things were at events that were marketed as “family friendly,” and kids had to witness all the nooks and crannies of the adult freaks! Speaking of kids, at one pride event Boy Scouts had to join in and march, and at another a groomer led kids through various chants about queer, trans and drag power! At a different pride event, a drag queen even walked towards the audience and grabbed young children to dance with him…and the left still tells you it isn’t after your kids. As a final nod to the insanity of the woke mob, various videos exposed how pro-pride our U.S. military appears to be. Check out the video!

Republican Reps. Wesley Hunt (Texas) and Byron Donalds (Fla.) detailed some of President Joe Biden's domestic and international failings on the Tuesday episode of the "Sage Steele Podcast." Donalds noted, for instance, that under Biden's watch, "we have had to evacuate seven United States embassies. That has never happened in American history. Never. That is how weak we are on the world stage. That's how bad it is." According to the Daily Signal's accounting, the reality is far worse. The Signal indicated that as of March, the Biden administration had overseen the evacuation of 11 embassies, more than any other administration to date. President Barack Obama reportedly presided over the second-most embassy evacuations with a total of eight. The Biden State Department has, however, come up with a different set of numbers concerning ordered or authorized evacuations under both the current and previous administrations. "When you're weak and our adversaries know you're weak, they push you," continued Donalds. "It's no different than the bully in the school yard. If you're timid and the bully knows he can get away with it, what happens? He comes for your lunch money every single week, every single day ... until you punch back." After the congressmen emphasized that America's adversaries perceive the U.S. as weak under Biden, Rep. Hunt shared a tale illustrating a better way of doing things — a tale that has ostensibly morphed slightly with each retelling. 'If you harm a hair on a single American, I'm going to kill you.' "I'm going to give you my favorite President Trump story," said Hunt. "It's my number one favorite of all time." "When we were negotiating with the Taliban while President Trump was still the president, President Trump wanted to get out of Afghanistan but he wanted a conditions-based withdrawal meaning that you [the Taliban] do what we tell you to do and then we start pulling troops back slowly as long as you abide by our rules," said Hunt. The congressman suggested that Trump and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with the Taliban leadership to discuss the withdrawal with a single translator in the room. "President Trump looked at the Taliban leader and said this: 'I want to leave Afghanistan. But it's going to be a conditions-based withdrawal,' and the translator translated," said Hunt. "And [Trump] said, 'If you harm a hair on a single American, I'm going to kill you.'" Hunt claimed that the translator sat back in silence, reluctant to communicate Trump's death threat. "And Trump goes, 'Tell him. Tell him what I said.' [He] reached in his pocket, pulled out a satellite photo of the leader of the Taliban's home, and handed it to him," said Hunt. Steele interjected with "shut up!" "Got up and walked out the room," continued Hunt. Trump told Fox News in 2022 that he had sent Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar a photo of his house, and said, "'If you do anything, we're going to hit you harder than any country has ever been hit.'" A year earlier, Trump told talk radio host Hugh Hewitt that he had threatened Baradar along these lines: If you do anything bad to the United States of America, if you do anything bad to any of our civilians, to any American citizen, or if you do anything out of the normal, you know, they’ve been fighting for a thousand years, but out of the normal, because you’ve had your wars, and if you do anything out of the normal, but anything bad to America or any American citizens, I will hit you harder than anybody has ever been hit in world history. You will be hit harder than any country and any person has ever been hit in world history. And we will start with the exact location and the exact town, and it’s right here. And I believe I repeated the name of his town. That will be the first place that we start. Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows reportedly noted in his book "The Chief's Chief" that Trump vowed in a phone call to flatten Baradar's village in early 2020 if the Islamist group threatened Americans or American interests. According to Meadows, Trump said, "And your village, Mullah? We know where it is. We know it's the Weetmak village. If you dare lay hands on a single American, that will be the first thing that I destroy. I will not hesitate." While Hunt's favorite Trump story appears to have morphed over time, the core suggestion that has gone unchanged is that Trump was willing to back American safety with the threat of American vengeance. "That's the definition of strength," continued Hunt. "That's what I'm talking about. And so you can imagine that kind of sentiment being around the world. If we have an embassy in another country, no one's going to touch it because they're going to be fearful that they're going to get a MOAB on their head. That's how President Trump rolls." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Bill Maher Calls for Biden to Drop Out but his Replacement Pick is Even More Absurd

OOF: Suffolk University/USA Today Poll Shows Trump Has MAJOR Enthusiasm Advantage Over Biden

Guy Who Brags About Ignoring the Supreme Court Says We Must Stop Trump From Becoming a 'Dictator'